Run Leader Sancho, Run!

Why do you run?  It's a question asked often by runners and non-runners a like.  My stock answer had always been that I began running so that I wouldn't be that fat dad at sports days, unable to take part, not even fit enough to be a touch judge should R ever decide to be interested in playing Rugby.  I didn't want to be an embarrassment and I did want to be able to support him if needed.

These days however I run a lot more for me than for him.  I think it started with my first race, the 2013 Leeds 10k.  It wasn't a good run, you can read about it here, but I made it, I earned my goody bag and in that bag was my first race t-shirt.  I have been obsessed with the t-shirts ever since.

All of them have a story.  The hours, days, and weeks of training that went into earning them.  The fund raising efforts.  The friends made in the holding pens and at the finish line.  But yesterday I received a t-shirt that eclipses them all, one that I am immensely proud of, one that I will never tire of wearing.

 

Last year Ben from Run England asked me if I had ever considered being a Run Leader.  We knew each other from previous jobs but not in a running sense.  He had read this blog, talked to me about running, and for some reason thought that I was a good candidate even though I was a solitary road runner and not part of any groups.  He needed a couple of people trained up and qualified as Leaders in Running Fitness to get a new group off the ground.  That group was South Leeds Lakers and Geoff and I were those people.

We're now in the 20th week of the Lakers and we have gone from strength to strength.  From nothing, we now have 80 people registered with us.  Geoff and I have been joined by Tania and Yaz, and another clutch of run leaders are being recruited from the Lakers to ensure that we have enough cover on run nights and that we can continue to expand the group.

Every time one of the Lakers' enters a race when before they wouldn't have thought it possible my chest swells with pride.  Every PB from a 1 mile burst to the 26.2 miles of a marathon that any of them achieve makes me grin from ear to ear.  Every week, when people turn up, rain or shine, willing and wanting to run because we have said that they can, fills my heart.

Yesterday I received one of the first Run Leeds "run leader" t-shirts.  At the time I hadn't realised quite what this meant to me, but after chasing a group of runners who had taken a wrong turn and then congratulating 37 runners on another great turnout and run, I had a chance to let it sink in.  I am no longer just a solo runner, I am a Run Leader.