Thorn in our Side

21 GG Yorkies rocked up on our 21st group run where we celebrated Leanne's 50th good deed and bid farewell to poster-boy , Alex.

We saw a few old faces on tonight's group run too, it's great to see people back after a little break - sometimes life gets hectic or you get injured but GoodGym will always be here ready to welcome you back into the fold.

After a rapturous round of applause for Leanne, we awarded her the Cape of Good Deeds (make sure you give her a massive cheer!) Becky and Mel had assessed the map on the task sheet and commented that the route took us past all the places we have previously been er.. navigationally challenged. In my opinion the best way to get to know a place is to get lost and find yourself again. Anyway, they led from the front and did an excellent job too.

We ran 3km North to get to our task location, where we were greeted by Tony - one of a small group of the Friends of Clifton Backies. This area is an ancient wildflower meadow with a long and varied history. Our job was to cut back the blackthorn which was encroaching on the meadow itself, it has started as a small hedgerow and was now a rampant, spiky brute which needed taking care of.

The best part of the task was getting rid of the cuttings. Blackthorn branches had to be launched as far up and over as possible, there was some exceptional javelin technique going on!

In 25 minutes we had made some serious progress, for a 40m stretch of hedge we had cleared 3m back.

Thank you all so much for doing a huge amount of work which would have taken us ages! - Tony, FoCB

Alex had the honour of choosing the exercise du jour for the group photo - he wisely chose a lunge, excellent. We then headed out of the reserve to bosh a 5 minute workout using the trees as interval markers.

• sprints
• walking lunges
• bunny hops
• high skips

Not only that but we had some sneaky exercise on the way back too. When the group got separated at a road crossing, we made good use of the time by doing an inch worm, which escalated into several inch worms.. and then Alex, Becky and Michal started raising the bar and getting into a burpee-off. The others were very glad they were on the other side of the road.

We also had an excellent showing at the pub to say goodbye to the lovely Alex, he's been with us since almost the very beginning and we hope GoodGym comes to Newcastle soon to make him happy.