GOODGYM YORK FINISHED THE NEVER-ENDING FOOTPATH!!!

It's been over a year of hard graft; countless group runs, community missions and GG Yorkies joining the St Nicks Friday crew, but tonight we laid the last wheelbarrow of limestone on the footpath at Heworth Holme, it was momentous.

Joining us on this very special occasion were new runners Simon and Vicky, who bought into our excitement with great enthusiasm (give 'em a good old cheer).

We arrived at the pile of limestone and Mitch was loaded with a wheelbarrow faster than you could say "spade". The limestone 'pit-stop' was quite spectacular with wheelbarrows stopping in for less than 6 seconds to be filled with stone. In luls between wheelbarrows we even tried some loaded spade exercises including deadlifts, lunges and overhead presses.

We've found a short cut!

Would you believe it. Months after we started work here and we actually found a path that was both slightly shorter and a bit easier to get to the middle of the footpath. Wheelbarrows whizzed up and down whilst John and Val raked all the stone into place and new runner Simon was in charge of compressing the loose stone with a tamper.

With the last few wheelbarrows lined up, we gathered together to witness the final stones being tipped on. Definitely missed out on the opportunity to pop a champagne cork but there was no time for that because we had to run all the tools back to the top of the path before completing a victory run across our whole new beautiful and complete limestone footpath.

Three laps of the new bit, fast feet!

On Simon's suggestion, we did three little loops of the new section with fast feet, bunny hopping and stomping to really bed it in. We then ran onto Glen Gardens for a mini-sprints fitness session and a variety of exercises:

• Squat Jumps
• Press-ups
• Jump lunges
• Mountain Climbers
• Explosive Jacks
• Going down the slide (optional)

After we stretched out, Jonathan of St Nicks joined us at the pub with various tins of cake to help us celebrate the completion of the footpath. There was even really posh stuff like gin & lime cake and apple sourdough cake!

The end of an era. It's been emotional. 'Til next week!

Another night, another time we didn't finish the path. Alas! I was sure we would this time..

This limestone path at Heworth Holme has been keeping us busy for over a year now and it's mouth-wateringly close to being finished. I was trying to remain positive but all the regulars were in doubt that we would get it done. Katie - a fairly new runner - was being positive with me.

I'm running with untainted optimism! - Katie

New runners Anna and Emily grabbed some spades and started shovelling as we put 40 minutes on the clock.

There was residual limestone at one end of the path, a massive pile of it at at the other end and the empty section right in the middle that needed filling. Karen was busy trying to tidy up the weedguard around the corners before the wheelbarrows of limestone landed - and Jonathan had to pedal really fast back to St Nicks for more weedguard because some baddie had nicked the roll that had been left.

Nick (actual Nick, not St Nick) managed to end up with a squeaky barrow and everyone kept thinking there was a whining dog sneaking up on them as he went back and forth at an amazing pace.

Time ticked away quickly and with only five minutes remaining, we knew that this would not be the time we finished the path. Lucy was finishing up the raking in the middle section and was struggling to stop as she was mesmerised by the biscuit-base appearance of the limestone.

It's so good, it's making me think of cheesecake.

We took all the wheelbarrows and tools back to the end and weren't too despondent as not finishing meant that we just get to go back and have more path-building fun another day!

We finished our run with a mini glute and hamstring workout before a nice stretch on the floor.