As usual there was a lot of chatting on last night’s GoodGym run, but that’s fine as fortunately there was also a lot of hard work and hard running too.

If ever there was a night for a warm-up it was last night, cool crisp conditions meant that as we jumping jacked in the Stadium car park we could see all our breath ahead of us. It was nice also to see some new recruits to the Huddersfield GoodGym crew, a very enthusiastic Tom from Leeds had popped across to sample GoodGym Huddersfield style and Carol Carney, who following a number of previous attempts had finally made it along to a group run. It was also great to see Meg Deacon back with the group having recovered from an injury sustained whilst running a marathon in America earlier this year. They joined Huddersfield regulars Kati Law, Ben Godfrey (sporting his new black 50 Good deeds T-shirt-well done Ben), Wendy Redmile, David Bilton and Zena Whalley for a favourite Huddersfield task delivering the Dalton & Rawthorpe Library Community Newsletter.

Rocking up at the Library, Paula Wood from S2R was already there with a big bag of newsletters, but also more interestingly a bag of orange squash, hot coffee and a (large) family size packet of Kit-Kats. We love a task with a refreshment break, thanks Paula! After a quick drink, and safely stashing the Kit-Kats in my bag for consumption following the run we were on with the task. As ever the crew swiftly divided into two teams of four and were soon posting newsletters in an impressively co-ordinated fashion up and down the various roads of Rawthorpe. Those experienced GoodGym leafletters had brought along what has now become an essential tool of their trade, namely a wooden spoon with which to push and hold open reluctant letterboxes.

It turned out the wooden spoons also served another purpose last night, as batons for our fitness activity. Having 9 GoodGymmers working hard we swiftly dispatched all 350 or so newsletters through doors leaving plenty of time for a fitness activity. My initial suggestion of some hill repeats received a less than rapturous reception amongst some elements of the group, so we settle for an equally tough but fortunately flatter mirror relay.

Using a 400m circuit teams of two ran in opposite directions (one member of the team with the wooden spoon), upon meeting they exchange spoons and returned in the direction they had come, hopefully meeting again at the start point at the same time. That’s how it was supposed to work and to be fair it very nearly did. However there is always the potential for a little bit of chaos, and just one GoodGymmer (who shall remain nameless) got it a little bit wrong and ended up starting the run back in the same direction as their partner!

After the exertion of the relay a steady run back was in order with plenty of chatting, a stretch and of course the reward of a Kit-Kat to everyone who had worked hard. Thanks very much to all last night’s GoodGymmers and of course Paula for turning out on such a cold night with newsletters (and Kit-Kats😀!)