MILESHYCLUB TO LAUNCH TRAFFORD CENTRE WALKING GROUP!

We currently offer five walking clubs a week based in Old Trafford, Partington, Sale, Stretford and Urmston. We’re really excited to be launching our sixth walking group next Wednesday and we’re even more excited to be taking MileShyClub to a BRAND NEW location at the Trafford Centre.

Our walks are community walking groups for those who want to get fitter but just need to start off with small steps. All groups are led by Advanced Walk Leaders who will guide you towards your first continuous mile together with a few warm up exercises to improve mobility, coordination and balance. We know that exercise has huge benefits for both physical and mental health and we’ve really loved helping people back into the community to get more active and meet new people. 

We’ll be meeting in The Great Hall at 10am on Wednesday mornings. If you’d like to come along please fill in our sign up form here. If you know somebody that would benefit from this indoor walking group please fill out the form for them and we’ll do the rest.

MILESHYCLUB DOG RUN!

Well done to everyone who made today’s Dog Walk/Run at Sale Water Park. Peaches, an 8-year-old Labrador/Samoyed cross has sent us this race review:

“This morning was pretty pawsome. Me and my brother Oscar always get really excited when we visit Sale Water Park, but today was extra exciting because we made some new friends.

First up, we bumped into Harris who was super excited to get going.  I told him to just calm down but he didn’t listen, and he kept dragging his owner Bram around the paths whilst we patiently waited for the others. 

Another Spaniel called Willow turned up and she was FAST. She brought her whole family along and got on really well with Harris.  Those two were the really competitive runners, but we didn’t mind. (Let them get on with it I say).

It all got a little bit crazy at 9.30am and me and Oscar tried to keep everyone calm by telling them to shut up but no one could really hear us. One of those really posh dogs turned up (you know the type I mean, one with the word ‘doodle’ in the name).  He was called Shay (Seamus) and was really nervous to meet us all for the first time but his owner said he did really well.  He even threw himself into the lake at one point which always looks like a good idea but you know he’s going to regret the clean up job later.

Anyway, then the Romanians turned up. Frida was very cute and smelled like every dog breed under the sun.  My Mum even got to hold Frida whilst her Mum went to get a coffee and my Mum let Frida jump all over her legs which we’re not allowed to do, so you know she’s a nice dog. Hugo, a Romanian Shepherd was also there.  He really didn’t like us at first.  He kept telling us to leave him alone and we were all a bit scared of him, but when he got to know us a bit better he actually had a really good time and made some friends.  My Mum gave him an extra bit of sausage at the end because I think she’s got a soft spot for those with bad experiences coming to the club.

Yaeger, a mini schnauzer was really well behaved. It could be that he was a bit taken aback by it all.  But everyone went “aww” when he did as he was told and lied down on the floor for a treat.  We could probably learn a thing or two from him.

Merlin and Benji were crazy!  They were so full of beans, I think they would have needed to go round the water park at least 3 times to run out of energy.  I didn’t really get to see much of them so I hope they enjoyed themselves.

A beautiful black Labrador called Lola turned up too.  She came back for coffee and biscuits at the end soaked through so she had clearly enjoyed herself. A little Jack Russell turned up who my Mum called Boris by accident and immediately offended everyone. Thing is, the name's stuck now!

Some humans called Kath, Jane, Geraldine and Corrine turned up without dogs, but they were still fun to play with.

Some of us ran round the water park and some of us walked it.  We did a sort of run and a walk because I love to run but my brother Oscar is really lazy and can’t run more than one lap of the water park.  It’s ok though as I found a ball so my Mum kept me busy.

Everyone said we should do it again and I think that’s a great idea, especially if there’s more sausages at the end.  I’ll speak with my Mum and see what we can do.

Happy Sunday everyone,

Peaches x

 

MILESHYCLUB SUMMER COUCH TO 5K DONE!

Our latest Couch To 5Kers absolutely smashed their graduation run at Sale Water ParkRun last week! We had lots of runners from all six of our Couch To 5K groups plus amazing support from lots of our other MileShyers as always! Huge thankyou to everybody that came down!

It’s always amazing to watch new runners grow in confidence week by week, and we love to see the huge sense of achievement that every runner experiences as they cross their first 5K finish line! That’s the best bit about starting in a Couch To 5K group, EVERYBODY has the same hopes and fears. When you do your C25K with us you’ll generally attend one group run a week (though you can attend more if you want to!) and complete two homework sessions throughout the following week. If you stick to the scheduled runs you should be able to run a 5K in just nine weeks. Once you’ve completed the final week of the course there is a graduation 5K at a local ParkRun where all the MileShy community will be out to support. It’s a running party!

All of our Couch To 5K groups have a WhatsApp group chat with all the other runners and coaches so you can ask questions and get advice at any time. You can also use it to arrange to run your homework runs with your fellow runners to keep you motivated. And if there ever comes a time where you may not be feeling quite as motivated to get out there and do it there will always be somebody on hand with words of encouragement that will make you want to go out and get it done.

Our next Couch To 5K programme starts WC 5th September. If you’d like to join to give it a go you can find all the details here. Alternatively, as a beginner runner you can join any of our groups at any time as we always cater for complete beginners (with the exception of our 5K Improvers group on a Thursday night!)

MILESHYCLUB SUMMER TRAIL RUNS ARE COMING!

We’re really taking advantage of the summer evening and light nights and taking our Thursday evening groups on a tour of local trails throughout July and August. Our first outing was to Dunham Massey where we took in some of the beautiful Bridgewater Canal and Dunham Massey Country Park. These runs are to encourage some of our newer runners to try trail running and runners from all groups are welcome. We loved seeing so many new faces turning up to our last one and really hope to see more new faces at the next ones!

Our next evening trail run is this Thursday, 21st July, which will take in the local trails of Sale and Chorlton Water Parks. We will be meeting at Jackson’s Boat at 6.30pm. We will run between five and six miles on mostly hard packed paths. Trail shoes with grip are recommended but not essential, road running shoes will be fine. This is a social run for those who want to try running somewhere a little bit different, no one gets left behind!

There will also be another trail run on Thursday 11th August, stay tuned for more details!

MILESHYCLUB DELIVER WELLBEING DAY!

We were delighted to be involved at a Health and Wellbeing day this week which was hosted by our friends at Voice of BME Trafford at Limelight.

Club founder Jane Dennison delivered a workshop on managing stress and anxiety and later in the day many attendees from the workshop attended our beginner walking group! We had some great conversations, some great food and even got to see some Bollywood dancing on our walk. Thanks so much to Aliya from Voice of BME for inviting us along - we really do love getting to know this wonderful group!

Our walking group meets outside Limelight every Wednesday at 1pm. Come and join us! You can find all the information about our Old Trafford group HERE and our other walking groups HERE.

MILESHYCLUB LAUNCH LATEST COUCH TO 5K!

At our first Couch To 5K session in Sale the general consensus was that the hardest part of the day was leaving the house. Everybody was chatting whilst waiting for the session to start and it soon became apparent that everybody had the same fears: they’d never run before, they’d tried running before but couldn’t do it, they’d tried running on a treadmill but didn’t like it, they’d run on a treadmill but couldn’t run outside, they couldn’t imagine running for five minutes nevermind five kilometres.

But that’s the best bit about starting in a Couch To 5K group, EVERYBODY has the same hopes and fears. And everybody is really motivated to get started! When you do your C25K with us you’ll generally attend one group run a week (though you can attend more if you want to!) and complete two homework sessions throughout the following week. If you stick to the scheduled runs you should be able to run a 5K in just nine weeks. Once you’ve completed the final week of the course there is a graduation 5K at a local ParkRun where all the MileShy community will be out to support. It’s a running party!

All of our Couch To 5K groups have a WhatsApp group chat with all the other runners and coaches so you can ask questions and get advice at any time. You can also use it to arrange to run your homework runs with your fellow runners to keep you motivated. And if there ever comes a time where you may not be feeling quite as motivated to get out there and do it there will always be somebody on hand with words of encouragement that will make you want to go out and get it done.

We’re still only two weeks into our latest programme, it’s not too late to start now! If you’d like to join the current Couch To 5K programme you can find all the details here. Alternatively, as a beginner runner you can join any of our groups at any time as we always cater for complete beginners (with the exception of our 5K Improvers group on a Thursday night!)

MILESHYCLUB LAUNCH URMSTON WALKING GROUP!

We currently offer four walking clubs a week based in Old Trafford, Partington, Sale and Stretford. To reflect our running group locations we have a brand new session starting in Urmston from 15th June! The meeting point will be based outside Lily’s Cafe in the town centre.

Our walks are community walking groups for those who want to get fitter but just need to start off with small steps. All groups are led by Advanced Walk Leaders who will guide you towards your first continuous mile together with a few warm up exercises to improve mobility, coordination and balance. We know that exercise has huge benefits for both physical and mental health and we’ve really loved helping people back into the community to get more active and meet new people. 

Do you know someone who might benefit? Please complete our sign up form here and we’ll do the rest. Full details of all our walks can be found here.

MILESHYCLUB x GREAT MANCHESTER RUN 2022

Our most recent 5k to 10k group recently completed their eight week training plan and went on to complete the Great Manchester 10k Run on 22nd May! We were so excited to see a wave of yellow (and the odd blue!) tees out on the course on what turned out to be a rather warm day!

Coaches Ian, Dennis and Jane were out on the course supporting our 10k first timers get round, and coaches Samina, Kath, Emily, Clare and Pam cheered everyone on from the sidelines! We were inundated with support on the day! Thank you so much to our members that came out as cheer squad and everybody else that came out to support.

Great Run offered us two free places in the event which we raffled off between everybody that had signed up for our eight week 10K training programme. The lucky winners were Silke and Michelle who both went on to absolutely smash their 10ks! Well done to both of you!

We all celebrated at All Bar One on King Street afterwards with our friends and families. We are sure there were some sore heads (and legs) in the morning!

MILESHYCLUB x MENTAL HEALTH WEEK 2022

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”.

MILESHYCLUB'S INAUGRAL DOG RUN!

On 15th May MileShyClub hosted its first Dog Run and what a great start to a Sunday it was! In total we had 12 runners and a similar number of dogs that arrived at TreeTops café for introductions before heading down to the waterpark for our warm up. The warm up was led by Jane Dennison which, of course, was dog themed with warm ups including ‘Chase your Tail’, ‘Open the Puppy Coop’ and ‘Scoop up the p*o’. Once all humans and dogs were warmed up we ran around Sale Water Park with runners running at a pace that suited them and their four legged friends. Some decided to run one lap others decided to run two and some took the opportunity to walk but everyone finished the run feeling better than when they started.

After the run all runners and dogs gathered at the café for a well-deserved coffee catch up (and sausages).

Feedback from Coby a 2 year old Cockapoo:

‘It was a wonderful morning, I loved running because I get lots of treats on the way round. My owner looked tired after a lap so I thought I would be nice and go for a swim so he could catch his breath, I then cooled him down by shaking myself dry beside him to ensure he got extra wet. I enjoyed the run, but my highlight of the morning was definitely the sausage I got afterwards!! I can’t wait to do another one and make new friends‘

We will be having our second dog run in August, keep an eye out on the Facebook group for more information or email hello@mileshyclub.com.