🎵 "Oh what a beautiful morning..." 🎵

When Goodgymmers John and Jacqueline mentioned they were coming up from London to do a Parkrun in Liverpool, Sallyann quickly mobilised to arrange a warm Liverpool welcome. Despite it not being the usual monthly Goodgym Parkrun date - and therefore no prized stickers on offer to tempt people - she rallied a fabulous turnout.

On a gorgeous crisp bright autumn morning, we welcomed back Laura after her break from maternity leave, it was so lovely to see her again and amazing to see how it felt like she'd never been away. Miriam made great strides in her running, taking place in her second ever parkrun, and after a running break Heetu was back in the game.

Jessica smashed it by running a 5k before she even reached the park, the 9am parkrun was her second that day! Dike casually let slip he accidentally ran an unplanned marathon earlier in the week - he set off to do 15k, but kept going for all 40+! Leonardo did some excellent recruiting and we hope to see some new members soon off the back of his conversations. Lucien remains dedicated to supporting the runners and turned out to cheer everyone on, and Amina & Steph did the hard part and joined us for the run even though they sadly couldn't make it for breakfast. And I frantically tried to keep up with Sally Ann, who - despite having only recently returned to running after injuries - was absolutely smashing the speed and did an amazing job on her return to Princes Park.

After Parkrun and the classic photo, we headed over to new favourite cafe Maw for a well earned breakfast, where John and Jackie were delighted with the vegan cake selection. It turns out they're very well travelled for both Parkrun and Goodgym, and John makes the most of the numerous GG areas in London by attending sessions in several of them. John, next time you're in Hackney, send our love to Dan! We compared area notes and admired the Goodgym sticker adorning John's phone - any chance for a bit of exposure! As we chatted like old friends we were pleased Liam was able to join us for a coffee.

The large group of red t shirts attracted quite a bit of interest and we were approached by several people interested in joining us. And after such a beautiful morning, it's clear to see why. Even the sun shone on us, and with a wide range of running abilities everyone was welcomed and supported, no matter where they were on their running journey. It was a gorgeous start to the weekend and we all left on a high, surrounded by positivity and lovely people doing lovely things.

This get together was an opportunity to celebrate our Amazing Area Activator Ema. Only the night before Ema had been succesful in winning the Merseyside Women Making a Difference award in recognition of her amazing work Ema is choir manager of Choir With No Name Liverpool as well as our Area Activator. Well done Ema I know everyone who knows Ema knows what a difference she does make but its fantastic she has had the recognition for this. Ema dutifully bought her award along for us to see. Its lovely unfortunately the photo i took of Ema holding it doesnt show it as its a beautiful glass award.... note to self leave photography to anyone else but me.

Well done to David Bekah Julie and Vikky on running the parkrun before breakfast in what started out as a bit of a drizzly grey day. Each and everyone finished with a smile and still looking fresh. I know this as I was handing out finishing tokens under the mentorship of Eileen who is a member of the core team at princes parkrun -team token... this week had an international flair as we tried to say well done in as many different languages as we knew (or were taught as the morning went on) Team scanners today included the family duo Roz and Jo both part of the furniture at parkrun as both have run so many all over the place as well as volunteering at both parkrun and junior parkrun.

The wonderful thing about our parkrun get togethers is that people can pop in and out of the morning it really is a smorgasbord of a social it was so good that both Liam and Ellie were able to take time out of their busy schedules to celebrate Ema's achievement and catch up with everyone and lastly but in no means least it was so wonderful to see Laura who we figured would be the last time we saw her for a little while as she will have her hands full and her time occupied very soon.... (her gorgeous baby was born the very next day 💕).

This truly was a winning breakfast.