The promise of staying around for a drink after tonight's session obviously convinced enough people to run with us this week and we had a bumper turnout. 32 runners were part of our amazing crew, including Leah and Suzie who both joined us for the first time. Go and give them a cheer!

This week's task was in aid of 'The Lost Plot', who use gardening at their allotment to offer an alternative to traditional talking therapies for people in sustainable recovery. We were tasked with collecting as many leaves as possible which the group could then use to turn into leaf mulch. There was no task-owner on site with us, which meant trainer Aron went wild with the power.

The whole group was split into 5 teams with their tasks as follows:

• To collect as many leaves as possible in their teams, and deliver them up the hill to the allotment before the time ran out.
• To come up with an excellent team name - as it's GoodGym, ideally a pun.
• To take a great team photo.
• To come up with an inventive exercise that they could demonstrate to the group.
• Bonus points would be awarded for excellent teamwork, camaraderie and general excellent banter.

There was also the promise of a fabulous secret prize for the winning team, which really got everyone's head's in the game. After a quick warm-up demonstrating some potentially inefficient leaf collecting techniques, we were off.

The allotment is in Hyde Park/Woodhouse moor, which roughly 100m away from our start location, so we took a slightly scenic route to the allotment to make sure we were all thoroughly warmed up for our task. We pointed out where the leaves needed to be left and headed down to the edge of the park where there were loads of leaves and a bit more light.

Armed only with gardening gloves and some bags, the teams were free to collect leaves wherever they wanted, and on Aron's shout, each group raced off to claim their own patch. With the 30 minutes of frantic leaf counting underway, it looked like the breakneck pace might prove unsustainable.

"It's like the crystal maze!" Goodgymer whose name was lost in the melee.

Bags were being filled quicker than we could count them, and they were stuffed full to the brim. After realising we definitely weren't going to have enough bags to last us the full 30 minutes, the decision was taken to start running the bags up the hill before emptying them into one gigantic pile, and then refilling them.

After the initial buzz started to fade, thoughts turned to the other tasks the groups had been set. Here's what they all came up with:

• Team 1 - Don't stop beleafing

Exercise - frog squat/leaf collecting

Photo - team frog squat with added leaf throwing

• Team 2 - The Unbeleaveables

Exercise - erratically falling leaves with wide stance fast feet

Photo - Team tree, with a two person trunk, and everyone else as leaves.

• Team 3 - Mulch ado about nothing

Exercise - Tree pose

Photo - group tree hug

• Team 4 - Don't stop beleafing (again)

Exercise - choreagraphed workout (The Monster Mulch) with 3 exercises set to the music of Journey

Photo - Boomerang of leaf throwing with added musical accompaniment

• Team 5 - Mulch ado about nothing (again)

Exercise - Curtsy squats (another gloriously inefficient leaf collecting technique)

Photo - leaf throwing action shot

By now, a huge pile of leaves was forming and with 5 minutes to go, teams started collecting closer to the allotment gate, with everyone congregating around the two trees that were closest. As the final countdown commenced, everyone raced into the finish line to make sure their leaves counted. The final pile was enormous, and even though Team 1 tried to keep their own pile separate, eventually common sense prevailed and all the leaves were piled in together.

We got a quick snap of the whole group before heading down to the corner of the park where the teams demonstrated their exercises. There was wonderful mix of strength, endurance and even flexibility, and so obviously this had to be a group workout. We started with the Monster Mulch's high energy, before running through each of the exercises and finishing with the relative calm of the tree pose. All of the exercises were 'creative' and left people surprisingly tired. Awesome work everyone.

We jogged back to our start location for a stretch and the big reveal of our winners! Despite picking a team name that was shared by another team, the judges were impressed by their commitment to a theme, and with everything either about or set to the music of Journey's Don't Stop Believing, there could only be one winner. Team 4, Don't stop beleafing took home the Curly the Caterpillar cake, and more importantly the glory!

We all then moved inside to the warm of the pub for a drink and a chat to fully debrief the day's evening's events, and the winning team even shared their spoils! What a team.

20 Runners ran 4km to help make sure the Life House is ready for opening

The cold weather and half term saw our numbers ever so slightly depleted, but we still had an amazing group of 20 tonight! Great work. Special kudos goes to Anne and [Anne](/runners/anne-ingleson who were completing their first ever run with us tonight. We had Kati, a tourist from GoodGym Huddersfield showing her support for another Yorkshire GoodGym, and it was also lovely to see some returning faces who haven't been for a few weeks - It's great to have you back!

As the weather was so cold, we did a really gradual running specific warm up, building up our movements from our feet and our ankles upwards. We all somehow ended up very close to each other by the end so maybe there's a little work for us on keeping our heads up.

Next we headed off down to wards Seagulls, with Aron leading and Tom backmarking. It was the same run as last week, so it wa the same drill - gentle jog down the hill, with a bit of looping back (up the hill!) to keep the group together. We'll all be masters of the hills in no time!

When we arrived at Seagulls. Cat and Kate were ready and waiting for us this time and they had what seemed like an impossible list of jobs for us to do. We were tasked with:

• Painting a window frame in the lovely blue from last week
• Edging all the floor with grey floor paint
• Painting the entire floor
• Painting one large wall
• Covering two walls with a PVA glue wash so paint would stick to it
• Painting the toilets
• Bonus coat rack building if there was time

Whew! They really like to test us! But this is GoodGym and we felt we were up to the task. We immediately split into small and started attacking smaller jobs as little teams. This was going to take lots of teamwork to make sure we didn't paint someone into a corner and leave them stuck there, so we planned some paintless corridors that we would leave, so people could make their way out at the end. We decided to leave the toilets and the coat rack for now, but cracked on with everything else.

Everyone jumped straight in and got cracking on, even if they didn't always know exactly what they were supposed to be doing!

"I'm not really sure what edging is, is it just painting round the edges?" Ellie, GG Leeeds

Everyone worked out what needed to be done, but with the edging clearly the slowest task, early signs weren't good for getting it all completed within the time. Co-operation was the order of the day though, and the wall painting team in particular seemed to have it all sorted, with a range of heights among the team meaning they could reach high and low!

"We really are the perfect team!" Abi, GG Leeds

Kate from Seagulls was still absolutely buzzing from what we'd managed to achieve last week, and was really happy to have us back. We're already talking about some exciting future projects we could team up on, so watch this space!

"We really wouldn't have been able to do all of this without you, it's freed us up to do some other stuff which just wouldn't have managed to achieve without you!" Kate, task owner, Seagulls

By now, team PVA glue had whizzed through their task, thanks in part to Farid's double handed painting technique! They were mostly repurposed to the glamorous job of toilet painting, with others joining in painting the floor. We were starting to get a little cramped in the middle of the room by this point, with some people 'customising' their trainers. I'm promised it should all wash off, unless of course you think they look better this way! The tight spaces meant there was some imaginative lunging, yoga posing and in some cases dancing to make sure the paint was properly applied to the floor.

Finally, we reached the really tricky part, people started to make their way out of the room, with a human conveyor belt of paint tins, trays, rollers and paintbrushes. Clare and Liz decided they could smash out the hat rack in the final few minutes so they jumped to it, while everyone else was dancing a careful ballet out of the room in the tiny available paintless spots.

Tom had positioned himself furthest from the door and become Last Man Painting, with Adam doing his best to paint him into a tiny island adrift from the rest of the crew. With one final balletic leap, Tom was out of the room, the tiny square he'd been standing on was painted over by a team of three, and the whole operation was complete. What a task!

Amazingly, there was still time for some running drills before we headed back up the hill. The drills we did were:

• Single leg balance
• High knee walking
• A-skips
• Butt-kicks
• Heel to Bum kicks

Everyone felt very silly at times, but there were definitely some things for us to take away, particularly around balance, and whether one side is stronger than the other.

Finally, we made our way back up to base, with a bonus loop-back hill rep for those who were brave enough, with high fives for everyone else, before an easy stretch and debrief. Top work tonight team, you absolutely smashed it!

There was lots of news to share this week as we had two new taskforce members, Tom and Rachel and we had runners out this week at the Yorkshire 10 mile and Yorkshire Marathon! Well done everybody!

We also welcomed five new faces this week, Ian, Chris,Riobhne, Amanda, and Harriet. Go and give them all a cheer!

We had a quick warm up with our Big Wave and there was definitely some progress. I reckon we'll have that nailed in no time. The run out was super simple down one big hill, so we kept it nice and steady and looped back (up the hill) to keep everyone together. After crossing Kirkstall road with the lights that took an age, we were there at Seagulls Reuse!

It was amazing seeing you all running through the yard, completely mad, but it's great!" Kate, Task owner, Seagulls

We all piled in to the bright, light and airy space (which certainly makes a change from our recent tasks), and Kate ran though what we needed to do. There were some bright pink pillars that needed to be painted blue, and some shelves and a whole load of walls to be painted white.

Before we'd even finished talking, people had paintbrushes in hand, going straight for the pillars, obviously very excited to get going. Everyone else spread out along the walls with big rollers, small rollers and brushes, and basically started painting wherever they could reach.

Within seconds the pillars started to take shape, and our GoodGymmers gave their approval.

"I love this colour! I want it in my house!"

People were being very resourceful, switching places when then could no longer reach, moving stepladders around to where they were most needed, and generally just asking if they could paint everything! It was lovely to see, and it's great to see how the group already just dives into tasks, work together to get it done, but also seemingly have a great time doing it.

With around five minutes left, a few GoodGymmers even started washing the paint brushes, which meant one less job for the Seagulls crew.

With everything packed away we had time for some quick photos and then a a quick 'Tornado' workout in the yard, where we learned: * Lots of runners have medals hung up in their house * Almost nobody is actually from Leeds! * You've pretty much all taken running kit out of the wash to wear it again * You're all definitely going to be back for another GoodGym session!

We then jogged back up the monster hill (with more looping round) until we all made it back to base for a stretch.

Unfortunately Rachel rolled her ankle on the run back and is going to be out of action for 6 weeks, so she definitely needs some love! Go and give her a cheer!

26 runners ran 3km to help Hyde Park Source with a range of tasks at the Rosebank Garden

GoodGym Leeds is really starting to feel like it's coming together nicely. It's so great to see returning faces, lots of happy chatter and first timers just getting stuck in like they've been here since week one. You guys are ace!

We had 5 new runners this week: Elizabeth, Pete, Derya, and Julia who is our first task owner to come along and get involved in the run from the start! They all deserve a massive cheer! Go and give them some love.

After last week's deluge during the task we had a lovely autumn evening tonight. We did a quick "Jump in, Jump out, Jump left, Jump right" warm up to get everyone's heart rate up, and more importantly to get everyone laughing!

Then we took a slightly longer route to the task so we could make the most of the fading light and a beautiful Leeds evening. Heather was on backmarking duty this week, making sure nobody got left behind.

Once we'd made it to the Rosebank, and grabbed our tools, Julia set us four tasks:

• Clearing a big patch of brambles
• Litter picking around the edge of the park
• Leaf collecting for leaf mulch
• Planting bulbs

Everyone got straight to it and within seconds there was a buzz of activity. A pile of brambles formed within minutes, and separate bags of leaves and litter and were filling up nicely. We had a concerned local resident wondering what exactly we were up to, doing all of this in the dark, and while we couldn't quite convince him to join in, once he knew what we were doing he appreciated our efforts.

Over at the bulb planting, Julia was giving a lovely description of how the crocuses and daffodils needed to be planted, but one of our GoodGymmers (who will remain nameless) just wasn't quite taking it in...

"I'm not really sure what I'm doing to be honest!"

Loving the honesty there! We're all learning at GoodGym, so I'm sure you'll be a bulb planting pro in no time! We had a bit of drama when we uncovered what could have been some electrics (which we left well alone) but in the end we got lots of bulbs planted, and it will be great to come back in spring and see them in bloom!

The last things to do were to chop up the brambles and pile them back onto the verge where they could break down, and give the paths a quick sweep.

Julia was very happy with what we managed to achieve:

"We normally only get a chance to sort out the Rosebank once a month with our action day, so it's really great that you could help us with all this!"

Even the fitness session wasn't enough to wipe the smile off everyone's faces! We decided to make use of the Rosebank's cool stone circles and paths and have ourselves a circuits session. We had 5 stations:

• Squats
• Modified press-ups
• Shuttle runs
• Tricep dips
• Step-ups

We had one round of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off, followed by a second round of 40 seconds on 20 seconds off. It was great to see the synchronised step-ups, one team adding their own extra difficulty with jumping squats, and the great teamwork that everyone showed. I particularly loved chief motivator Dave who was keeping the troops working hard when they we finding it tough. He definitely deserves an extra cheer!

With our workout done, we headed back to base, with a bit of student slalom, for a quick stretch and debrief.

Thanks for another awesome session tonight, I can't wait for next week already!