Hello Runners and all new runners!
I first started running in 2011 after going on a bouncy castle and feeling out of breath after a few minutes! This prompted me to get my fitness levels up and lose some weight. I started off doing loops of a field for months until I had the confidence to venture out further and really started enjoying myself. 1-2 years later I found myself joining a running club and taking part in Park Runs, 10k races and half marathons. The most important thing to me though was the running community around me. The support and love felt with others is like no other and its something I am immensely proud to be part of.
Although I seemed to improve my own personal times during 2014-2016 I did have small break where I fell in and out of love with running but always kept part of the community offline and online.
In 2017 I started taking part in a few races again and met even more new faces along the way. Coming into 2019 one thing that was always in the back of my mind was running a marathon. I always secretly wanted to do it but always held back, but in early 2019 a charity I ran for had a place come up at short notice for the Brighton marathon and I grabbed it with both hands and started marathon training albeit with quite a short notice! On my training runs I bumped into so many different runners training with all different backgrounds. I always knew how special the running community was but it just got better and better.
After successfully completing my first marathon in Brighton it was probably the most amount of pride I have ever had from a run. And the atmosphere and other runners support on the day were just out of this world.
A few weeks after the Brighton marathon I decided to the something that I wish I had done a few years back and that’s to start my own running community online. And I did just that I felt I had so much support and inspiration to give I just had to do it. I was not sure how much it would grow but four months later I now have an incredible running group on Facebook called “The Running Community” I get to share my experiences with others whilst learning and sharing stories with other runners and we have a great amount of new runners who are on their couch to 5k program. It’s a friendly, loving, inspiring community and I am so glad I started it and I am hoping this will continue to grow in the future to allow for running meet ups and get together’s at races and shows!
Go out there and run and make yourself proud!
Mark Burrows (The Running Community)
