Foxy Ladies Running Club

Month: April 2020

  • 2.6 Challenge exceeds expectations!

    2.6 Challenge exceeds expectations!

    The idea of the UK wide 2.6 challenge was to raise money for the charities who would usually receive money through the Running of the London Marathon. As you maybe aware all running races have been cancelled whilst the Corona Virus pandemic continues. However the charities that would normally benefit also have to continue their good work which is difficult without the funding they usually receive at this time of year.


    Our amazing group of ladies pledged to cover 260 miles on Sunday 26th April as part of this challenge and we absolutely smashed that target and ending up running 734 miles between 115 foxes and 8 fox cubs all on solo runs (sticking to the social distancing guidelines).
    It was a truly incredible day and we ran 474 more miles than the target we had set.
    We have raised a fantastic £7,141 with gift aid (as of 5/5/2020) which completely exceeded our expectations. Each charity will receive over £1,000.

    All five of the local charities were chosen and voted for by the members of the club


    THANK YOU to all the amazing ladies that took part and to everyone for your donations and words of support and a massive Thank you to Emma Hill, Foxy Lady member and event organiser.
    The Foxy Team spirit was felt everywhere on that Sunday and we are so proud of all our efforts and fund raising achievements.

    Amazing amount of 2.6 challenge runners
    All our runners maps
  • Round and Round your garden…..

    Round and Round your garden…..

    Amy Perry makes Foxy History running a garden marathon !!

    The 19th April should have been Amy’s first marathon in Brighton along with thousands of other runners and lots of first time foxes.

    However like all other large gatherings & races and events, the marathon has been postponed until September. By which time the world is hoping the Corona Pandemic will be over and things will be starting to return to normal.

    Many of the Foxy ladies had trained so hard through the winter months and were devastated after all their hard work and effort with long training runs. Of course the ladies completely understand the need to cancel due to the seriousness of this pandemic. Many now have to make the difficult decision whether to defer to next year or train through the summer for a September marathon.

    The build up

    Amy decided she definitely wanted to do her marathon on the day she was supposed to but with lockdown she had to make some alternative plans. She had read some articles recently about men doing garden marathons but had not seen any women doing them. Amy measured her garden and mapped it on strava and worked out 44 laps equalled 1 mile. So Amy had to run 1,153 laps to complete her marathon.

    Deciding only a couple of weeks before that she was going to do it, despite her husband Will trying to talk her out of it, Amy did not make a big deal out of what she was going to do. She shared her goal with a few of her running buddies and put a post on the foxy page the day before saying this was the only marathon she would ever win.

    On the day …

    Amy started at 8am in the morning and was thankful to have her family with her for support. Husband Will joined in for a half marathon – his furthest ever distance, and faithful dog Stanley was regularly at her heels. Foxy ladies popped by at a socially acceptable distance, to offer their support. Warm wishes were received on social media and through the live videos that Amy’s daughter streamed through out the day. Recording live on face book for the final mile the family arranged a finishing tape of toilet roll for Amy to cross through. Exhausted but triumphant, Amy was pleased to have finished her unique garden marathon in 5 hours 50 minutes.

    What an amazing achievement that takes not only physical strength but a lot of mental strength too. We are all super proud of you Amy. This is the first ever garden marathon in Foxy History.

  • Going mad or staying sane?

    Going mad or staying sane?

    Finding ways to motivate our members and ourselves during the lockdown has been not only fun and at times challenging but rewarding and emotional.

    Everytime we have set a challenge for our ladies they have not only risen to it but absolutely exceeded it and done it in style.

    Our challenges so far….

    Picture Theme

    Each group were set a “theme” for their photos and asked to submit their pictures on the days they would usually attend sessions. These were some of the themes we had the ladies finding…. something that smells – nice or nasty, out looking for something red, pretty churches, something round, a “seat with a view”, post boxes, spring flowers, favourite hills, sending in baby photos or family photos for guess the member, sea views and pouting pics.

    7 7 Challenge

    We have set them virtual team challenges like the 7 miles a day for 7 days, where as a virtual team of 4 the ladies have needed to complete 7 miles between them each day whether it was walking, running or cycling. They had to submit their mileage at the end of each day to one of our leaders Clare, without telling rest of club their distances. The pictures , collages and videos that were created by the teams were creative imaginative and heart warming to say the least. Prizes were awarded for furthest distance accumulated, best team name and then the winning team was picked at random from all the entries.

    Teams coming together virtually to run and exercise

    Bingo Bongo Bonkers!

    We had 101 members take part in our Bingo challenge. Every member was sent a bingo card, they had to collect 2 numbers each day of the week and make sure they were in the photo with the number. They could join in at home if they were self isolating or in a daily walk, run or cycle. The number collecting was inspiring from road signs to bus stops from drain cover to vehicle registrations, from house numbers to padlocks and from numbers of fence panels to numerical painted sheep ! By the end of it everyone was obsessed with collecting numbers. A winner was chosen at random and another picked for best photo.

    Live online workouts

    Lesley one of our leader and qualified PT instructor takes an online live class every Thursday evening at 7pm and has various fancy dress theme each week so that even our littlest foxy cubs want to join in. We have seen families working out dressed as super heroes, colours of the rainbow and cowboys and Indians and TV characters. The strength and conditioning classes have been great at keeping the ladies on track with their fitness as well as the second offering of a class on a Saturday morning running by Julia, workouts have included strength bands, body weight classes and abs n butt blasters as well as using hand weights.

    Indoor exercise challenges

    Added into all the above, leaders and members have challenged each other with the following home workouts….

    • “Bring Sally Up” squat / press up or tricep dip challenge
    • “Your name” in exercises workout
    • Cha Cha Slide plank routine
    • Baby shark abs session
    • Hold the Plank challenge

    Plus loads more and more to come ….

    We have also been providing informational videos including foam roller tips and techniques . A series of videos focusing on injuries with detailed hip injury advice and exercises and plantar fasciitis advice from our own Sarah Morriss. Sarah is a Foxy runner and sports therapist at the Sprint Injury Clinic https://www.facebook.com/SprintInjuryClinic/

    Free virtual online sport injury clinic appointments with our leader and sports injury therapist Sinead Clayton. As soon as these were offered she was booked out solid with appointments for two days.

    We are also doing one to one live interviews with members and their running stories.

    With lockdown set to continue for at least the next three weeks we have much more in store for the ladies. The next challenge is called “Cluedo” and has just launched this week.