Seeing as though two of our members were in shorts tonight, we'll do well to remember that in future!! It was a freezing night & even though Lydia had 7 layers on, she still looked absolutely freezing! I hope everyone managed to warm up.

We ran across the ridge tonight & met Beth at The Chemic Tavern and litter picked around the area. When we could no longer feel our fingers and toes, we headed back.

Well done for coming out in this weather guys. Stay warm :)

Tonight, we met at Heart for a very soggy run through Beckett Park & were completely soaked when we got back! We then did a Christmas crafts activity for CAMHS mental health units. This is a task we did last year, making paper chains with jokes on for the young people to put up in their units. Helen & Christian cut the paper while the rest of us wrote Christmas jokes on them. I'll send them off this week.

Well done to Lydia who completed her 25th good deed tonight.

Welcome back to Helen who was a member before Covid & joined us back again after a long break this evening, we hope to see you again soon :)

Good work team!

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!

With the stormy weather threatening to stick around, sign ups for tonights run were looking a little thin, but some clear skies and a break in the wind meant a cracking 26 people came along to get involved!

With just a few minutes before our meet-up time, it was looking like this could be our quietest ever turnout, but thankfully it was just some heavy traffic, and there was a late surge of GoodGymers to bolster the ranks. We welcomed one new runner tonight, Darla, who picked a particularly chilly night to come along for her first taste of GoodGym! Nice one Darla!

Tonight also saw Adam miss his first ever Group run since our launch leaving taskforce keen-bean Katie as the only ever-present (Ok I've been there every week too, but I don't really count).

Our task tonight was to deliver the remaining leaflets for St. Gemma's Hospice, to let even more people know about the great things they do in and around Leeds. The plan was to split into three groups, all heading for slightly different target streets, to deliver as many of the leaflets as possible.

We warmed up with a little bit of mirroring to get us moving, but also to help us think about our co-ordination and reactions. We slowly built in intensity and had a few curveballs in there, such as working only one side of the body or standing on one leg.

We then split ourselves into groups and were on our way. The Meanwood crew were away first heading off into the Sunset (or more accurately heading towards the Sunsets - Sunset Road, Sunset Avenue, Sunset Mount etc). Their route was definitely the furthest and included some pretty tough hills, so they were keen to make a head start.

The other two groups had a slightly more leisurely start, but were soon on their way. Once we all arrived at our locations and worked out our plan of attack so we didn't miss any houses or, even worse, leaflet the same house twice, we set about our task. Having leafletted before, most of the group knew exactly what to do, and some had even come prepared.

"You need to have your trusty wooden spoon" George, waving around his utensil excitedly.

It isn't clear if George has now made this his 'leaflet delivering spoon', or he goes home and stirs his spag bol with it, but either way I think we'll be seeing the spoon again!

As I tried to run around between groups to see as much of the action as possible, it was great to see the teamwork on display with lots of chatter about which houses had been ticked off already. As it was by now pretty dark, the small groups of two's and three's were usually heard before they were seen. Newbie Darla was immediately getting involved, and Minnie in particular took charge of her small crew, making sure they didn't get lost in their maze of a route. Despite the risk of getting lost everyone seemed to be having a great time.

"I love the leapfrogging! It's so much fun!" Rach D, getting a bit too excited about posting leaflets.

There was lots of racing in front of each other to be the first to a house, which just goes to show you all want to make your own fun! Over in the Hollin lane group, they were battling with the long driveways, hilly steps, and just generally struggling to find the postboxes in the dark! In what should probably become our motto as a group from now on, Rachael C (accidentally, I think) summed up the whole GoodGym spirit.

"We may run out of leaflets, but we will never run out of enthusiasm!" Rachael, apparently doing her best impersonation of Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

With all the leaflets delivered, everyone made their way back to base. After a quick debrief and a a stretch, we were all on our way.

Don't forget there is a Community Mission on Friday, a parkrun meet-up at Fountains Abbey on Saturday, and a Hilly training session on Sunday! So much for you all to get involved with.

Thanks for another great session, see you all next week, if not before!