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!

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!

*With the stormy weather putting people off, a small but perfectly formed group of 16 headed down to growing better to help prepare an area for wildflower planting *

While the worst off the weather seemed to have passed us (for now at least) it was obviously enough to convince some people to give tonight a swerve, but not this hardy lot! There were almost as many newbies as regulars, which was brilliant to see, with many of our first timers coming along as part of Leeds University's Student Volunteering Week. We welcomed Manos, Rebecca, Ian, Ping Chen,Huang, Paola, Jaswinder and Charlotte. Give them big cheer!

It was very cold tonight, but after a quick warm up we were raring to go! Alex took up backmarking duties, making sure nobody was left behind, while the rest of taskforce took on the newly created position (by Adam) of middle monitors. It was lovely to hear all the chatter on the way down with lots of new faces mingling with our regulars and fitting right in like they've been here every week. It's what we love to see!

We arrived at Growing Better to find Dorota ready and waiting for us with a wheelbarrow full of tools. We had a couple of tasks lined up, with most of the group turning over a big section of overgrown grass and weeds, while the rest of the group would head over to clear a path of brambles, as an alternative to traipsing across the soggy field (where someone always manages to slip and end up covered in mud!)

Everyone grabbed their tools and made a start. Initial attempts did not look promising with everyone struggling to make progress. With a a bit of determination though, things started to turn around (well, over). As with a lot of GoodGym tasks, the group discovered it was all about the tools you ended up with. Luckily, taskforce were on hand to keep everyone in check.

"So this is a shovel, it's for scooping than digging, you'll be much better off with a spade" Rachel, proving that every day is a school day.

"Guys, if there are any more forks, you should grab them! They are so much easier!" Katie, demonstrating perfect forking technique (before she almost stabbed herself in the foot with one).

Meanwhile, the bramble clearing team appeared to have discovered that there wasn't very much for them to do, and the brambles had all just died in the cold weather. It does beg the question as to why we hadn't been using the perfectly good path the whole time to get to the allotment! At least we know for next time! This group got on with moving around some ground covers that had been blown around in the stormy weather before rejoining the rest of the group.

They returned to find newbie Ian was now a master with a pick axe and had made loads of progress by himself! He didn't seem too fussed about how much he got done, and was just enjoying being outside digging.

"I'm just loving the smell!" Ian

With a big area turned over, it was time to call it quits for the evening, but not before a quick fitness session.

The runners got into pairs and the idea was simple, one runner would do an exercise (squats, lunges or star jumps) and the other would do a shuttle run to the end of the car park and back before swapping over. Easy! Runners realised that the the slower they ran the shuttle run, the more squats their partner would have to do, but unsurprisingly they were giving it their all and working hard to get back as quick as they could.

After a quick 5 minute workout everyone was ready for the long slog back up the hill. We said our goodbyes to Dorota before heading back to base, praying for red lights to give us a break up the hill!

We all reconvened back at base for a debrief and stretch, with some sticking around at the pub for some rehydration and refuelling.