2022 has been the most significant year for the MileShyClub. We celebrated our 5th birthday with ridiculous amounts of cake and unlike some other charities, we survived lockdown. We supported ourselves and each other throughout the pandemic and comforted those who lost loved ones. 2022 has been the year we have been able to continue to support those recovering from covid – not jut physically, but mentally too.
We started the year as we meant to go on and equipped our coaches with life saving first aid skills and even funded other organisations to do the same. We recognised that we lacked diversity on our Board, as well as support to help us continue to grow so we appointed Parveen Earl, Head of Strategy for the Home Office, and Razia Shaikh-Patel, who empowers Muslim women through the use of creative arts with her charity Weta.
We saw our largest Couch To 5K graduate turnout ever at Alexandra ParkRun in March with so many first timers we had to post out some goody bags because the 70 prepared weren’t enough!
Significantly for us, in March we also acquired funding to establish five beginner walking groups across Trafford. These groups are specifically for people with long term health conditions, for the beginners coming back to exercise or just trying it out. We’ve now got three walking coaches supporting these groups, as well as a sixth group which takes place indoors at the Trafford Centre and is predominantly attended by people with disabilities. This year, our club, our charity has supported people with life changing health diagnoses, it has provided a safe welcoming space, it has supported those with mental health illness. We have worked with other amazing local charities such as the Trafford Carers Centre, Blu Sci, Voice of BME Trafford as well as GP surgeries. We have made a difference.
But enough now about walking, because we’ve also done a heck of a lot of running! We did MileShyOnTours to Delamere parkrun, Lyme parkrun, then we did the Trafford 10K, Manchester Marathon, Manchester 10K, Manchester Half, Great North Run, Alton Towers 10K, Altrincham 10K, Chester Half and Marathon, London Marathon, Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness, two Dog Runs, Summer trail runs, Wilmslow Festive 10K, not forgetting our amazing Santa Dash which raised £1,262 for 3 Dads and PAPYRUS. On top of all that, we still liked spending time with each other and managed a not so Silent Disco tour!
Some of us did some pretty incredible things too – Victoria did the Chicago Marathon, new coach Ruth a did 52K, Dennis did what Dennis does and ran so much we can’t include it all here (but he did do 40 miles last month at the Warrington Way Ultra) and Lisa got a sub one-hour 10K. Coach Ian showed true grit and determination by staying positive even when his running was impacted by covid. Trustee Tony is even running 5K every day to raise awareness of prostate cancer.
Whilst these successes are incredible in their own right, the overall winners at our club are those who visit us for the first time and try something new. Those who find it incredibly hard to leave the front door, to meet new people, to commit to a change. Whether it’s a marathon, 5K, or a first mile of walking, there have been some incredible success stories this year and we are proud of every single one of you. We’ve had 816 people sign up this year, and that’s just the runners.
Like we said, our best year ever. We cannot wait for 2023!
