😁 21 brilliant Goodgymmers gathered for this evening’s group run, cited as possibly one of the most random and/or mudtastic yet. More on that later though.

🌧️ Sadly, the weather wasn’t quite as good as we might have hoped but we’ve never let that put us off!

🍮 Ed led the warm up where we got our mouths watering discussing our favourite puddings, in honour of national cream pie day. Winter classics such as crumble and sticky toffee pudding (with a variety of accompaniments) made the cut, along with some inspired by recent baking activity (cinnamon buns or white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, anyone?)

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️With our legs warm and our stomachs rumbling, Ed led the running group to West Bank Park whilst Abi led the walkers.

🌹 On arrival, Kristina gave us our expected compost-shovelling instructions for the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, along with some unexpected bonus tasks. Martin and Stef leapt into the skip to start shovelling from there into the first barrows. Meanwhile, Kristina took a few people with her to construct temporary barrow paths with cardboard.

⚽️ She also sent some people to the goalposts on the football pitch with tampers to commence one of our more unusual tasks, something that was fondly named “wet mud flooring” (as opposed to dry stone walling). Once the barrowers had dropped off their compost at the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, they collected “turf” (mostly mud with the odd blade of grass) and barrowed that back to the football pitch. The ground around one goal mouth in particular was particularly sloppy so Team Tamp were charged with laying/tessellating the pieces of turf and tamping it down to form a new (and slightly less sloppy) layer on top.

🤔 Whilst some doubt was expressed when some water started soaking upwards through the new layer, Kristina reassured us that this is a tried and tested technique that will improve the ground. Whilst our housemates may not have appreciated the next level mud attached to the tampers’ trainers, hopefully the footballers will appreciate their efforts.

💪 Soon, it was time to down tools and do a quick couple of rounds of “Meet and Retreat” for fitness before we headed back to base, stamping mud off en route.

🙌 Thanks everyone, and don’t forget that Kristina’s kindly letting us have the final compost scrapings for our Tiny Forest on Kimberlow Hill. So if you’ve got any spare time 11-12 on either Thursday morning or Friday morning please join Claire to help gather this invaluable resource!

💨 Well, this evening started with various weather-related dramas and changes but all came together in the end, thanks to some tremendous teamwork of the 11 GoodGymmers who braved the stormy weather to attend anyway. (It also didn’t actually rain on us and wasn’t as windy as expected, which was a win!)

📖 One of our two tasks was cancelled due to high winds then my train was thoroughly messed up so Ed and Mitch took the reins for the intro and warm up, which seemed to involve some communal story-telling.

🍎 They then also led the run down to Holgate Orchard and got cracking with some digging. The aim was to dig and level off a patch of ground for a shed and some raised beds to be built once it’s ready. The team got to work, with some folk digging, some raking and others on barrowing and quality control, identifying areas that were not quite level and therefore needed filling. Leanne noticed a particularly large dip in the corner and set to work filling that. In what felt like no time, Helen was happy that the job was done so the tools were taken back to the shed (including the rake, which wasn’t actually meant to go back, whoops!)

🗻 Mitch then led some hill reps on Windmill Rise while some of us walked back to base. We regrouped at CVS and headed to the pub for some good chats (and an exclusive peek at the 2024 pub dog calendar!)

👏 Thank you everyone, we’ve had a few additional tasks added this week (Thursday evening and Sunday morning) so do join if you can.

🎬 *Pun is related to a certain “classic” 90’s film, rather than anything else…

👻 18 excellent GoodGymmers gathered for another two-task Monday evening, the evening before Halloween. The rain had (basically) stopped so we were raring to go. Neither task was particularly close so Ed’s Heworth group and Vicky’s party pace Foxwood group both set off promptly. The rest of us named, numbered and warmed up while hearing about our favoured trick and/or treat. Treats varied from whisky to bonfire toffee while tricks involved clothes pegs and (fake) dog poo!

🖐️Here’s what Ed had to say about the Heworth five:

🍁 The slightly longer run team set off promptly from Priory Street to meet task owner Roger at Heworth Community Centre. We armed ourselves with rakes and made our way round the corner to a field that will be familiar to many GoodGymmers after several previous raking trips over the years. We soon got to work raking up the leaves and cuttings, gathering them on to sheets of tarpaulin and then disposing of them in a nearby copse of trees. After several full loads of tarp, we made our way back to the Priory Centre with a quicker pace because I don't think Tristan could have lasted too much longer without eating his tea!

🌺 Meanwhile, in Foxwood, we were provided with bulbs and dibbers if you were lucky or a fork/spade if you were less lucky. Mitch was probably the least lucky, being given a smaller-than-average fork with a rotten handle that broke halfway through the task.

🌼 The group swiftly divided and set to work, digging holes and planting bulbs. There was some discussion about how best to split to cover the area required and distribute the bulbs fairly. This seemed to be resolved as all the bulbs were planted pretty speedily, good work team.

🕸️ There was a lot of love for the dibbers, which made the process very simple and efficient. Maybe we should all get a dibber?! We then enjoyed a team photo in and around the suitably-spooky-spider web climbing frame (until Mitch got stuck fairly near the top of it!)

🎃 Our team was so efficient that there was plenty of time for everyone to participate in some Halloween-based fitness. The party pace crew did one circuit of monster/zombie etc based exercises before heading off while the rest of us did a second set. It was soon time to head back to base, meet up with the other group and head home/to the pub.

👏 Thank you everyone, see you again soon!

🥶 25 GoodGymmers gathered for this evening’s two-task group run, the first genuinely chilly one of the season.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Megan for her first task with us, and to congratulate Carl for his 200th (slightly belatedly but he got to wear the cape at last!) 🦸‍♂️

💪 More congratulations were in order for everyone who ran the marathon and 10-mile races yesterday, including some who ran PBs and/or their furthest distance yet! Some even walk/ran/cycled tonight, so impressive!

🎨 We named, numbered and warmed up while discussing our favourite GoodGym tasks. Painting featured highly, along with various forms of (constructive?) destruction.

🍎 Ed led half the group to Greenfield’s Garden. Here’s what he had to say:

🗺️ After a bit of an extended run out to the task, thanks to Ed forgetting his way around York, we arrived at the task and split into two teams. Team A were armed with forks and loppers and got to work on shifting some piles of cuttings and cutting up some larger branches. Team B were armed with sickles, forks and spades and made light work turning over the compost bays and clearing the area of nettles and brambles.

🏠 Not before too long it was time for the fitness session, which featured Lyndsey showing everyone how she bungalows and then everyone else deciding how they bungalowed too.

🚚 The rest of us headed to West Bank Park where we were soil-shovelling with Kristina. We were greeted by a big skip and told that some people could get in it! We didn’t need telling twice and had some very willing volunteers hop straight in. The enthusiasm increased yet further when Abigail realised how warm the soil was!

🦺 There were also six wheelbarrows that were filled and taken (a fair distance) to the rose garden, for a big new flowerbed. This involved crossing a road so Kristina had brought hi-viz so we could do so safely.

🌹 We had a few people stay up at the flowerbed, some to rake the soil as it brought up, some to tamp down other areas up there. There was some discussion on how to maximise efficiency, both this evening and for future tasks, of which there will be a few given the amount of soil left and the prospect of another skip being ordered to fill a second new flowerbed. I think the answer was more wheelbarrows (always) and possibly a relay system!? Watch this space as I’m hoping Leanne’s elaborate plan will be complete for the next equivalent task!

🥳 After a quick cones of joy-based fitness session, it was time to head back to base, on foot or wheels then on to the pub for some and home to warm up for others.

For the second week in a row, we had a last minute task cancellation, and once again, our triumphant taskforce overachieved by pulling a trio of tasks out of the bag to replace the original one.

We welcomed Rachel to her first Goodgym task and Marianne to her first Goodgym York session, and congratulated Mitch on his epic PB at Kielder half marathon yesterday.

Then, after a Mr Men themed warm-up, we split into three teams:

Delightful Dom took his team of four around the corner, a whole 140m away, to continue weeding at Prospect Terrace.

He said: A small group braved the 140m run to Prospect Terrace, continuing on the good work started last week. Local councillor, Pete, brought us a heavy bag to fill and we got started.

Four of us cleared weeds from the beds, making space for a wider range of plants and pollinators in the spring. We spent a good chunk of time, and pretty much cleared the beds of all the 'weeds', meaning more plants will have a chance at growing - to the benefit of the humans and pollinators of Prospect Terrace!

We then went on a gentle 1.6km run to cap things off before heading to the Ackhorne

Marvellous Mitch took his team of 8 to meet Valiant Vicky at Park Grove School

(His legs were a bit worn out from his epic run yesterday, so Pete actually led the run, while Mitch pedalled slowly behind!)

Mitch said:

We arrived at Vicky's school and faced the large pile of soil we needed to shift. The task was to barrow and shovel this soil and fill in some raised beds.

In GG fashion we got stuck in. It may have been pitch black, some of us may have forgotten our headtorches, but after 40 minutes we made a massive dent in the pile!

One more session and we will have this pile cleared!

Legendary Leanne took her team of 7 to Fishergate Triangle to continue to prepare the ground for creating a wildflower meadow (aka weeding)

She said:

St Nicks were pleased to find that we could offer an extra session this week which may very well bring us closer to victory in the war against those remarkably resilient weeds. Fortunately they're much easier to dig up nowadays due to our previous efforts, and we managed to (re)clear two significant sections of the triangle. Our task owner, Maeve reported that there should soon be a delivery of woodchip which will be spread over the soil to slow down the regrowth and give the wildflower meadow a chance to get underway.

On the mention of a triangle-based fitness session on the way back to base, a trio of goodgymers mysteriously remembered they had some urgent business to attend to back home, so didn't run back with us. The last four standing made our way to Tower Gardens where we ran some intervals along the sides of the triangle there, and threw in some skipping, lunging and galloping for good measure.

Another successful trio of tasks completed. See you next week for more Goodgym York adventures!