GoodGym came, GoodGym sawed and GoodGym definitely conquered last night.

The coming bit was relatively easy, just about 2K up the road the road from the Stadium to Christ Church in Moldgreen. Once again a close by task meant the run was little more than a warm up before the real work began. For nearly 2 years Christ Church was without a vicar and the despite the best efforts of the congregation the church grounds had become a little wild. However Reverend Charlotte Cheshire is now in post and is keen to get the church looking lovely again. Consequently she commissioned GoodGym to run over and cut down two large woody shrubs at the front of the church.

So this is where the sawing comes in. Margaret, a member of the church congregation kindly met us in the church with a whole armoury of cutting implements borrowed from the parishioners. The assembled GoodGymmers selected their weapons and set forth sawing the shrubs back to their roots. This task definitely required a team effort, with some GoodGymmers sawing whilst others chopped the offcuts into shorter lengths and stacked them for easy removal at a later date. It didn’t take long to get a sweat up on this job, the stump was tough and we had to take turns to saw, rest and recover in relay fashion.

However after about 40 minutes of hard labour GoodGym once again conquered! The troublesome shrubs were cut back to near ground level, the branches neatly stacked and all saws returned to Margaret, who I think was very relieved to be able to go home after sitting for 40 minutes in the cold church.

The task may have been conquered, but there was time enough remaining to bang out a quick hill reps session on a little loop virtually next door the the church. The prospect of repeats of 150m up a vicious little climb on Highroyd Crescent followed by a similar distance back down to recover was not exactly welcomed by the GoodGymmers at first. But characteristically everyone got stuck in, putting in 3 or 4 good hard laps, and one or two of the GoodGymmers even looked like they were enjoying it.

Following all the hard work, all that was left was the comparatively flat run back to the Stadium, a stretch and our now traditional “Legends” photo. We tend to have a legends photo when we are joined by GoodGym tourists from other areas, and this week we had a very special GoodGym tourist running with us. Deborah Redmond called in on GoodGym Huddersfield on her way home to Bristol from running with GoodGym Newcastle the previous night. This means that Deborah has now run with all 47 of the country’s GoodGym groups, quite a significant achievement. Well done Deborah, GoodGym Huddersfield were honoured to have you join us in order to complete your set!

If one GoodGym tourist wasn’t enough we also had a second one last night, it was great to meet Mat Thorneton-Field who had popped over from Liverpool. Mat is on just his third GoodGym location, so he has a few more to collect yet in order to catch up with Deborah.

Aside from the tourists it was nice also to welcome local runner Fiona Armitage who was out with us for the first time, and of course it was also good to see GoodGym Huddersfield regulars Louise Galvin, Ben Godfrey and Heather Wilshaw-Jones getting stuck in with their typical enthusiasm.

Another good job done.....thank you one and all!

Thanks to Heather for this week's run report title.