"NO ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND" MILESHYCLUB VIDEO SHOWCASE BY SALFORD COUNCIL

We were recently approached by Salford City Council who wanted to produce a short video to showcase the services MileShyClub provide across the borough. We invited videographer Alex along to our Swinton and Salford Quays clubs to show him what MileShy was all about - thanks so much to all of our runners and coaches that took part and did exactly that!

We LOVE the resulting video that perfectly encapsulates our “No One Gets Left Behind” ethos and shows there’s so much more to MileShyClub than just running!

Thanks so much Alex and Salford City Council for the support.

MILESHYCLUB ANNOUNCES FOUR NEW RUNNING CLUBS - INCLUDING OUR FIRST STOCKPORT CLUBS!

We are so happy to announce that we are launching FOUR new running clubs in September - welcome to MileShyClub Bramhall, MileShyClub Cheadle, MileShyClub Chorlton and MileShyClub Longsight. All four clubs start week commencing 9th September to tie in with the launch of our next Couch To 5K - you can find the details for each individual club on the links provided. We are over the moon to be branching out into Stockport - our fourth Manchester borough alongside Trafford, Salford and Manchester!

We’d like to thank Sport England for funding our Chorlton and Longsight clubs - we are so happy to be bringing MileShyClub to these areas! Our Longsight club will be slightly different to our other sessions -  it’s our first ever ladies only session and it’s our only session that will be held entirely indoors. This group initially will be a beginner jogging and walking wellness session which is slightly different to the Couch to 5K we offer at all our other clubs. If you’d like to find out more please do come along to the Q&A session on the 9th September where you can meet the team (Soraya, Saima, Sana and Jane) and also help yourself to free refreshments.

Couch To 5K returns to ALL clubs week commencing 9th September - if you signed up previously but didn’t finish the course (it happens more than you think) due to illness, injury or just plain, old life getting in the way do come back and give it another go! You can get signed up HERE.

MILESHYCLUB STARGAZING SUMMER SOCIAL - TORCHLIT HIKE IN THE PEAK DISTRICT!

After putting many weird and wonderful options for our Summer Social to the vote we hosted an evening to really remember this year! A large group of us met in the Goyt Valley late at night for a moonlight walk up to the spooky ruins of Errwood Hall -  we even had a talk about the history of the area courtesy of Jane, Mrs MileShy herself. After returning to base we had the most amazing and informative stargazing talk from MileShy Wythenshawe runner Kyle who is also part of Wythenshawe Stargazers. We were SO lucky to have had such a clear night - we saw the moon rise, identified satellites passing overhead and even saw the rings of Saturn through a telescope. We can't thank Kyle enough for giving up his time - we were fascinated and learnt so much! You can see our video from the evening HERE.

The moonlight walk wasn’t our only venture into the Goyt Valley this month - we also took our Old Trafford walkers there for what has turned into their annual trip to the Peak District! The weather was not as good that day out but it definitely didn’t dampen our walker’s spirits - for some of them it was their first venture into the countryside and they were amazed by the views.

MILESHYCLUB TALK C25K ON THE BBC BREAKFAST COUCH WITH JO WHILEY!

We announced last month that MileShyClub runners would be featuring in a new BBC campaign to relaunch the Couch To 5K app and on Thursday, 18th April the advert was played for the first time on BBC Breakfast. If you haven’t seen it yet you can see the advert HERE. It was played during the London Marathon coverage and look out for it during the Great Manchester Run coverage too!

Club founder, Jane Dennison, appeared live on the BBC Breakfast Sofa with radio broadcaster Jo Whiley and BBC presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt where they talked all things Couch to 5K. Jane and Jo then went to join a very excited group of thirty MileShyers along and presenter Mike Bushell who interviewed some of our runners about their amazing stories. Natasha talked about how running helped with her grief. Lisa talked about running through chemotherapy. Mike talked about starting running at the age of 75. And Mark talked about how running helped him through a period of poor mental health. You can watch the full group interview HERE. We then all ran Week 1 Run 1 of Couch to 5K with Jo Whiley around Salford Quays.

There was also much radio coverage on the day.  Jane and runner Natasha were interviewed alongside Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 5 Live at 6.50am. Later that day Jo Whiley dedicated the song ‘Titanium’ by Sia to Jane and Natasha and then went on to dedicate another song, ‘Fools Gold’ by Manchester band The Stone Roses, to everyone at the MileShyClub.

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to take part in the coverage and for sharing their stories, as well as BBC producers Emma and Kath who took very good care of us on the day

MILESHYCLUB IN NATIONAL BBC CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE THE NHS COUCH TO 5K APP

A few weeks ago a BBC producer contacted us and said they’d love to collaborate with us on a new project. We are absolutely thrilled to announce that MileShyClub runners will be featuring in a new BBC campaign to relaunch the Couch To 5K app! We’ll be in a brand new advert, as well as being interviewed across coverage of the World Athletics Championships, the London Marathon and the Great Manchester Run.

It was so hard to choose who to put in front of the camera from all of the amazing people that make up the MileShy community, but here are the face you’ll be seeing on your TV screen soon! All eight people in the photo represent MileShy through and through. You’ve got Mike, former Dean of the University of Manchester and trainee run coach – he’s 75. Razia, MileShy trustee dedicated to getting more Muslim women running. Dr Louise Grant, just one of the GPs running with us and practicing what they preach. Coach Kerry who lost five stone and is now training for Manchester Marathon. Coach Mark, the life and soul of the party who also talks openly about his mental health. The other Mark, who says that running saved his life and is my “wild card”. Vladi, one of the many Eastern Europeans accessing our club. And Vicky, a born and bred Ordsall resident who started this “running thing” with her sister, Billie-Jo at the end of last year.

There’s more planned and more happening with the BBC - watch this space!

GO TEAM MILESHY!

MILESHYCLUB STEPS INTO THREE BOROUGHS - FIND US IN SALFORD, TRAFFORD AND MANCHESTER!

MileShyClub, the running and walking club for beginners, today announced the launch of five new beginner running clubs coming to Salford, Manchester and Trafford this September.

The award-winning club already has ten clubs across much of the borough of Trafford, with five beginner run clubs in Sale, Urmston, Old Trafford, Partington and Stretford plus five beginner walking clubs in Sale, Stretford, Old Trafford, Trafford Centre and Wythenshawe.  In addition to these clubs, MileShyClub also regularly collaborate with other VCSE organisations in the local area including GM Ringway for a monthly walk in Longford Park (Stretford) and GreaterSports’ Right to the Streets Project in Gorse Hill Park (Stretford).

Club founder and CEO, Jane Dennison said,

“Like with many other organisations in the health and wellbeing sector, we experienced funding cuts this year which placed our walking clubs at risk. Therefore, we’ve had to get creative to look at ways to raise funds to keep our clubs going.  Opening more beginner running clubs was a natural move as they’re always well attended and super popular, but remain affordable at £2 a session, pay as you go”.

 With previous experience working in Salford for the social enterprise Beyond Empower (a service which supports disabled people to get active), Jane Dennison has wanted to make a move into the area for a while.  She left the service in April this year to focus on opening the new clubs.

“I am so pleased that Sport England got behind us to make this move into Salford.  It was easy to sell the idea of a new club in Altrincham as we’ve had people there wanting us there for a couple of years now, and the Altrincham Funeral Partners Fund backed us, thanks to Forever Manchester.  We were also successful with The Big Life group and were able to start a walking club in July, with the run club to follow in September.”

For full details and to sign up visit www.mileshyclub.com

MILESHYCLUB RUNNERS JOIN TOGETHER FOR A BANK HOLIDAY TRAIL RUN AROUND TATTON PARK!

Earlier this week on Bank Holiday Monday Coach Charlotte arranged a beautiful trail run from Knutsford to Tatton Park and back and a great time was had by all. We loved that there were runners from all of our clubs there, the whole MileShy Community came out for a spectacular run on the trails!

Our next Bank Holiday get together will be Coach Dennis’ always amazing Bank Holiday Monday MileShy MashUp on Monday 29th May, starting from Victoria Park in Stretford at 6.30pm. See you all there!

MILESHYONTOUR AT SUTTON MANOR PARKRUN - WHAT A "DREAM"Y DAY!

Last weekend we took MileShyOnTour to Sutton Manor parkrun and we had an amazing turnout! It was great to see so many bee tees out on the course and we absolutely loved that we had runners from every single one of our clubs come along to run as one big MileShy community!

We were almost wholly responsible for a huge increase in Sutton Manor’s numbers with the event being reported on one of the Facebook Parkrun Tourism groups as having an increase in attendance of 115% compared to the previous week! Sutton Manor is only a little parkrun with an average of 66 runners a week but we’d highly recommend it for the views which include running round the amazing Dream sculpture. The course is a tad hilly, but we all know how good running hills is for your training! HUGE well done to all of our runners that absolutely smashed their runs and contributed to a fabulous social event!

The next MileShyOnTour is coming.. watch this space!

MILESHYCLUB DOES MANCHESTER MARATHON

What a day we had at the Manchester Marathon! We had more than FIFTY MileShyers out on the course with twelve superheroes running the whole 26.2 miles and ten teams of four runners running the relays. We are super proud of each and every one of you!

We were also represented on the volunteer front with Coach Tara heading up a team of MileShy volunteers that were positioned in the Dane Road/Glebelands Road area of Sale keeping everybody safe and cheering all the runners on. As always the MileShy community was out in full force along the route with cheer squads in Timperley, Sale and Stretford cheering everybody on and picking out our neon tees for an extra loud MileShy cheer as our runners passed.

Our relay runners spent the down time at the relay points talking to runners from other clubs and we had lots of compliments about our tees and the “NoOne Gets Left Behind” ethos. One of the marshals commented she’d never seen so many relay teams from one club before which just goes to show what a fantastic community we have - this was also evidenced further when one lady joined the Facebook group just to thank one of our runners that had given her a banana for fuel at one of the relay points. Well done Jude!

Just an amazing day! We’ve already heard and seen lots of conversations about next year’s relay teams with some people even expressing interest in doing the two leg half marathon distance relays - we love that you were all so inspired by the event and can’t wait for next year!

MILESHYCLUB'S FIRST COUCH TO 5K OF 2023!

COUCH TO 5K DONE

What an AMAZING turnout we had for our C25Kers graduation at Alexandra parkrun this weekend! So many of you came down to support our newest MileShyers by running with them, cheering them on from the sidelines and cheering them on whilst volunteering out on the course. You’re all just brilliant!

HUGE well done to all of our C25Kers that absolutely smashed their graduation run.. we’re so proud of you all and can’t wait to see you in the 5K Improver groups! There were even more celebrations at Alexandra on Saturday as Coach Jo ran her 100th parkrun, runner David ran his 50th and runner Paul ran his 25th parkrun. Amazing!

HUGE thanks to the core team at Alexandra parkrun, Moss Side for making such a fuss of our first timers and for putting on an extra First Timer’s Briefing for us - you made our newest runners feel really welcome and illustrated what parkrun is all about!

HUGE thanks also to all of our incredible volunteer coaches for everything you do. We couldn’t do it without you all. We can’t wait to do it all over again in May!