We welcomed a new member Ellie to our group and set off for a new year challenge to take the fear out of hills.

Well four of us met to try the new challenge running up and down Liverpool's bread streets not quite Rio's sugarloaf but certainly felt like it as we tried to get back into fitness after xmas holidays.

The idea was to try and make hills less daunting, we just tried to keep going to get up them for about dozen streets! Everyone did amazing, a bit of cheating while I stopped to take photos mid hill!

I think we all went home with some tight calves but sense of achievement making it up all those streets and a set of herculean dockers steps too.

On Thursday a gang of Goodgymers met at Crown park armed with litter-pickers and a plan. Unlike previous similar tasks in the past, this time we decided to mix up the fitness and the cleaning in a relay format, with different groups taking turns to either pick litter or do fitness exercises, switching every 10 minutes or so. Prepared with resistance bands as well as our running shoes, Sallyann led us with some great strength exercises, and by the end of the session we had gathered two full bags of litter...pretty good considering the light conditions. We even had a few attempts on the local gym equipment, with some hanging, and pull-ups to round off the session.
A fun new take on an old Goodgym formula, I'm sure we'll try more sessions like this in the future, especially as the days grow longer and warmer..!

Snow and ice had stopped us in our tracks over the last few weeks. so it was with great delight we donned our summer clothes at a balmy 6 degrees and headed out for our 1st session of the year.

Grant Gardens former site of Liverpool Necropolis is a large green space in the midst of a built up area. it sits nestles into the corner of a busy road junction and only when you walk in the gates you realise that this is a big plot of land. Last time we were here we were head high in swathes of wild flowers. This time we had two tasks bulb planting and litter picking and we set to the tasks with great joy and goodgym vigour.

Some people used a special tool to carve out plug shaped holes to drop the bulbs in (a clod cutter perhaps?) others planted the many many bulbs whilst others picked up the litter to return the space to its natural beauty. as always the time passed quickly as we worked amidst the remnants of snowmen under a clear sky and the rising wolf moon.

This was our Pauline's 975 task.... we look forward to celebrating the big one with her this year.and we can't wait for spring to see all the bulbs flowering a reminder of a warm winters night.... OK so maybe the temperature wasn't that warm but a Monday night with a crowd of Goodgymers makes us all feel a little warm inside.