Group leaders wanted to get more people running across Cumbria

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Would you love to get more of your friends running? Perhaps you already take a running group for a club and want to help them improve? Maybe a few of you at work run at lunchtime but you would like to make your training more enjoyable and purposeful or perhaps running could compliment training for another sport. The Leadership in Running Fitness course is designed for people just like you!

Active Cumbria The Sport and Physical Activity Partnership working with Run England are looking for running enthusiasts to establish a network of new beginner running groups across Cumbria.

Run England is England Athletics official recreational running programme which aims to get the nation running. The programme offers a safe, fun and supportive way to take those first steps to becoming more active more often. There are over 750 Run England registered groups nationally, all delivered by qualified and insured leaders who are passionate about helping people new to running achieve their goals.

Active Cumbria are offering free places on two Leadership In Running Fitness courses; Saturday 28th April at Workington Leisure Centre; Sunday 29th April at Frenchfields Leisure Centre, Penrith.

The Leadership in Running Fitness course will cover elements like looking at the barriers to running and how to overcome those barriers, how to develop a session & session components including risk assessment, safety, goals and reviewing practice, managing your group to include all abilities, session planning, which different activities to include, importance of variety, Goal setting, how to set and use personal goals, warming up and cooling down, correct stretching for running, common injuries and injury prevention, footwear, the basics of being a leader and what’s expected of you.

Active Cumbria has teamed up with New Balance to encourage the new leaders in setting up their running groups. New Balance which is marking three decades of manufacturing in west Cumbria is offering new run leaders lots of incentives to set up groups and recruit members.

Liam Burns Development Manager for New Balance said: “It’s great to team up with Active Cumbria on this programme to encourage more people in Cumbria to take up running. This year we’re celebrating 30 years of manufacturing in Cumbria and the New Balance brand is proud to support a campaign with an aim of nurturing the next generation of runners.”

Once qualified, new run leaders will be issued with a licence and have the skills and insurance needed to deliver fun and safe sessions to groups of runners with different abilities, including new runners and those who already run but want to progress. Run leaders who go onto register a new running group will receive £50 New Balance voucher. Further discounts from New Balance will be offered for registering group members and for group members joining groups.

Sport England recently reinvested over £1 million in to the Run England programme allowing for the programme to further expand, it is hoped that by March 2013 there will be over 2000 trained LiRF leaders delivering over 1500 Run England groups. Active Cumbria were one of the successful County Sports Partnerships in applying for a portion of this funding and this goes part of the way to show the potential the county of Cumbria has to become a hub for Run England groups in the coming year.

Craig Blain Run England Area Coordinator for the North said: “The county is blessed with a great terrain for getting out and running and as Active Cumbria work to develop more opportunities for residents to pull on a pair of running shoes, for what maybe the very first time, I see great things for the programme to flourish in Cumbria.”

Joining a running group could not be easier, it is just a case of registering on the Run England website at www.runengland.org/join, finding your local group at www.runengland.org/groups and giving it a go whether on your own or with a friend for support.