Our 2nd ever official Monday Night Group Ride saw a fab turnout of 23 GoodGym Yorkies on a beautiful spring evening. We started off welcoming newcomer, Andy before a quick run through the weekend's achievements, which David absolutely smashing the challenging White Horse Marathon and the absent Rich completing the frankly ridiculous Fred Whitton Sportive. We'll let him off for deciding to rest his legs this evening!

Tonight's task was at Yearsley Grove Primary School, which is a good 4km or so away, so Nick led a perfectly punctual run out for about 5 or so people, whilst the rest of the group hopped onto 2 wheels and cycled to the task. We might need a bit of practice sticking together as a biker gang when we realised less people had arrived than we had set off with, but eventually everyone wad accounted for and the task could start

At Yearsley Grove, we met Amanda and Adele who gave us a run through of what was needed and set us off to work, with half the crew focused on a general garden tidy up and the other half helping caretaker Malcolm with starting to put together some new raised beds.

James S was soon getting stuck in with the sledgehammer and knocking in new posts for the raised beds, whilst everyone tackled the weeds that had built up across the garden. Full wheelbarrows of weeds were then being taken across the play area and dumped to the side out of the way.

Does stuff mean biscuits - Max

With the task getting towards completion and the GG crew having weeded every inch of the garden, there was a timely boost of cups of squash and chocolate biscuits, to give everyone a bit of energy before the fitness session

As Ed is still injured, the fitness course was perfectly modelled by Lucy who demonstrated the route which involved hopping on one foot, little jumps before a standing long jump, throwing a ball into a hoop type thing before a sprint race. 3 circuits of the course seemed to be enough yo keep everyone entertained and not too tired out for the run/ride home

A fab bank holiday turnout of 21 GoodGym Yorkies, saw us tackle a variety of tasks at the Wild Things Forest School. With Ed being injured tonight's group run was a Tristan Takeover special and he got the crew warmed up with some running drills after we'd given a cheer for those who completed the Bluebell Trail 10 miler at the weekend.

After the short run out to the task we met Emma from Wild Things who gave us an overview of tonight's activities, including painting a shed, putting down some chicken wire around the pond, taking some old timber to the skip, cleaning a massive tent and cutting back some plants. We then split into our various groups and got to work

Martin had already got stuck into dismantling one of the outdoor kitchen areas before we arrived, so the rest of the group were playing catch up and the site was very quickly a hive of activity! There was action everywhere you looked, with scrubbing, painting, hammering and chopping all going on.

Over at the pond, Cara was doing an excellent job of supervising Paul and Steve's chicken wire laying. Whilst the shed painting crew found the conditions challenging with some inferior paint and, according to Jane, Bab's interesting techniques! Before too long the various tasks drew to a close and it was time for Tristan's fitness session.

The group was split into 4 teams and were then pitted against each other in a series of shuttles runs. It was a simple enough start with regular sprints, but soon got more challenging with high knees, skipping (Tristan's personal fave!) and eventually a conga line.

Big thanks to Tristan for leading a fab session. Don't forget next week's session will be a group ride rather than run (although we will still have a running group but it's a good 5km each way)

Another load of bays successfully cleared of their compost by the crack team of Goodgymers after the 4th visit to West Bank Park in just over a couple of weeks

This time Ed took up the role of the man in the skip, helping to lift the barrage of barrows and position the compost where it needed to be

There were definitely some tired legs (and heads) out there today with David having completed an ultra over the weekend, Ed having done the Helmsley 10k and a few people spending a chunk of the previous day in the pub. But we got a load done before a few people headed on to a café for some well-earned tea and cake

This week's group run marked the start of GoodGym's new Workout for Nature campaign in association with the WWF. Surprisingly, the campaign does not involve wearing lyrca underwear and pretending fight so we had to give that a miss this week. Instead it aims to get people to take part in physical activity to benefit local green spaces. With that in mind we made the short journey to West Bank Park to help turn their compost bins back into a usable resource.

When we arrived, a fleet of wheelbarrows was waiting, along with a selection of tools. We all initially paired off (not like that) and then split into two groups to attack the different compost bins around the park. A pleasing selection of tools was available enabling us to free-form various methods to break up the compost and get it into the barrows.

The waste compost was barrowed to a giant skip where Pete adopted the role of site foreman and marshaled tipping the waste so it would fill the skip safelt and evenly. Initial skip runs were literally runs but the weight of the compost was such that these soon slowed down to a more sensible pace. Team one kept things interesting and local chiropractors in business by pulling their loaded barrows up some steps. Team two played with a dog. Badly.

The task seemed to fly by, especially for me as for once I was leading and not doing it. We made a good dint in both the compost bins but there is plenty left to go at for next week.

After the task, we did an animal themed group exercise in the park which was honestly much simpler than everyone made it look. Wildlife box ticked we headed back to Priory Street to enjoy the novelty of a cool down in daylight.