Wednesday 16th October 2019
Report written by Aron Fulton
26 runners ran 3km to help Hyde Park Source with a range of tasks at the Rosebank Garden
GoodGym Leeds is really starting to feel like it's coming together nicely. It's so great to see returning faces, lots of happy chatter and first timers just getting stuck in like they've been here since week one. You guys are ace!
We had 5 new runners this week: Elizabeth, Pete, Derya, and Julia who is our first task owner to come along and get involved in the run from the start! They all deserve a massive cheer! Go and give them some love.
After last week's deluge during the task we had a lovely autumn evening tonight. We did a quick "Jump in, Jump out, Jump left, Jump right" warm up to get everyone's heart rate up, and more importantly to get everyone laughing!
Then we took a slightly longer route to the task so we could make the most of the fading light and a beautiful Leeds evening. Heather was on backmarking duty this week, making sure nobody got left behind.
Once we'd made it to the Rosebank, and grabbed our tools, Julia set us four tasks:
Everyone got straight to it and within seconds there was a buzz of activity. A pile of brambles formed within minutes, and separate bags of leaves and litter and were filling up nicely. We had a concerned local resident wondering what exactly we were up to, doing all of this in the dark, and while we couldn't quite convince him to join in, once he knew what we were doing he appreciated our efforts.
Over at the bulb planting, Julia was giving a lovely description of how the crocuses and daffodils needed to be planted, but one of our GoodGymmers (who will remain nameless) just wasn't quite taking it in...
"I'm not really sure what I'm doing to be honest!"
Loving the honesty there! We're all learning at GoodGym, so I'm sure you'll be a bulb planting pro in no time! We had a bit of drama when we uncovered what could have been some electrics (which we left well alone) but in the end we got lots of bulbs planted, and it will be great to come back in spring and see them in bloom!
The last things to do were to chop up the brambles and pile them back onto the verge where they could break down, and give the paths a quick sweep.
Julia was very happy with what we managed to achieve:
"We normally only get a chance to sort out the Rosebank once a month with our action day, so it's really great that you could help us with all this!"
Even the fitness session wasn't enough to wipe the smile off everyone's faces! We decided to make use of the Rosebank's cool stone circles and paths and have ourselves a circuits session. We had 5 stations:
We had one round of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off, followed by a second round of 40 seconds on 20 seconds off. It was great to see the synchronised step-ups, one team adding their own extra difficulty with jumping squats, and the great teamwork that everyone showed. I particularly loved chief motivator Dave who was keeping the troops working hard when they we finding it tough. He definitely deserves an extra cheer!
With our workout done, we headed back to base, with a bit of student slalom, for a quick stretch and debrief.
Thanks for another awesome session tonight, I can't wait for next week already!
Leeds
It will provide areas for local residents to harvest free soft fruits