We gathered outside the closed Waterloo Café on a cold, clear, crisp February evening, and Heetu led us in a warm up. Whilst attempting a new kind of stretch which involved a lot of (for some of us, inelegant) balancing, a local walking past kindly suggested we just go for a run, and seemed surprised with the reply “We’re about to do just that!”

Despite the specific instruction “Please bring torches as it will be dark on the beach”, clearly laid out on the task listing, 3 out of 5 of us forgot our torches so we were sharing the light and relying on the moonlight. Despite running in the darkness, remarkably we only made one wrong turn: when the squelching underfoot got significantly louder, we realized we were heading around the wrong lake, but no problem – we simply headed back and course-corrected on the right path.

Being on the beach on a clear crisp night was a beautiful experience, the stars were so bright, and Liam pointed out planets and constellations to us: we identified Jupiter, Venus & Mars, and how The Plough led to the North Star.

In the darkness it was surprisingly difficult to spot the famous Iron Men on Crosby Beach, part of Anthony Gormley’s Another Place art installation. Sian was the first person to spot one, and the group challenged themselves to keep running until each person correctly identified one.

Shoutout to Lucian who didn’t let an injury stop him from joining, he undertook a moonlight walk, and was never far away from the runners who kept stopping to (unsuccessfully) take photographs of the beautiful night sky.

After a gentle 2.5k it was time to turn back, and the return journey felt much quicker sans-lake detour. The group then headed to a local pub for dinner, and discussed all the activities and challenges they were interested in for the coming year.

It was a lovely evening and a unique experience, combining a fabulous moonlit beach run with dinner with friends. All present agreed there’ll be more of this to come!