Women's Running February 2022

We could all benefit from going back to school. I don’t mean uniforms, bad lunches, upsetting PE, and reading the same book several times over. I mean we could all benefit from shaking ourselves up a bit, and reminding ourselves that we’re never too old to learn something new. When I started running, it was the done thing to perform a series of static stretches before I leapt out of the door in my singlet and tennis shoes. Then, I would take off as fast as I could until it hurt, and then I’d stop. Decades have passed since then, and my running looks very different now because I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to access a ton of knowledge about my very favourite thing. But my latest discovery is that…

Ginnia Cheng Ginnia is a runner, writer and comedian who specialises in telling stories from underrepresented perspectives. She recently won Louis Theroux’s Looking For Louis competition, was shortlisted for the BBC New Comedy Award 2021, and was selected by BBC Writersroom for a programme showcasing the UK’s East Asian comedy talent. This issue, she runs proudly on our cover and explores the lack of diversity in running on page 32. Tina Chantrey Tina has been a health and fitness writer for over 20 years, she has written several books, is a UKA qualified running and athletics coach and mental health champion, and is happiest running long in the hills or coaching her team of incredible women on the south coast. This issue, she went all adventurous on us, and found out all the…

One hundred years ago, the Women’s Amateur Athletics Association was formed, at a time when many men believed there was no place for women in sport. There was certainly no opportunity at that time and for many years afterwards for women to run a marathon, as many men believed it was impossible for them to run that far. The male-dominated Amateur Athletics Association in England encouraged women to set up their own organisation and it didn’t take long for women to show how seriously they could compete. However, they still had to fight to be included on the global sports stage. The Olympic Games included women’s athletics contests for the first time in Amsterdam in 1928 but, with just five events on offer, women decided to boycott the event instead. The first…

British brand Rab has awarded The Mountain People Film Grant to the proposed film, Radical Trails. Filmmakers Jaha Browne and Olivia Martin McGuire aim to show the British outdoor landscape through a different lens in an intimate, character-driven portrait of black women in the outdoors. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) studies showed that only one per cent of visitors to UK National Parks come from BAME backgrounds. Given the benefits that the outdoors has on our mental and physical wellbeing, and that those who feel connected to the outdoors are more likely to fight for its conservation, Radical Trails aims to play a part in diversifying the British outdoors. The film will follow a pioneering group of black women connecting to nature and claiming their right to be well.…

New research from Garmin shows the negative impact winter has on the mental and physical wellbeing of women across the UK, with 70 per cent saying their wellbeing is worse in winter. The research involving over 4,000 adults shows that one of the biggest aspects affecting women’s health during winter is a reluctance to exercise, especially during darker mornings and evenings. More than half of the women who took part in the research said they’re scared for their safety while exercising during these months, and a similar number said they would continue to be fearful of exercising during winter in the future. But it’s not just physical fitness affecting female wellbeing at this time of year. Nearly half said their mental health was disrupted during the winter months as well. Th is…

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