It’s mid-morning and I’ve just arrived home from my running club. The conditions were horrendous – lashing rain and howling wind – but still when I turned up, a small group of women had managed to get there and were huddling under a tree waiting for the session to start. I asked myself: “Just what is it that makes these ladies step foot out of their houses and come to our club, especially in these conditions?”

I am the owner of a relatively new business, Run Mummy Run®, an online running community for women established little more than a year ago. My passion for running and wanting to find likeminded women to run with prompted me to start my own virtual community on Facebook. It was never meant to be a business, but it grew organically and when they say “dreams happen”, well mine did. The key aspect (apart from the running) is the community. What our members love is the sense of belonging, being part of something and finding others who understand and share their passion and the challenges that come with it.

The Facebook group started with just three running friends; I saw it as an easy way to arrange a run, rather than the confusion of multiple texts going back and forth. The page started to grow and before long 30 local women had joined. Brilliant, I thought; job done. But I was completely unaware of what was to come. People joined from other counties in the south-east, then a friend from Newcastle joined and that’s when things really started to grow. We had women joining from all parts of the country and some in Ireland too; it just kept going. We now have over 1,300 women on Facebook and are about to hit 3,000 followers on Twitter. I still have to pinch myself when I think that I only started this group to find a few running friends.

So what is it about communities such as Run Mummy Run® that makes them such a success? Well, with our community it’s definitely the people in it. Our women give amazing support and encouragement to one another. They see the positives, allow for people’s flaws and listen to them when they are having a tough time. The ladies do all of this naturally, they have never been told what to say or how to conduct themselves on the page, they are just nice people brimming with positivity and it’s infectious.

There are many stories that inspire me and so many women that make this project worthwhile. I am incredibly lucky to be part of it

There have been a few occasions when I’ve read a post in the group and seen some incredible strength that comes from our women. Last year one of our members who had moved far away from her family to start a new life with a partner was going through a really hard time. Her relationship had ended and with no family or friends nearby she had become very low and needed to talk. She posted on the Facebook page. She told us her story and that she didn’t know where else to turn; she’d hit rock bottom and was looking for some running friends locally to get her out of the house and also to find a bit of support. The response that came back was incredible: people offering to meet her for a run, go out for a coffee, take her shopping or talk things through; it was so touching to watch it unfold. I met her for a coffee that week too, and encouraged her to use our community for support and as a way of making some friends through running. She did and she’s definitely come out of the other side smiling. I catch up with her every week at our mad “Boxfit” sessions and I see a very different girl to the one I met at the coffee shop six months ago. She’s met new friends and has a great little support network but most importantly she looks happy. I think she would agree that our community of women contributed to getting her back on her feet. I’m delighted to say she’s going from strength to strength now (well done, girl! You know who you are).

We’ve had other posts on the page that make it special, from people dealing with injury or coping with bereavement to women being diagnosed with illnesses but fighting back. There was also the lady who posted a picture of her first run after being mugged, attacked and left for dead in the street. In her picture she stood grinning from ear to ear. Her smile said everything about the journey she’d made, her strength and how she’d succeeded to fight back from what had been a life-threatening experience. She was in a good place once again and wanted to share that with us; I felt honoured. There are many stories that inspire me and so many women that make this project worthwhile. I am incredibly lucky to be part of it.

So why did the girls turn up to my running club today? I don’t think it was just about the run. I think it was also about the friendship, support and encouragement they get and that’s why those girls stood waiting in the rain; it was for each other.

For more information or to be part of the ‘Run Mummy Run’ community go to: runmummyrun.co.uk, facebook.com/groups/runmummyrun, or follow @Run_Mummy_Run on Twitter

Source: Read Full Article