20 incredible runners and one amphibian joined forces to give some trees a temporary home

For some reason last week feels like an absolute age ago, so it felt good to be back amongst the red heroes tonight. We welcomed one new runner Frances, who got proved straight away that she's one of us by providing our frog-based pun (more on that later). Welcome Fran! Go and give her a cheer!

We started out with some news, letting everyone know about all the awesome stuff that been going on in the last week, including a big kitchen clean, a big parkrun trip and an awesome hilly training session! The fun doesn't stop there either, with a parkrun at Potternewton park this Saurday to celebrate international women's day, and our first social hike on Sunday organised by Alex. Check the event listings for more info.

Tonight's run was to take us back to Growing Better where we've been heading to quite regularly. They always have big ideas but we're never quite sure what we'll end up doing till we get there! We started out with a quick warm up, which was a brief preview of the running drills they'd be doing in the fitness session later (but of course they didn't know it at the time)!

The run down was more eventful than usual, with Joe admitting that he's been out for a 'practice run' yesterday to make sure he was up to GoodGym after not running much recently. Suzi was lamenting the lack of half-time oranges during a GoodGym group run (so if anyone wants to bring refreshments for her sake then feel free! Finally Riv had just got her layers all wrong...

"I'm so hot, I think I need to take my thermal off! Can I just take my clothes off at the lights?" Riobhne just stopping short of causing a scene!

Luckily everyone remained fully clothed and we arrived at West Leeds Activity Centre ready for a fun session of surprises. The first surprise was a cute little frog (or toad, we weren't entirely sure) that came out to say hello when we were all gathered round to find out what we had planned. Dorota had two main tasks for us, the first was to build some compost bins, but after showing us their existing ones that we wanted to emulate, she realised she didn't have strong enough rope, and so this task has been pushed back to next week.

The main task for the evening then, was to plant a huge number of saplings in big bunches, to help keep them alive until they were ready to plant them properly. Carol decided they were actually Mandrakes (from Harry Potter), which mean the bunches now came with added screaming!

We headed over to the allotment area and got to work! The trees didn't need to be dug in particularly deep as this was just a temporary solution before they found their 'Forever home'. Dorota explained where the trees would end up.

"We've just got an additional site at a Farm near Harewood House, so a lot of the trees wil end up there, ans we're also working with three schools in Kirklees" Dorota, task owner.

As we were running low on tools, a few people broke off to rearrange the ground covers which had been thrown around in the recent storms. It also gave Riv the chance to discover her "favourite stick" (see photos for evidence!) Suzi also had a lovely moment where she felt really connected to the trees she was planting.

"I thought this tree was called Hazel but I realised it's just a type of tree" Suzi, showing that we're always learning at GoodGym!

After all the trees were planted, we had time for a quick session, consisting of 30 metres of running drills with walk-back recoveries. We focused on form, fast feet and getting a good spring from our strides which should really help our running form. The drills were:

• High knees
• Heel kicks
• High knee skipping
• Side skips

There was some really great work on show, with everyone really committing to the drills (with varying success rates!) The side skips in particular take a little practice, so we'll definitely do these again soon.

After we were all wrapped up, we said our goodbyes before starting the long slog back up the hill. Katie and Carol took up back-marking duties, and everyone took it fairly steady on the way back, where we all regrouped and finished off with a quick stretch.

You were all on excellent form tonight, with everyone getting stuck into the task, and too much silliness for me to include it all in the report! See you all next week!

Tonight's run included our longest ever run (by some runners), some orienteering style skills, hundreds of books, and an appreciation of some incredible art. 24 runners came together for a bit of a check up on the Leeds Little Free Libraries, with a fun build-your-own workout thrown in too!

Tonight involved lots of pre-run admin, with loads of different route choices on offer from a round trip of around 5k to over 15k! This meant we kept the news brief, but well done to anyone who ran at Liversedge Half at the weekend, some brilliant running in tough conditions.

We had one new runner joining us this week, welcome Sarah! We also had a Caroline on her first visit to us from Sheffield, and a few faces back for the second week. Great to have you all!

The plan for tonight's run was to split up into small groups, and try and reach as many of the Little Free Libraries as possible. They're all quite spread out, so it was no easy task! After deciding how far they wanted to run, everyone formed into groups with an assigned leader who had a map in hand and a little condition sheet. Some groups were heading for just one box, others two different boxes, and one group was trying to hit three in one session!

The Little Free Libraries are an amazing resource, that as the name says are completely free! They're essentially small cupboards that are spread about all over Leeds, and the idea is that you can borrow a book, or leave a book that you no longer want or need, and it just creates an amazing book-sharing community that hopefully gives more people more access to books.

When a group arrived at the box they had a few things on their list to check: * Is the perspex window free of cracks? * Is the post/wall mount secure? * Is the door in good condition? * Are the shelves loose or damaged? * Is there any other obvious damage?

Then they had to count the books in the library and it was time to build their own workout! The number of books defined the number of reps they had to do, and they would pick their own exercises, 3 in total. If you only went to one box, you did 3 x the number of books, with the reps reducing for the numbers of boxes visited. Easy! (Once I'd explained it a few times!) This was a great excuse for me to turn the fitness session over to the group to see what sort of exercises you would choose to do, and it's really interesting to see what you all came up with!

With everyone off in different directions, each group had their own challenges tonight. Some groups had big distances to cover, others had city-centre traffic to negotiate and others had some complicated navigation through winding suburban streets. For Paola, in only her second week, she loved the opportunity to challenge herself, picking the longest route on offer:

"I just thought, why not push myself?!" That's the spirit Paola!

As each group arrived at their boxes, they mostly found that they were in great condition, with only a few minor defects to reports. Mostly they were all pretty well stocked, with a good number of books and they all had some amazing artwork.

"Looks pretty spankers new" Riobhne

"The painting is glorious!" Adam

Then it was time for the workout! The books were counted, with reps therefore ranging from 18 to 50! It was great to hear afterwards how loads of you had made use of your surroundings incorporating the urban landscape into your drills. There were some repeats in the workouts but you did all of these amazing exercises:

*Push ups *Squats *Star jumps *Boxing punches *Wall sit *Step overs *Single leg romanian deadlift *Toe taps *Tricep dips *Lunges *Reverse lunges *Dynamic balance (writing with toes) *Pull ups

Unbelievable stuff! I'm very impressed with the variety in the exercises, and in most cases they looked like they were well thought-through with a mix of different muscles worked.

Everyone made their way back to base, in some cases finding the hills that little bit harder on the way back! One group even used the fair that is set up right near our base as a beacon to guide their way home. Beautiful!

We all reconvened back at base, with a healthy group stopping for a quick drink to swap stories catch up on the evenings events. Another fab session everyone, hope you all enjoyed it!