MILESHYCLUB SUMMER TRAIL RUNS ARE COMING!

We’re really taking advantage of the summer evening and light nights and taking our Thursday evening groups on a tour of local trails throughout July and August. Our first outing was to Dunham Massey where we took in some of the beautiful Bridgewater Canal and Dunham Massey Country Park. These runs are to encourage some of our newer runners to try trail running and runners from all groups are welcome. We loved seeing so many new faces turning up to our last one and really hope to see more new faces at the next ones!

Our next evening trail run is this Thursday, 21st July, which will take in the local trails of Sale and Chorlton Water Parks. We will be meeting at Jackson’s Boat at 6.30pm. We will run between five and six miles on mostly hard packed paths. Trail shoes with grip are recommended but not essential, road running shoes will be fine. This is a social run for those who want to try running somewhere a little bit different, no one gets left behind!

There will also be another trail run on Thursday 11th August, stay tuned for more details!

MILESHYCLUB DELIVER WELLBEING DAY!

We were delighted to be involved at a Health and Wellbeing day this week which was hosted by our friends at Voice of BME Trafford at Limelight.

Club founder Jane Dennison delivered a workshop on managing stress and anxiety and later in the day many attendees from the workshop attended our beginner walking group! We had some great conversations, some great food and even got to see some Bollywood dancing on our walk. Thanks so much to Aliya from Voice of BME for inviting us along - we really do love getting to know this wonderful group!

Our walking group meets outside Limelight every Wednesday at 1pm. Come and join us! You can find all the information about our Old Trafford group HERE and our other walking groups HERE.

MILESHYCLUB LAUNCH LATEST COUCH TO 5K!

At our first Couch To 5K session in Sale the general consensus was that the hardest part of the day was leaving the house. Everybody was chatting whilst waiting for the session to start and it soon became apparent that everybody had the same fears: they’d never run before, they’d tried running before but couldn’t do it, they’d tried running on a treadmill but didn’t like it, they’d run on a treadmill but couldn’t run outside, they couldn’t imagine running for five minutes nevermind five kilometres.

But that’s the best bit about starting in a Couch To 5K group, EVERYBODY has the same hopes and fears. And everybody is really motivated to get started! When you do your C25K with us you’ll generally attend one group run a week (though you can attend more if you want to!) and complete two homework sessions throughout the following week. If you stick to the scheduled runs you should be able to run a 5K in just nine weeks. Once you’ve completed the final week of the course there is a graduation 5K at a local ParkRun where all the MileShy community will be out to support. It’s a running party!

All of our Couch To 5K groups have a WhatsApp group chat with all the other runners and coaches so you can ask questions and get advice at any time. You can also use it to arrange to run your homework runs with your fellow runners to keep you motivated. And if there ever comes a time where you may not be feeling quite as motivated to get out there and do it there will always be somebody on hand with words of encouragement that will make you want to go out and get it done.

We’re still only two weeks into our latest programme, it’s not too late to start now! If you’d like to join the current Couch To 5K programme you can find all the details here. Alternatively, as a beginner runner you can join any of our groups at any time as we always cater for complete beginners (with the exception of our 5K Improvers group on a Thursday night!)

MILESHYCLUB LAUNCH URMSTON WALKING GROUP!

We currently offer four walking clubs a week based in Old Trafford, Partington, Sale and Stretford. To reflect our running group locations we have a brand new session starting in Urmston from 15th June! The meeting point will be based outside Lily’s Cafe in the town centre.

Our walks are community walking groups for those who want to get fitter but just need to start off with small steps. All groups are led by Advanced Walk Leaders who will guide you towards your first continuous mile together with a few warm up exercises to improve mobility, coordination and balance. We know that exercise has huge benefits for both physical and mental health and we’ve really loved helping people back into the community to get more active and meet new people. 

Do you know someone who might benefit? Please complete our sign up form here and we’ll do the rest. Full details of all our walks can be found here.

MILESHYCLUB x GREAT MANCHESTER RUN 2022

Our most recent 5k to 10k group recently completed their eight week training plan and went on to complete the Great Manchester 10k Run on 22nd May! We were so excited to see a wave of yellow (and the odd blue!) tees out on the course on what turned out to be a rather warm day!

Coaches Ian, Dennis and Jane were out on the course supporting our 10k first timers get round, and coaches Samina, Kath, Emily, Clare and Pam cheered everyone on from the sidelines! We were inundated with support on the day! Thank you so much to our members that came out as cheer squad and everybody else that came out to support.

Great Run offered us two free places in the event which we raffled off between everybody that had signed up for our eight week 10K training programme. The lucky winners were Silke and Michelle who both went on to absolutely smash their 10ks! Well done to both of you!

We all celebrated at All Bar One on King Street afterwards with our friends and families. We are sure there were some sore heads (and legs) in the morning!

MILESHYCLUB x MENTAL HEALTH WEEK 2022

Mental Health Awareness Week was 9th to 15th May this year. As this year’s theme was “Loneliness” throughout the whole week we encouraged all our runners and walkers to bring along a friend to their session for free so that they could experience the mental health benefits of getting outside to run or walk with other people. 

We also put on a special #RunAndTalk event to support the annual England Athletics initiative with all proceeds going to Bluesci, a local mental health charity.  We raised £24 from session fees which are being used to support refreshments and activities at Bluesci Partington centre for their Wellbeing Wednesday group. On the night, we went for a walk and/or jog down by the Bridgewater Canal and then had a MileShy social at the Slug and Lettuce afterwards.  It was lovely to see some new faces at this event.

Coach Jane said of the event “We had a lovely session at our latest #RunAndTalk event. We brought together brand new and current members of the MileShyClub.  Participants either ran, jogged or walked along the beautiful Bridgewater canal in Sale and were treated to sights of lots of lovely baby ducklings on the water!  Before the run/walk our coaches led a fun warm up which included a forfeit of hugging Mike, one of the bouncers at the Slug and Lettuce! He was up for the fun though, and we think our hugging paid off as he allowed us back into the bar after our exercise wearing sporting gear! It was great to connect with everyone in the group and take time out of the day to reflect on the friendship, peaceful surroundings and overall feeling of belonging, here at the MileShyClub”.

MILESHYCLUB'S INAUGRAL DOG RUN!

On 15th May MileShyClub hosted its first Dog Run and what a great start to a Sunday it was! In total we had 12 runners and a similar number of dogs that arrived at TreeTops café for introductions before heading down to the waterpark for our warm up. The warm up was led by Jane Dennison which, of course, was dog themed with warm ups including ‘Chase your Tail’, ‘Open the Puppy Coop’ and ‘Scoop up the p*o’. Once all humans and dogs were warmed up we ran around Sale Water Park with runners running at a pace that suited them and their four legged friends. Some decided to run one lap others decided to run two and some took the opportunity to walk but everyone finished the run feeling better than when they started.

After the run all runners and dogs gathered at the café for a well-deserved coffee catch up (and sausages).

Feedback from Coby a 2 year old Cockapoo:

‘It was a wonderful morning, I loved running because I get lots of treats on the way round. My owner looked tired after a lap so I thought I would be nice and go for a swim so he could catch his breath, I then cooled him down by shaking myself dry beside him to ensure he got extra wet. I enjoyed the run, but my highlight of the morning was definitely the sausage I got afterwards!! I can’t wait to do another one and make new friends‘

We will be having our second dog run in August, keep an eye out on the Facebook group for more information or email hello@mileshyclub.com.

 

MileShyClub steps up after lockdown with walking group launch

Walking group sessions across Trafford

Celebrating its fifth birthday this year, local Trafford charity, the #MileShyClub, a beginner running club, branched out into walking groups last week. 

With running clubs located in Sale, Urmston, Partington, Old Trafford and Stretford, the volunteer coaches at the club voted last year to further expand into beginner walking groups, to help those most impacted by the covid pandemic. 

With Trafford Housing Trust funding the majority of the 18-month project, Trafford Council and Greater Sport have also provided financial support.

Teaming up with Blu Sci, Voice of BME Trafford, Age UK Trafford and the Pakistani Resource Centre, the new beginner walking groups are aimed at those rebuilding confidence, trying to get active whilst living with a long-term health condition or long covid, or coming back into the community. 

#MileShyClub CEO Jane Dennison is leading on the project and said, "We have a really supportive bunch of people working in Trafford to help people come back after lockdown, and it has been really great to see such a positive response to these walking groups. This collaborative response means we can provide a much-needed tailored approach to getting active in each of the areas. Our existing relationships with other organisations means we can signpost our walkers to other ways to get active and social too!"

Sessions take place in Sale, Partington, Stretford and two in Old Trafford. Sessions include a mobility and stretching warm up working on balance and coordination, a gentle walk of up to a mile depending on ability, and cool down stretches. Walks are followed with optional tea and coffee afterwards and are priced at £2 to ensure longevity of the offer.

To find out more, visit: https://www.mileshyclub.com/referralformwalking

Our most successful Couch to 5k Graduate turn out to date!

We’ve never seen ParkRun volunteers run out of tokens, but at the lovely Alexandra Parkrun on Saturday, marshals had to write out the numbers on pieces of paper to accommodate the bumper turn out!

Well over 100 of you turned up on the day and we actually ran out of goody bags (sorry about that) so we’re currently arranging for those who missed out to receive them in the post! We thought 70 would be enough!

Huge well done to everyone who got through their first 5k. We’re doing it all again in May so get yourself signed up to become a member here if you want in! https://www.mileshyclub.com/par-q

Step Into Our Beginner Walking Club!

***MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!***

Has the pandemic left you feeling fed up and unhealthy?

Are you struggling to go back outside into the community to meet people?

Do you have long covid or another long-term health condition and want to regain fitness levels?

We are delighted to announce our new pilot project... OUR BEGINNER WALKING CLUB... starting next month!

We've teamed up with mental health and wellbeing service Blu Sci, Voice of BME Trafford, Friends of Victoria Park, the Pakistani Resource Centre and Age UK to introduce not one, not two, but FIVE beginner walking groups into Trafford. The groups will complement our beginner running groups, with full details on the attached flyer.

This all wouldn't have been possible without the Trafford Housing Trust who are our major funder for this project, but we also extend our thanks to Trafford Council who have also part funded this project.

If you would like to join us as a beginner walker, please complete our referral form here: https://www.mileshyclub.com/referralformwalking

One last thing. Please do share this announcement far and wide with as many people as you can. We really want to reach out to those who need us most following the pandemic because at the #MileShyClub, no one gets left behind.

#covidrecovery #gmmovinginaction #noonegetsleftbehind #walkinggroups #beginnerwalking