Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas tree, why’d you block the pavement.

On the first Goodgym Redbridge run of a new decade, 10 runners turned up to hunt Christmas trees and ran 5 miles in the process. You gotta love January!

The first run of January is always one of our favourites. Not only do we get to catch up on all the things that have happened over the festive period but we get to do one of our bestest tasks - Christmas tree hunting.

Each January, trees are kicked to the curb, their limbs bare of needles, unloved and unwanted. Unfortunately, they also block pavements and generally make the place a bit untidy. Redbridge Council do, in fact, have a collection service but trees must be left near bins and despite this some still get dumped on roadside.

Armed with gardening gloves, maps of the local area and plenty of Goodgym spirit, pairs and trios headed off into the night to hunt down those pesky Xmas trees and drag them to the recycling centre some 3km away. No one quite knows how many or how big the trees will be but the aim was to transport at least six trees to the centre.

45 minutes later, the team had found seven trees in the local area with Cedric and Kathryn winning the award for two trees and John and Julia collecting a monster of a specimen - it was no mean feat to get that tree all the way there.

All that was left was a run back to base for some easy stretching and some delicious blueberry cake, expertly baked by Sharon! Thank you!

Goodgym is on a drive to do 8,000 tasks and run 100,000km in January. If you fancy helping us crush this goal you can sign up to next week’s run here!