Beginners’ course a huge success for Run England Group Leaders

A New2Running course led by newly qualified Run England Group Leaders, Dawn Addison and Kevin Shufflebottom, has seen tremendous success.

Twenty-six complete beginners signed up for the six week course at Biddulph Running Club. Dawn and Kevin – faced with the task of getting them up and running from zero to 5k – organised a committee, carried out local marketing, designed a beginners’ pack with FAQs, a training plan and local sport shop vouchers.

This all led up to the launch event on 17th May at the local leisure centre and the Leaders completely bowled over at the amount of people who signed up.

The course began on Tuesday 19th May and each week Dawn and Kevin led the runners through two sessions (Tuesdays and Thursdays) with a warm up, stretching, main session building up each week with a structured walk/run programme, through to cool down and more stretching. The runners were then encouraged to include a third session at a weekend.

Many of the runners set up mini groups to motivate each other on the weekend runs, such was the friendly atmosphere of the group.

All the training built up to a 5k race around the local Knypersley Pool on Thursday 23rd June. A staggering 21 of the new runners turned up with around 20 existing club runners there to support them.

Dawn and Kevin timed the runners through to the finish and everyone celebrated with bucks fizz and certificate presentations.

All who completed the course are now fully-fledged runners and have joined Biddulph Running Club where club members are supporting them with their continued progress. They meet every Tuesday and Thursday evening at 6.30pm at Biddulph Valley Leisure Centre.