On a drizzly autumnal evening, 35 GG Yorkies pitched up to complete a whole load of tasks at Westbank Park.

There were no big milestones this week so we gave a cheer to everyone who had completed the Great North Run at the weekend and we mostly celebrated being in possession of the Golden Trowel. For anyone who doesn't know, the Golden Trowel is a mystical item awarded to the winner of the January Challenge, and we only just recently retrieved it from the 2018 winners, GoodGym Bristol. There are many, many photos of us enjoying the trowel, take your time to peruse them all!

With (his full title is getting longer) Amazing GG Yorkie Original and GG Leeds Trainer Aron supporting tonight and Pete as our back marker, we headed over to Westbank Park where we had all of 50 minutes to complete the following:

• raking up all the arisings from the wildflower meadow
• piling said arisings onto giant tarps to drag to compost heap
• clearing overgrown nettles from in front of compost area
• taking all good compost out of four small compost bins into the one big one
• taking all woody and non-compostables out of four small into giant non-compostable pile
• removing dodgy graffiti from picnic bench area
• cutting back overgrown brambles/nettles from picnic area
• cutting back overgrown ivy from the paved tunnel

Phew! Luckily we had a LOT of tools and Debs even blagged using a battery powered strimmer (with mandatory eye protection).

The rakers made swift work of the arisings and were waiting for the nettle slashers to create a clear path for tarps full of piles of wet grass to be dragged through. Everyone took one giant step back for Debs to go large with the strimmer and clear a space for the first tarp.

It was an impressive sight, seeing a carpet of grass being hoisted onto a giant compost bin, and with most of the nettles slashed or strimmed it was now a hive of activity as the newly accessible compost bins could have all the compost shifted out into the one giant compost bin.

Ellie and Paul and had taken on the graffiti removal challenge. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos of the graffti.

It was sweary, crude and had possible GDPR implications - Ellie

With five minutes to go, the compost crew had finished and were gathering tools, whilst all the other task teams were just finishing up. A huge amount had been achieved in 50 minutes and after a group piccie, we marked our achievement with a sprinty fitness session.

It's flying 30s, but uphill and longer!

The goal was to take a very easy downhill recovery, accelerate along the flat, sprint up the gentle hill, decelerate into the final corner and recover again.... as many times as possible in five minutes. Ellie and Paul were an excellent cheer squad and kept everyone very motivated for this short but tough fitness sesh.

Next week, Aron is in charge of fitness and it's going to be brilliant, so don't miss it!

32 GG Yorkies ran 6km to help tidy up Fishponds Wood.

Before the festivities commenced, there was a lot to celebrate including:

• Barbara completing her 100th parkrun
• Laurence coming first at York Parkrun and getting a parkrun PB
• Nick, Stef, Lindsay and others running 10ks in Tholthorpe and Wetherby

Lindsay was announced as GG Yorkie of the Month for August. Lindsay had set herself a goal to complete her 50th good deed by the end of the month and absolutely smashed it with loads of community and older people missions. She also ventured out of York on some GoodGym tourism, and completed a top secret mission to collect the January Challenge golden trowel from Bristol in the process. Give her a cheer!

We welcomed no less than three new runners:

• Elyse (who was a big help with setting up. I think that counts as her induction into Team Tall!)
• Jean-Michel
• Lin Lee

In sadder news, we acknowledged Tom's last run with GoodGym York. We'll look forward to checking out his antics with GoodGym Swindon in the near future.

At Fishponds Wood, Kristina greeted us with a van full of tools. Each runner selected their weapon of choice before venturing into the woods to complete our tasks for the day which were:

• Edging the paths
• Raking up arisings
• Cutting back nettles

The group split into three teams and got to work. Martyn wasn't too satisfied with his tool and announced

I'm going to find one of those diggy things

Meanwhile, Max was having fun with the leaf blowers, trying to create himself some sort of Iron Man suit.

Paul Kelly told me that I should boss people around more - and then immediately followed up with 'not me - I should get special treatment.' It turned out that the group were working well together and needed hardly any bossing about. Within half an hour, everything was looking a whole lot tidier.

Burpees for Sean

On the way back to base, we stopped off for a very special fitness session.

Following the sad news that local hero and GoodGym Yorkie, Sean Coxhead lost his battle to cancer yesterday, it seemed fitting to exercise in his memory. A few weeks ago, Sean had messaged a few of us to let us know that he only had a few weeks left to live. Egg asked him 'What can we do to make your weeks as good as possible?'

Make em do burpees for me :) buahaha (Sean)

So in memory of the wonderful (if slightly evil) Sean, we did a lot of burpees, with added planks, plank jacks, rotating planks and plank walkouts.