I always enjoy the return to a familiar routine following the long Christmas/New Year break. So it was great to be back out again on a Tuesday night, running with the GoodGym crew and undertaking what is rapidly becoming a GoodGym Huddersfield speciality, litter picking and removing fly tipping.

Over the new year period I had been out identifying some local spots that could benefit from a little GoodGym attention, and on my travels I had identified a number of beds and mattresses which had been dumped. These and a multitude of other discarded items were to be our targets on a roving rubbish run.

It was great to see the usual GoodGym Guys all arrive for the run, although I have to admit to being a little disappointed that none of the new year GoodGym Huddersfield sign ups made it this week. If you’re deliberating whether to come on a group run or not, just give it a go- it would be great to have you along, and your attendance help contribute towards our January GoodGym Challenge target.

Anyway GoodGym regulars Ben Godfrey, Kati Law, Louise Galvin, Heather Wilshaw Jones, Chris Green and myself were all up, running and ready for the task ahead. After a warm up and about a kilometre of running Longley Woods provided us with our first litter of the night, plus an abandoned motorbike, which we elected to leave in situ. Deeper into the woods however were a number of bed bases, mattresses, a hi-fi and a couple of boards (of the skate and ironing variety), which could all be extracted.

It took a group effort to heave the heavy, rain sodden mattresses to the edge of the woods and heave them over the boundary fence, but it was certainly well worth the workout. Twenty minutes later we had a huge stack of refuse left in an accessible spot for Kirklees Council’s street cleansing department to collect the following day.

There was no rest for the GoodGymmers though, our next stop was Newsome Road Playing Fields. More beds, mattresses, suitcases, a couple of children’s armchairs and about a million bottles and cans were removed from the undergrowth there. This time we had to carry the items about 100 metres to leave them at the pre-arranged collection spot. Ironically (and somewhat pleasingly) a local resident actually accused us of fly tipping! She did however seem satisfied with the explanation that we were engaged in a legitimate GoodGym clean up and that a man and a van from the Council would be along in the morning to remove the mountain of waste we had collected.

Job done, it was then simply a matter of running downhill and them back to the Stadium. Strangely once you start collecting rubbish you begin to see it everywhere, and on our way back we identified one or two other locations for future litter blitzes.

Despite a very physical session there seemed to be enough energy (or maybe adrenaline) left in our legs to push the pace on for the last mile, and we all arrived back at the Stadium feeling throughly worked out.

I would like to finish but properly thanking last night’s GoodGym crew. The task was fun, but litter picking and fly tip blitzing always has its dirty, smelly, unpleasant elements. However as usual GoodGym Huddersfield simply got stuck in without complaint and got a good job done. Thanks guys, there is a little bit of Huddersfield that looks a lot better this morning as a result of your efforts.