It was a very warm evening in Liverpool. Sefton park was very busy with people enjoying the evening sun, picnics, ball games and singing.

In a corner of the park runners were gathering to run the annual Tony Barnes Memorial 5-Mile run. Tony Barnes was a member of the Mossley Hill athletics club and when he passed away his community started this run in his honour.

Waiting at the start line were Sophie, Bekah and Steph. Lots of other runners were in their packs of running club mates, it was both reassuring and intimidating to our goodgym runners… this would be a great run but also a challenging one with lots of strong runners picking up the pace.

Me and Aatefa pitched up at the intersection where runners would pass multiple times as they made their way in a figure of eight around the lake and around the top of the park. Sallyann cheered on the runners from the pavillion area of the park.

It was a gruelling run in the heat. Lots of runners were visibly struggling but all three of our goodgym runners managed to smash the 5-miler (8km) race in under an hour. Steph came in at 58.38, a whole 12 mins under her predicted 1hr 10mins. Bekah came in at 52.54, a whopping 3.20 mins faster than her time last year. And Sophie came in at just 45.34, an amazing achievement.

Once our runners were finished it was time to head to the picnic tables for our annual picnic, Dike and Ellie joined us and there was so much delicious food we had enough for all of us to take lunch for the next two days! Special mention for Steph’s homemade brownies, Bekah’s famous salt and pepper sausage rolls, and Dike’s incredible effort into cooking fried chicken wraps and fried plantain. He may have decided not to run the race but more than made up for it in his cooking efforts. We all decided that Dike had set a level of expectation in us all that would mean he would have to prepare this for every future gathering.

It was so nice to stay out until late in the park and enjoy this summer tradition. Well done runners and thank you to everyone for making a great picnic.