When Ella Bennett, Gill Stewart, William Baird and Phoebe Ashby signed up for the Hackney Half Marathon 2024, we knew this was the perfect opportunity to challenge ourselves for a great cause. There was no other charity that we would rather have run for than the Johnny Reynolds Foundation, in memory of Johnny, the best of young men who we all lost too soon. With only a couple of months until race day and some gruelling training runs ahead of us, we set ourselves an ambitious target of £2000 to raise between the 4 of us. 

Race day arrived and whether our goal was to create a personal record or simply finish the race, we felt a mixture of pride and nerves at the start line to be running in honour of our beloved friend. We had all woken up to a beautifully sunny yet oppressively hot day in May and we knew that we were going to have to really push ourselves (even more so for Ella who had been taken out by a virus earlier in the week). The crowds of East London came out in full force to cheer us on and we even heard a few shouts of “#johnboii” which put a smile on our faces as we made our way along the course. It’s safe to say that we all thought of quitting more than once during the race as the blazing sun was beating down on us. However, thoughts of a delicious burger at the finish line, happy memories of Johnny, and all our donations spurred us on and we all smashed it! 

We were overwhelmed by the extreme generosity of all the donations and would like to thank everyone who kindly donated, resulting in a grand total of £3095! We would also like to thank Charlie, Kate and Freddie for venturing into the depths of East London to support the team! We are all keen to take on another challenge in the future to fundraise again for the Johnny Reynolds Foundation to support the endeavours of deserving young people to achieve their desired sporting goals. We should all have the opportunity to pursue our sporting dreams at a young age and we feel honoured that our fundraising can play a role to support this powerful cause.