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”.