Another two-task Monday for the GG Yorkies!

It had been a weekend of brilliant running with 5k parkrun PBs happening all over the place, half marathon PBs at Harewood House, 30k epics and mountain adventures, but that didn't stop Paul leading one group on a huge 10k run to Rawcliffe Bar Country Park whilst Becky led a 5.5km group to Heworth Holme.

We welcomed along a new runner John, husband of GG Yorkie Lauren. He thought he'd sensibly picked the shorter route but had worn shiny clean trainers and nobody had told him that the shorter run always has a longer fitness session...

At Rawcliffe Bar, the task was to continue digging up hardcore from the spot we'd previously removed the wetpour from. The hardcore needed to be shifted under three benches in the play area, but first the ground needed to be lined with weedguard.

Carl was on hand to cut the membrane very precisely and was busy comparing the leg length of the different benches, which didn't really impact on the membrane cutting whatsoever, but it's always nice to know the different heights of benches anyway.

At Heworth Holme, half the group were tasked with digging up and bagging soil from mounds which had been formed from the creation of wildlife scrapes. After Bec quickly discovered that you definitely don't want to step in the scrapes because they're extremely boggy, it only took the team about ten minutes to fill all the bags.

We need more bags!

Luckily the other half of the group had stolen some bags which they didn't need. They were tasked with digging more wildlife scrapes and err... making more mounds of soil.

Is this another task which Jonathan has just made up?!

The wildlife scrapes and wetland area will be amazing once finished, but it's a process and the digging and bagging will continue for a while. With every blue bag in sight filled, the bagging team shifted all the bags to the entrance and started helping with the scrapes. Helen gave a handy explanation of the task:

Gotta dig this sludge, put it over there

We waited until everyone had really, really dirty and wet feet before finishing up and running back to base, where a little core session followed.

I LOVE mountain climbers (possibly sarcastic Leanne)

We grabbed all the long run team's bags and transported them to the pub ready for collection. Huw had made some lovely flapjack and we even saved them some of that too. They weren't too far behind us though and Paul Kelly's summary when I asked how it was said it all.

It was hardcore.

On GG York's 2nd birthday, a big crew rocked up to run, get fit, dig clay and celebrate!

We were joined by two brand new runners, so let's give some big ol' Yorkie cheers to Amy and Savannah. Also worth a cheer, team Beningbrough who collectively clocked something like 240km yesterday for the January Challenge, nice one.

Extraordinary Ed ran his 22nd good deed in 21 days and also got to wear the Cape of Good Deeds as he did his 50th on Friday, whilst Jolly Jenna was running her 50th tonight, and got to wear the cape on the way back. Make sure you give them both some cheers too, 50 good deeds is a brilliant achievement.

After a bunched up warm up (even a car park isn't enough space for us), we headed off for Heworth Holme - where our task was to dig up lots of lovely clay, bag it in heavy duty blue rubble bags and carry it a couple of hundred metres to the end of the path. The clay is to be used to create a new wetlands area at St Nick's Nature Reserve.

The hardest part of the task was figuring out what was soil and what was clay. The clay was much firmer than the soil and could be dug out in blocks. Some people were poking it to see if it felt clay-like whilst others just dug massive holes and took whatever was deepest.

It didn't take very long for us to fill every single bag (around 40), so with a bit of time to spare, we kept digging more holes to make 'wildlife scrapes', which are temporary ponds for wetland wildlife.

After the task we ran over to our favourite birthday workout spot, Morrisons Tower. We had a speedy mini circuit session including all of these treats:

• walking lunges
• sprint circuit
• sit squats
• press ups
• tricep dips
• single leg sits
• mountain climbers

Love the lunges, it's a bit like stretching! (new member Savannah, already my favourite)

We ran back, enjoying the climb of Micklegate Cobbles and then celebrated our birthday with a beautiful bit of cake made by Vicky.

If you want to join us tomorrow to empty out all those bags of clay and get mucky compressing them into the base of a pond - you can sign up here.

Another enormous group of GG Yorkies ran to finish off the Hull Road Park footpath!

It was only our second group run of the year and once again, we welcomed along a fabulous batch of brand new runners. Not only that but we had some massive celebrations as run leader Paul had run a huge PB at the Brass Monkey Half Marathon, 'Bad Jim' Max was running his 50th good deed and Aidan was running his 100th good deed! Max and Aidan donned their respective capes with pride as we headed out on our run - go and give 'em all a cheer for being so awesome.

Everyone was in for a treat as we had four tasks to complete:

• Digging and barrowing four tonnes of limestone onto our newly dug out path
• Widening one last section of path with spades
• Digging and barrowing three tonnes of sand (see note)
• Cutting a hedge about a foot shorter, so it was even with the one opposite

*Note; it wasn't sand. It was 'self-binding path gravel'.

Last week we definitely used sand.

When we said the sand couldn't possibly do anything, we were right! Max and Craig

Ellie B had come prepared. She had string. Her plan was to tie the string at the right height along the hedge to ensure everyone snipped a perfectly straight line, genius! After about 15 minutes of chopping and lopping, I noticed the string was hooked around a sticky out branch and definitely was not making a straight line. Team hack were doing an excellent job though, probably the straightest hedge I've ever seen without an electric hedge-trimmer in sight.

Leanne, Paul Kelly and Tom were on path-widening. This was quite a skilled task, actually anything requiring a straight line of any sort of quite a skilled task, especially in the dark. They were extremely meticulous and by the time they'd finished, the whole path was a perfect 1.2m wide, with the new edges quickly filled with limestone.

Team limestone were working hard. There were two great big piles to clear, just enough to finish the last of the footpath. Several big rocks were in amongst the piles and had to be extracted and transported to the edge of the beck.

The self-binding path gravel team originally did not believe they could clear their many bags. As the piles were dropped on top of all the limestone, a squad of rakers, tampers and stompers ensured the path was all compressed with a perfect camber. The gravel was cleared it with a massive 10 minutes to spare, giving the team extra time for stomping to really bed it all in.

With all the limestone and gravel cleared, we took all the tools back to the store and finished off with a STOMP-TASTIC exit along our new footpath. We gave a whole new meaning to "functional fitness" as we used a few different exercises to stomp down the gravel as much as possible.

It's like a GoodGym army! - Issy

We stomped, bounced, lunged, bunny-hopped and high-knee'd our way out of the park, all on our lovely new footpath.

Next Monday - join us for a run to Heworth Holme where you can enjoy the footpath we built last year, yay!