Tonight we ran from Heart down to St Stephen's Church Hall to once again weed and tidy up the garden for Kirkstall Valley Development Trust.

We cleared the garden a few weeks ago so we just did a general tidy up to keep the area tidy.

Kirkstall Valley Development Trust is an inclusive Community Benefit Society whose aims are to support the local community of Kirkstall. Working from two locations – a community hub, where the food pantry is located, and also from the farm – they are run by a team of dedicated staff and volunteers who run activities, events, campaigns and services to benefit the community and bring people together.

It was nice to meet & welcome newcomers Kate & Chris this evening; welcome to GoodGym Leeds :)

We even got home in time to support England in the football for those who wanted to.

Good work team!

We ran to Woodhouse Community Centre, which was only 0.5km away. So we had time to do a run session after the task this week.

A group of 5 goodgymers met at HPBC. We shared our favourite distance to run and found out that we all love running 10 km. This is good as the York 10km is coming up very soon! We welcomed Kate to her first goodgym task in Leeds. Welcome , Kate.

Task

The task this week was removing the rest of the bench and compost from the seating area. There will be a new one there eventually, but in the meantime it all needed to be removed and tidied up.

We didn't mess around, the bench was dismantled and transported away. Before long we were returning the spades and the shovels, and preparing for our running session.

Run Session

There were two choices for the session, 10 min continuous run - or 2 x 4min (1 min rest). To get used to running at a faster pace practised our 5km pace (or 7/10 perceived effort). It's always good to test the pace and see how fast you can run! Everyone gave it a good crack and everyone seemed to be smiling at the end.

Well done everyone - see you next week!

24 Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k to Wilton Estate community garden with a massive soil shifting, mulch spreading and weed grabbing task!

Welcome to our GG first timers Alix and Louis.

Hackney first social of the year next week celebrating (Clair’s 3rd, Amy’s 4th and Anne’s 6th GoodGym Birthday!!) Post group run we will be heading off probably to get Pizza in Broadway market, come along!!

A long loop to get the fingers and toes warm for the task ahead smashing out 3.5k along the canal and up to Wilton Estate to meet the team who were ready and waiting to for us!

Grabbing gloves and tools we rolled over to the huge soil, top soil and mulch delivery and got shovelling!!

We had groups weeding the big bed we have put a lot of work into over the last couple months as well as the side beds where the brown bins were filling fast!

The Shovellers were sending soil out to all corners of the garden moving well over 2 tonnes of premium soil, half a tonne of top Soil and 2 tonnes bags of mulch to create a lovely thick mulch bed ready to keep the weeds at bay.

We flipped into high gear to plant 200 bulbs and rake the mulch into perfect form before we cleared up and zipped away dashing back to base dead on 8:30 with a great physical task dominated!!

We will have more of the same next week at Abney Park Cemetery, see you there for more Tuesday GG fun!!

Enjoy

Joel

p.s thank you Liz for the pun!!

29 Happy Hackney GoodGymers ran 3k to help Wilton Estate Community garden in a mega weeding expedition!!

Amazing to see so many fancy to kick off 2020!! Loving the bumper GoodGym first timer crew, hope the session is the first of many with both Hackney and GoodGym!!

Remember we run the same time and from same starting location for the next 49 straight weeks so make it a habit and join us as regularly as you can for some community minded running fun!!

The task!! One of Hackney’s longest running tasks with GoodDeeds having been collected here for the last 6 or so years it was great to have Wilton Estate Community garden there to start off the year!

After a indirect 2.5km run to the gardens with everyone catching up and meeting up after our Christmas break! Thanks to Toyin for backmarking!! We arrived at Wilton ready for action, meeting task owners Gilly and Ulus who guided us through the tasks. We split up Into 3 groups and got straight on it! We had the mulchers who were finishing off the last of the huge mulch pile we decimated just before Christmas. This time shovelling, barrowing, tipping and raking the smaller garden that we previously cleared.

A high quality mini group got stuck into a smaller flower bed with a few prickly tangles to contend with to rid the over grown bed of the big bad weeds ready for planting!

Then a major task of the evening, the massive jungle like bed that we tackled in the rain 2 years ago got it’s just deserts. With a monumental clearing effort from 16 grafting GoodGymers!! In 50 minutes turning the Jungle into a clear flower bed ready for some Spring time bloom!!

Completing and exceeding the tasks we filled a massive 8 tonne bags of garden waste and dragged them to be collected in the morning. With 8 minutes to play with Chi asked if he could start the year with a little most conditioning and got everyone’s heart rate up and core muscles working with a short bit very effective fitness blast!!

With time short we zipped back to base in the nick of time before we stretched out and disappeared into the night with a smile on our faces and a big impact for a great community garden!

Next week it is a 3k run each way to Abney Park Cemetery where we will be dominating another great physical task!! Sign up and see you there!! If you have a head torch it’s a good one to bring it along for.

Joel

p.s Thanks to Chi for the extra pictures and Liz for the WhatsApp group Admin!!