🥶 25 GoodGymmers gathered for this evening’s two-task group run, the first genuinely chilly one of the season.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Megan for her first task with us, and to congratulate Carl for his 200th (slightly belatedly but he got to wear the cape at last!) 🦸‍♂️

💪 More congratulations were in order for everyone who ran the marathon and 10-mile races yesterday, including some who ran PBs and/or their furthest distance yet! Some even walk/ran/cycled tonight, so impressive!

🎨 We named, numbered and warmed up while discussing our favourite GoodGym tasks. Painting featured highly, along with various forms of (constructive?) destruction.

🍎 Ed led half the group to Greenfield’s Garden. Here’s what he had to say:

🗺️ After a bit of an extended run out to the task, thanks to Ed forgetting his way around York, we arrived at the task and split into two teams. Team A were armed with forks and loppers and got to work on shifting some piles of cuttings and cutting up some larger branches. Team B were armed with sickles, forks and spades and made light work turning over the compost bays and clearing the area of nettles and brambles.

🏠 Not before too long it was time for the fitness session, which featured Lyndsey showing everyone how she bungalows and then everyone else deciding how they bungalowed too.

🚚 The rest of us headed to West Bank Park where we were soil-shovelling with Kristina. We were greeted by a big skip and told that some people could get in it! We didn’t need telling twice and had some very willing volunteers hop straight in. The enthusiasm increased yet further when Abigail realised how warm the soil was!

🦺 There were also six wheelbarrows that were filled and taken (a fair distance) to the rose garden, for a big new flowerbed. This involved crossing a road so Kristina had brought hi-viz so we could do so safely.

🌹 We had a few people stay up at the flowerbed, some to rake the soil as it brought up, some to tamp down other areas up there. There was some discussion on how to maximise efficiency, both this evening and for future tasks, of which there will be a few given the amount of soil left and the prospect of another skip being ordered to fill a second new flowerbed. I think the answer was more wheelbarrows (always) and possibly a relay system!? Watch this space as I’m hoping Leanne’s elaborate plan will be complete for the next equivalent task!

🥳 After a quick cones of joy-based fitness session, it was time to head back to base, on foot or wheels then on to the pub for some and home to warm up for others.

For the second week in a row, we had a last minute task cancellation, and once again, our triumphant taskforce overachieved by pulling a trio of tasks out of the bag to replace the original one.

We welcomed Rachel to her first Goodgym task and Marianne to her first Goodgym York session, and congratulated Mitch on his epic PB at Kielder half marathon yesterday.

Then, after a Mr Men themed warm-up, we split into three teams:

Delightful Dom took his team of four around the corner, a whole 140m away, to continue weeding at Prospect Terrace.

He said: A small group braved the 140m run to Prospect Terrace, continuing on the good work started last week. Local councillor, Pete, brought us a heavy bag to fill and we got started.

Four of us cleared weeds from the beds, making space for a wider range of plants and pollinators in the spring. We spent a good chunk of time, and pretty much cleared the beds of all the 'weeds', meaning more plants will have a chance at growing - to the benefit of the humans and pollinators of Prospect Terrace!

We then went on a gentle 1.6km run to cap things off before heading to the Ackhorne

Marvellous Mitch took his team of 8 to meet Valiant Vicky at Park Grove School

(His legs were a bit worn out from his epic run yesterday, so Pete actually led the run, while Mitch pedalled slowly behind!)

Mitch said:

We arrived at Vicky's school and faced the large pile of soil we needed to shift. The task was to barrow and shovel this soil and fill in some raised beds.

In GG fashion we got stuck in. It may have been pitch black, some of us may have forgotten our headtorches, but after 40 minutes we made a massive dent in the pile!

One more session and we will have this pile cleared!

Legendary Leanne took her team of 7 to Fishergate Triangle to continue to prepare the ground for creating a wildflower meadow (aka weeding)

She said:

St Nicks were pleased to find that we could offer an extra session this week which may very well bring us closer to victory in the war against those remarkably resilient weeds. Fortunately they're much easier to dig up nowadays due to our previous efforts, and we managed to (re)clear two significant sections of the triangle. Our task owner, Maeve reported that there should soon be a delivery of woodchip which will be spread over the soil to slow down the regrowth and give the wildflower meadow a chance to get underway.

On the mention of a triangle-based fitness session on the way back to base, a trio of goodgymers mysteriously remembered they had some urgent business to attend to back home, so didn't run back with us. The last four standing made our way to Tower Gardens where we ran some intervals along the sides of the triangle there, and threw in some skipping, lunging and galloping for good measure.

Another successful trio of tasks completed. See you next week for more Goodgym York adventures!