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!

👋 20 GoodGymmers met on a sunny evening for our group run. We were thrilled to welcome a few new faces. Beattie was visiting from London while Paddy has recently moved up after doing a few sessions with GG Bristol. Ivana and Rachel both came along for their first GG sessions tonight. It was brilliant to meet you all and we hope we’ll see you again soon.

🍝 We named, numbered and warmed up while discussing our favourite nostalgic food from childhood. Macaroni cheese was a surprise hit, along with various snacks and the like. We were soon ready to run off for our task.

🍎 We were headed to Leeman’s Park Community Orchard where we were helping Abundance York with various jobs. Mitch and Rich immediately nabbed the litter pickers to form “Team Apple”, also nominating themselves as bad and good apple respectively. Their job was to pick up any windfall apples and assign them into the good or bad apple boxes. Sadly, there were significantly more bad apples than good apples, but that was apparently to be expected and even the bad apples were making their way to the wildlife area so will hopefully help some wildlife.

🍓 Meanwhile, “Team dead raspberry” were cutting back dead raspberry canes to help them regrow and produce more raspberries next summer. Others were tackling the big bramble and thistle patches, with scythes, loppers and forks. Louise was delighted with the progress there, and Paddy seemed equally delighted to get to use a scythe for the first time 💪

🏃‍♀️🏃Lots of progress was made and it was soon time for a group photo before the party pacers started their slightly more leisurely jog back to base. The rest of us did a quick relay-based fitness session (accompanied by a very enthusiastic small dog) before heading to the river towards base.

🦺 Unfortunately, our arrival back to base was delayed after a few eagle-eyed GoodGymmers spotted someone in the river. Some incredibly quick thinking and acting meant we were able to reach her with a life ring and pull her out while Abigail called for an ambulance. Our resident paramedic Lyndsay arrived on scene first and was able to liaise with the ambulance crew when they arrived. Thank you everyone for your heroic efforts that may well have saved someone’s life.

🍻 Once back at base, some of us decided that a pub trip was definitely needed, to end a very unusual evening.

🥳 21 excellent GoodGymmers joined our bank holiday group run-social bonanza this evening.

🍹 We named, numbered and warmed up while discussing our favourite soft drinks. Elderflower and Irn-Bru (not together) were our slightly unexpected winners, alongside some classics (water and tea) and other interesting additions (anything with rhubarb in and homemade lemonade). Feeling slightly thirsty thanks to that, we set off on our run to Holgate Community Orchard.

🌺 It’s still incredibly exciting to see the transformation that we’ve been part of there. The plot we worked on originally is no longer mud but a grass and wildflower haven. There’s still plenty of work to do though, and speaking of mud, our talk today was to start digging over another patch of soil, which will also hopefully be transformed soon, this time into a wildflower meadow, with some bee-friendly additions.

💪 Alongside the digging over, we were also digging out brambles and anything else we could find. This required some hard work and a variety of techniques, including the classic jumping on the spade. Some of the brambles had particularly large roots, giving quite the sense of achievement when they finally came out. Alongside this were some other unusual finds, including what looked like a very old steering lock. Pete was also tasked with digging out “random metal items”. Having shown his penchant for it, he was requested by Helen to dig out two large metal poles that may or may not have been used for growing raspberries at some point 🤷‍♀️

🌳 Our diggers were so efficient that we soon had to expand our area, which Helen was delighted about. We also had a small group “branch” off to do some stick-sorting. A big pile needed stripping and sorting by size, the larger ones being put out for reuse, the smaller ones being used for compost.

🧩 With 10 minutes to go, Helen from the allotments suggested we start covering the soil over. We weren’t satisfied to leave a wonky line though, so I attempted to draw a straight-ish line to work towards. This was done with aplomb and efficiency, with the coverings being reapplied effectively. This required a bit of covering Tetris as we attempted to piece together the assortment of coverings of various shapes. There was a tense moment when Michael and Nick thought they’d found the perfect spot for their piece, only to learn it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the puzzle! Fortunately, Michael quickly found a substitute spot for it so all was not lost.

🎭 After all that drama, it was time for a group photo on our slightly less picturesque soil, in front of the beautifully-converted area behind. A short blast of fitness “enjoyed” (endured?) by most, hidden from (in a bush, literally) by others meant we were ready for the next part of the evening.

ℹ️ We also noticed that we got a mention on the new information board about the orchard, which is pretty exciting.

🍻 Steve and Mitch has kindly brought down some alcohol-free beer, courtesy of Athletic Brewing (one of GoodGym’s sponsors), which we enjoyed in the surroundings of the Community Orchard. Others had brought snacks to share, including some homegrown figs and apples, and homemade raspberry cake (and not to forgot the ever-so-important Red Leicester Mini Cheddars for Abigail!) A jolly time was had by all, until we started getting eaten alive slightly by various biting insects. That was our cue to leave so we parted ways and there ended our evening.

👏 Thank you everyone, see you again soon!