🥶 Tonight was the night for a bumper turnout (37 people!), particularly impressive given the dark and chilly conditions. Nevertheless, we all gathered at the Ackhorne, including 3 newcomers - Tamsyn, Ellie and Julian - who we welcomed warmly. We then celebrated some epic achievements, including applauding everyone who tackled the Dalby Dash yesterday. We also had the cape of glory for not one but three heroes for tonight, we celebrated Amy's 400th good deed, Cara's 300th and Kit's 50th. Oh, and it was Laura's birthday. Amazing stuff 🦸

🚲 Vicky led a cycling group while Ed led the runners to the carriageworkers memorial arch - a particular impressive structure when lit up! (And one that lots of us had somehow never noticed before...)

🌸 There, we were met by the council environment team with tools and instructions to rotivate a (particularly long) strip ready for wildflower planting. Despite some initial confusion as to what we were meant to be doing, we soon got to work with enthusiasm, with our various tools. Jen had particularly impressive technique that led to some very uniform-looking rotivations (not sure that's a word...) Meanwhile, George had very kindly given away the most useful tools so contributed good chat and skipping advice, ready for the fitness session.

💪 Speaking of which, after an atmospheric group photo, we were led down the road (to much grumbling from our local GoodGymmers who were being led further away from home) for our fitness session. Vicky had set up circuits with 6 stations, including skipping, which caused lots of amusement as we admired some very different styles. Running while balancing rings on our heads was another challenge, as was running backwards (which may have led to a minor collision but I believe everyone was fine afterwards!) Sore quads from yesterday's Dalby Dash were starting to show themselves in the adaptations required of some of the exercises!

⏰ Soon, it was time to head back to base (or straight home for some of the cheeky locals, including one who 10 minutes earlier had claimed that wasn't an option...Not mentioning any names, Ed...)

🏃‍♀️ James very helpfully stepped up to lead the runners back while Vicky led the cyclists. Soon, we were back at base, stretching and hearing about everything that's coming up this week.

🍰 Laura and David had kindly brought cake, which was greatly appreciated and enjoyed, both outside and then in the pub. Jenna had done a sterling job lugging a huge number of Disability Week booklets in her pannier, which need delivering. Some heroes took some to deliver but there are still lots more. So if anyone's able to help with this this week, please contact Jenna directly (or Vicky/Ed who can put you in touch with Jenna if that's easier).

👏 What a night! Thanks everyone, for some great good-deeding, and hopefully see you all again soon!

*10 points for anyone who spotted the (probably quite obscure) Beyonce song reference...

They say news travels fast, and that's especially true when its being delivered by a bunch of keen GoodGym Yorkies on a Monday night group run 💨

Tonight we gave a warm welcome to newcomer Thet and also celebrated Kirsty being named our GG Yorkie of the month for October after an epic 7 good deeds and a total of 25 since joining in the summer. Well done Kirsty! And thank you to Michael for putting the frame together whilst Ed stalled for time!

It was then off to the task with Stef walking (and unfortunately never to be seen again!), Vicky and Babs backmarking and Ed leading the run out. We then met up with Tracey from the Groves Association before pairing up and heading out to deliver some leaflets.

This definitely wasn't Claire's first rodeo as she had come with a trusty wooden spoon to help her open letterboxes! And whilst I'm not entirely sure what happened in each group I can only imagine they all had an excellent time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Given how long we've waited for people to return in the past, the teams were given a slightly earlier time to meet back, which seemed to do the trick as pretty much everyone was back on time and there were no frantic phone calls being made to missing teams!

After a quick photo we then headed back to the Ackhorne through the method of Indian file running, with the person at the back continuously sprinting to the front. A great speed workout complete with some added hazards of cars, bollards, gates and curbs! But we all made it back safely, and even heard from the missing Stef, who still gets a good deed for showing up and attempting to find us. (Sorry Stef!)

Tonight was all about the amazing exploits of all our runners at the Yorkshire Marathon and 10 Miler on Sunday. Well done to everyone who took part either by running or supporting at the water station. An extra shout out to Carys, Sanjay and Lucy who had all run the 10 miler and made it along to tonight's session, and very special mention for Michael and David who had both completed the marathon and still felt like they couldn't possibly miss an epic GG session!

We were back off to Heworth Holme, a site of an awful lot of previous GoodGym group runs, however tonight was nothing to do with laying the path through the middle and instead was all about raking up an awful lot of cuttings from a grassy area. We met Maria from St Nicks at the task who gave a brief overview to the team who soon got to work. There was a mix of rakers, pirchforkers and draggers as the GG crew got stuck in and shifted an awful lot of the grass cuttings in no time at all and with remarkably few complaints from those who may have been carrying tired legs from the weekend!

After a good 45mins of some serious raking we stopped for a team photo around our marathon heroes before a quick fitness session which put them in the middle of our group and relied on them to guess who was leading the choreographing of the exercises. David picked out Paul Kelly in absolutely no time at all, whereas Michael probably could still be guessing now and would have no idea that Nikki was in charge of the exercises when he was in the middle! To be fair Michael took his punishment of a single star jump remarkably well.

It was then back to base with Ed leading the run and Neil backmarking, and with the slightly longer distance than usual we were very grateful for some of Jenna's delicious apple and cinnamon cake when we returned!

Lots to celebrate tonight. Parkrun pbs for Neil and Claire, Claire hitting 300 and Nick completing a triathlon. We also welcomed Beth to her first group run and Katie who was visiting from Edinburgh.

We named and numbered off saying our favourite beverage in honour of national beer drinking day. There was a surprising amount of tea and coffee!

We then off to Holgate allotments. A select few were tasked with clearing the communuty orchard - Kit and Jane looked to be having a lot of fun the lawnmower. The remainder of the group collected tools and set to work on digging over an overgrown plot. Due to the high concentration of goodgymers we made rapid progress, leaving the plot ready for new tenants. And if that wasn't enough Nick, Claire and Michael went hunting for balsam in the beck!

We finished off with a game of catch squat, with Ed's team getting very excited over their victory!

Thanks team, another bumper week.