Our story of runtheworldMCR, from becoming friends to supporting over 300 women enjoy running, make friends and empower each other to achieve their goals.
This was definitely a key moment in our runtheworldMCR journey, we shared our story at the wonderful Jess West's Wellness event in Manchester. It’s the first time we’ve been asked to provide a seminar on our runtheworldMCR journey and it felt like the perfect event to do that at. For us runtheworldMCR has always been about far more than just running, it's about bringing women together, creating a friendly supportive environment and empowering others to succeed. It was lovely to be part of Jess’s event and finally get our story down on paper and reflect on the past two years.
We first met at a local running group in early 2020, Lydia was just about to move to the area (on the next street to me) and joined a running group as a way to meet new people and get to know the area better. One night Lydia and I ended up in the same running group, we instantly connected and chatted most of the way round. A few weeks later lockdown happened and we soon found ourselves taking our daily rationed exercise together, chatting about everything from our fitness goals to work and personal life, we quickly became close friends, always knowing a run together would end with a smile on both of our faces.
In October 2021 during an evening run we discussed the idea of setting up a women's only running group in Monton. We wanted to create a running group that focused more on building friendships than beating times. We wanted other women to experience the joy we had of making friends through running and we wanted to create an empowering group of women who would motivate and support each other. We hoped we’d make a few new friends but we never imagined how popular the group would become. From having our first conversation about setting up the group it took us just 8 days to launch our first run! We weren’t sure anyone would turn up and were so happy that 7 girls did, we love that most of them still run with us today. The most we’ve ever had attend a run is 70 which is just incredible and we can’t believe it was us that started this amazing community.
Through our friendship we’ve achieved lots of personal goals, getting out of our comfort zone to complete virtual marathons, the Manchester marathon, Hiking Scafell Pike, cold water swimming, open water swimming and completing the Staffordshire 70.3 Ironman triathlon!
We’re also so proud of our runtheworldMCR community who have all achieved big things over the past two years from graduating our 1st C25k programme, celebrating success with our woman of the week feature, funding four of our run leaders to gain their LiRF (leadership in running fitness) qualification (we’ll soon be funding another four), launching walktheworldMCR to make our group more accessible, Inspiring our girls to try new things like track sessions and speed work, encouraging girls to complete races for the first time including the Manchester Marathon, Parkrun etc the list goes on.
But the biggest achievement we’ve gained along with our runtheworldMCR girls isn’t just the medals it’s the confidence, self belief, resilience, having friends behind you who said, you can do it, you’re capable, friends to get you out of your comfort zone, friends who want the best for you, are proud of you and want to see you succeed, no competition or comparison!
We hope our story has inspired you to go on that run, try new things, get out of your comfort zone and find friends that are your biggest cheerleaders and hype queens!
Becky & Lydia
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