Foxy Ladies started in December 2013 with just 3 friends led by myself (Julia). At the time I was already a qualified leader in running fitness (LIRF) through the set up and running of the successful Vale School Children’s Running Club, so I had a basic knowledge of how to put together run sessions and be able to give some guidance on running.

I got together with a small group of close friends, who already had a level of fitness and running ability but had never taken their running any further. We started one cold Thursday morning in December.
By January our club had more than doubled its size through word of mouth and friends of friends joining. 

Prior to this I had started training one of my best friends Georgina, it was so rewarding that I knew it was something I was keen to develop further. I had trained her from complete beginner to half marathon runner in 8 months. I then studied hard for 6 months to become a qualified CIRF ”Coach in Running Fitness”  and used everything I was learning in my course and put it straight into practice with my sessions, becoming qualified in July 2014. This knowledge meant I could help other ladies get up and running and start taking on complete beginners.

When searching for a club to join myself back in 2009,  most running clubs only offered evening sessions at a time when my children would be needing dinner, bath & bed and my husband wasn’t back from work, or they were only interested if you were able to run at a certain pace.

I really wanted to be a different kind of club, very much focused on fun as well as running but to be able to offer something a bit different from the traditional track or road clubs in our area. I wanted to offer sessions for women that could be carried out during the day when the children were at school or preschool and would be available to all abilities regardless of pace.

The club had grown over the spring and summer months and once qualified as a coach, the first learn to run course was launched in September 2014. From then onwards every 0-5km learn to run course capacity sold out, this showed the need for groups like this to be set up in our local area.

Enquiries from existing runners came through and further sessions were offered and the need to recruit run leaders to help with the increasing demand became apparent.

Our lovely Run Leaders attended the Run England/England Athletics training day and were put into action as soon as they were qualified. Over time the sessions became formatted, developed, took shape and organised into themes, more days and times were offered to accommodate busy ladies and their lifestyles.

I measured the growth of the club each year based on attendance at the end of year party that we host every November. The first couple of years I was able to hold this in my house and then as the years have gone on the venues have grown from small restaurants to function rooms to now taking over entire venues which is just fantastic!

We are now able to offer sessions or runs on every day of the week and have over 200 members that are looked after by five enthusiastic qualified run leaders along with myself.

I firmly believe that anyone can run, they just have to have a belief in themselves and with our support and encouragement we can give them the guidance they need to start and progress.