Tonight's run included our longest ever run (by some runners), some orienteering style skills, hundreds of books, and an appreciation of some incredible art. 24 runners came together for a bit of a check up on the Leeds Little Free Libraries, with a fun build-your-own workout thrown in too!

Tonight involved lots of pre-run admin, with loads of different route choices on offer from a round trip of around 5k to over 15k! This meant we kept the news brief, but well done to anyone who ran at Liversedge Half at the weekend, some brilliant running in tough conditions.

We had one new runner joining us this week, welcome Sarah! We also had a Caroline on her first visit to us from Sheffield, and a few faces back for the second week. Great to have you all!

The plan for tonight's run was to split up into small groups, and try and reach as many of the Little Free Libraries as possible. They're all quite spread out, so it was no easy task! After deciding how far they wanted to run, everyone formed into groups with an assigned leader who had a map in hand and a little condition sheet. Some groups were heading for just one box, others two different boxes, and one group was trying to hit three in one session!

The Little Free Libraries are an amazing resource, that as the name says are completely free! They're essentially small cupboards that are spread about all over Leeds, and the idea is that you can borrow a book, or leave a book that you no longer want or need, and it just creates an amazing book-sharing community that hopefully gives more people more access to books.

When a group arrived at the box they had a few things on their list to check: * Is the perspex window free of cracks? * Is the post/wall mount secure? * Is the door in good condition? * Are the shelves loose or damaged? * Is there any other obvious damage?

Then they had to count the books in the library and it was time to build their own workout! The number of books defined the number of reps they had to do, and they would pick their own exercises, 3 in total. If you only went to one box, you did 3 x the number of books, with the reps reducing for the numbers of boxes visited. Easy! (Once I'd explained it a few times!) This was a great excuse for me to turn the fitness session over to the group to see what sort of exercises you would choose to do, and it's really interesting to see what you all came up with!

With everyone off in different directions, each group had their own challenges tonight. Some groups had big distances to cover, others had city-centre traffic to negotiate and others had some complicated navigation through winding suburban streets. For Paola, in only her second week, she loved the opportunity to challenge herself, picking the longest route on offer:

"I just thought, why not push myself?!" That's the spirit Paola!

As each group arrived at their boxes, they mostly found that they were in great condition, with only a few minor defects to reports. Mostly they were all pretty well stocked, with a good number of books and they all had some amazing artwork.

"Looks pretty spankers new" Riobhne

"The painting is glorious!" Adam

Then it was time for the workout! The books were counted, with reps therefore ranging from 18 to 50! It was great to hear afterwards how loads of you had made use of your surroundings incorporating the urban landscape into your drills. There were some repeats in the workouts but you did all of these amazing exercises:

*Push ups *Squats *Star jumps *Boxing punches *Wall sit *Step overs *Single leg romanian deadlift *Toe taps *Tricep dips *Lunges *Reverse lunges *Dynamic balance (writing with toes) *Pull ups

Unbelievable stuff! I'm very impressed with the variety in the exercises, and in most cases they looked like they were well thought-through with a mix of different muscles worked.

Everyone made their way back to base, in some cases finding the hills that little bit harder on the way back! One group even used the fair that is set up right near our base as a beacon to guide their way home. Beautiful!

We all reconvened back at base, with a healthy group stopping for a quick drink to swap stories catch up on the evenings events. Another fab session everyone, hope you all enjoyed it!

This was officially our coldest group run yet, with temperatures hovering just above freezing, but that didn't stop an incredible 24 runners from turning up! What has been lovely to see is that each week we're still seeing plenty of new runners, so keep telling your friends, colleagues and everyone you know about how awesome GoodGym is and get them involved!

This week's new intake were Lorraine, Faye, Suzanne, Hannah, Minnie and Karly. Give them all a cheer, they deserve it for coming out to their first group run when it was so chilly!

We also welcomed back Liz and taskforce Rach after their respective injuries.

After a quick warm up, we made our way down the hill towards the farm, with Aron in the lead, and Katie backmarking for us for the first time. She definitely deserves a cheer!

After some looping back to keep the group together, and some bonus squats while we waited for the lights to change, we arrived at the farm where Luke ran us through the tasks we needed to do.

Two of the lines of compost that we turned last time out needed to be combined into one, a brand new line of compost needed turning, and some sand bags which were being used to weigh down the covers needed swapping out for gravel bags.

The teams quickly formed, trying to spread out the head torches as best as possible, but the first ones to start making progress were the bag hunters. Adam, Katie, Tom, George and Rach grabbed their wheelbarrows and started the hunt. After the first few bags were found and swapped over, it soon became clear that searching for black bags in the dark, that were placed either on soil or black ground sheets, was quite a tricky task! The search took them everywhere including the vegetable patch:

"I have never been so amongst and within some brussels sprouts" Katie

The rest of the sandbag searchers continued their hunt, but with bags seemingly harder and harder to find, a cry of 'Sand Ahoy!' went up when one was spotted. That is a group getting into the real GoodGym spirit.

The other crew were by now up the hill turning over the soil. We learned that the piles of rotting vegetation could reach temperatures of up to 70 degrees celcius, and have even been used to grow pineapples! GoodGym is not just fun it's educational!

After last week's talk of favourite tools, this week we got to add pitchforks to our arsenal. One newby seems to have perfectly understood GoodGym from the start:

"I went for a pink pitchfork, it clashes with my trainers, but it'll all be brown in the end anyway so it doesn't matter!" Minnie, first timer

The soil turning was heavy work and everyone was working very hard, with steam coming off not just the compost but the runners as well. luckily the compost included the remains of apple pressing so the smell was a little more pleasant than last time were here. One runner still wasn't quite sure about the whole situation:

"It's like skiing in poo!" Abi

A particular shout-out needs to go to Alex who seemed to be doing the work of around 5 people at once! Every time I turned around he'd cleared a whole area by himself which was absolutely amazing!

Having been set the task of making the lines of compost as tall and narrow as possible, we had created some seriously impressive structures , although sometimes we'd been a little too ambitious and the piles collapsed. All in all it looked incredible, and amazing to see what can be done in such a short space of time.

As we brought everything to a close, Luke reiterated how much this work helps the project, because it's a task they basically wouldn't manage to do without us. So you can all bask in that warm glow of a job well done. He's also thinking of other projects we can get involved with, potentially including a crack team of scythers (probably not a word) who can be trained up and go on scything missions around Leeds which sounds ace! Watch this space!

With all the tools tidied away we headed back along the footpath, with a line of head torches bobbing along and a full moon to guide us.

The run home included one big hill (which I could pretty much copy and paste into every run report) so runners were able to take this at their own pace, with some taking it easy, and others racing ahead at the front. We all arrived back for a quick debrief and stretch, before everyone went their separate ways.

Don't forget that next week we have our social, hope to see you all there!

There was lots of news to share this week as we had two new taskforce members, Tom and Rachel and we had runners out this week at the Yorkshire 10 mile and Yorkshire Marathon! Well done everybody!

We also welcomed five new faces this week, Ian, Chris,Riobhne, Amanda, and Harriet. Go and give them all a cheer!

We had a quick warm up with our Big Wave and there was definitely some progress. I reckon we'll have that nailed in no time. The run out was super simple down one big hill, so we kept it nice and steady and looped back (up the hill) to keep everyone together. After crossing Kirkstall road with the lights that took an age, we were there at Seagulls Reuse!

It was amazing seeing you all running through the yard, completely mad, but it's great!" Kate, Task owner, Seagulls

We all piled in to the bright, light and airy space (which certainly makes a change from our recent tasks), and Kate ran though what we needed to do. There were some bright pink pillars that needed to be painted blue, and some shelves and a whole load of walls to be painted white.

Before we'd even finished talking, people had paintbrushes in hand, going straight for the pillars, obviously very excited to get going. Everyone else spread out along the walls with big rollers, small rollers and brushes, and basically started painting wherever they could reach.

Within seconds the pillars started to take shape, and our GoodGymmers gave their approval.

"I love this colour! I want it in my house!"

People were being very resourceful, switching places when then could no longer reach, moving stepladders around to where they were most needed, and generally just asking if they could paint everything! It was lovely to see, and it's great to see how the group already just dives into tasks, work together to get it done, but also seemingly have a great time doing it.

With around five minutes left, a few GoodGymmers even started washing the paint brushes, which meant one less job for the Seagulls crew.

With everything packed away we had time for some quick photos and then a a quick 'Tornado' workout in the yard, where we learned: * Lots of runners have medals hung up in their house * Almost nobody is actually from Leeds! * You've pretty much all taken running kit out of the wash to wear it again * You're all definitely going to be back for another GoodGym session!

We then jogged back up the monster hill (with more looping round) until we all made it back to base for a stretch.

Unfortunately Rachel rolled her ankle on the run back and is going to be out of action for 6 weeks, so she definitely needs some love! Go and give her a cheer!

26 runners ran 3km to help Hyde Park Source with a range of tasks at the Rosebank Garden

GoodGym Leeds is really starting to feel like it's coming together nicely. It's so great to see returning faces, lots of happy chatter and first timers just getting stuck in like they've been here since week one. You guys are ace!

We had 5 new runners this week: Elizabeth, Pete, Derya, and Julia who is our first task owner to come along and get involved in the run from the start! They all deserve a massive cheer! Go and give them some love.

After last week's deluge during the task we had a lovely autumn evening tonight. We did a quick "Jump in, Jump out, Jump left, Jump right" warm up to get everyone's heart rate up, and more importantly to get everyone laughing!

Then we took a slightly longer route to the task so we could make the most of the fading light and a beautiful Leeds evening. Heather was on backmarking duty this week, making sure nobody got left behind.

Once we'd made it to the Rosebank, and grabbed our tools, Julia set us four tasks:

• Clearing a big patch of brambles
• Litter picking around the edge of the park
• Leaf collecting for leaf mulch
• Planting bulbs

Everyone got straight to it and within seconds there was a buzz of activity. A pile of brambles formed within minutes, and separate bags of leaves and litter and were filling up nicely. We had a concerned local resident wondering what exactly we were up to, doing all of this in the dark, and while we couldn't quite convince him to join in, once he knew what we were doing he appreciated our efforts.

Over at the bulb planting, Julia was giving a lovely description of how the crocuses and daffodils needed to be planted, but one of our GoodGymmers (who will remain nameless) just wasn't quite taking it in...

"I'm not really sure what I'm doing to be honest!"

Loving the honesty there! We're all learning at GoodGym, so I'm sure you'll be a bulb planting pro in no time! We had a bit of drama when we uncovered what could have been some electrics (which we left well alone) but in the end we got lots of bulbs planted, and it will be great to come back in spring and see them in bloom!

The last things to do were to chop up the brambles and pile them back onto the verge where they could break down, and give the paths a quick sweep.

Julia was very happy with what we managed to achieve:

"We normally only get a chance to sort out the Rosebank once a month with our action day, so it's really great that you could help us with all this!"

Even the fitness session wasn't enough to wipe the smile off everyone's faces! We decided to make use of the Rosebank's cool stone circles and paths and have ourselves a circuits session. We had 5 stations:

• Squats
• Modified press-ups
• Shuttle runs
• Tricep dips
• Step-ups

We had one round of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off, followed by a second round of 40 seconds on 20 seconds off. It was great to see the synchronised step-ups, one team adding their own extra difficulty with jumping squats, and the great teamwork that everyone showed. I particularly loved chief motivator Dave who was keeping the troops working hard when they we finding it tough. He definitely deserves an extra cheer!

With our workout done, we headed back to base, with a bit of student slalom, for a quick stretch and debrief.

Thanks for another awesome session tonight, I can't wait for next week already!