Remarkable Running!!

It was cool, sunny Sunday in late March. Take a look out of the window and you’d be forgiven for thinking we were on the cusp of a lovely spring with lots of getting outdoors to look forward to.

However, this was no normal Sunday.

Inside my flat in central Lincoln, I was going through an ordeal in my head… do I shut my business down or keep it open and hope for the best?

It’s not the kind of decision you want to make when you’re a self-employed coach, with many unknowns on the horizon, however the one question I had to ask myself was could I look after and protect my clients with the present and very real threat of a global pandemic?

The answer to that, of course, was ‘no’. That morning I recorded and sent every client on my books a video message explaining my decision. Each one of them had a slight wobble in my voice as the reality hit… it was a very emotional few hours.

The next day, the Prime Minister announced the UK was to lock down, and everyday life for every one of us was to suddenly change beyond recognition overnight.

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Over the early days of lockdown, running had become even more of a mental therapy than it had been before.

As an anxiety sufferer I’d first got into running to aid my mental health, and now more than ever I needed it to get me through the rather peculiar and somewhat daunting scenario of spending the majority of my day indoors rather than out.

I’d been training on road all winter for the Manchester Marathon, and when that and London were postponed, I, like many other runners and many of my clients, lost the the biggest focus we had.

All that fitness and form built up, and nothing to put it into.

I’ve always liked to think of myself as a glass half-full kind of guy, and after a few days my mind switched to how I could keep myself and others motivated and focussed over the coming weeks if we only had an hour a day to get outdoors and exercise.

With that thought swimming around my head, I began to wonder if it was possible to turn a negative into a positive and find a way to help those who were far worse off than I was at the time, and that’s where the idea for a Community Champs group came about.

Gathering local runners in the Lincoln area, we begun running out to different areas around the city, picking up prescriptions and essential items for those who were vulnerable and having to shield or self-isolate.

The scheme soon became a success, with over 20 volunteers servicing more than 80 requests for help around the city during the strictest part of lockdown.

With this I found the more errands I ran, the more new places it took me to around the city. I begun looking at maps to find the quickest way of getting to where I needed to go, and started to knit together more and more routes with a focus on looking to skip the main arteries around town and take to trails where it was far easier to keep to a social distance.

The results were a treat. The feeling of freedom was back, it was harder to find other people than it was to find them and the joy of hopping over a stile or skipping over a tree root only added to the enjoyment.

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Fast-forward to mid-May and map plotting had become my one of my favourite lockdown pastimes, so when restrictions started to ease I embarked on a mission to find the best of what Lincoln had to offer, with the aim at the end of it to start up Lincoln’s first trail running club.

I’d long loved running trails and find it offers a nice switch-off from day-to-day life. From running alongside becks and streams, through woods and holts and across fields and tracks, I understood more about the way these could link up and create some fabulous, ever-changing routes.

Having battered the old trail shoes I already had in the first few weeks of lockdown, I’d purchased a pair of the excellent Inov8 Trailtalon 290 v2’s via Lincoln’s ‘Lockdown Santa’, and over the next six or seven weeks racked up a total of over 500km exploring every footpath I could find within a five mile radius of the city!

Tailoring routes of different lengths, I became excited not only to share these wonderful places with the running community that’s welcomed me with open arms since my move up from Norfolk in 2017, but also to show that trail running can become a place to unwind and allow an escape from the mental side of things, too.

And with that, a new website and a new focus, the Remarkable Trail Club was born!

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Since our first run on the evening of the Summer Solstice in June, we’ve enjoyed taking small groups out onto the trails, building up a community of runners and leaving the concept of pace and watch-watching behind and immersing ourselves into the great outdoors in a friendly and social environment.

We currently operate three categories of run:

Short Runs (6-10km) on a Wednesday evening

Long Runs (15-21.5km) twice a month on a Sunday morning

Day Runs (18km+) once a month, where we go a little further afield to explore towards and including the great Lincolnshire Wolds

Passes and memberships are available for those wanting to participate in multiple runs.

Every month we also host a free ‘taster’ run for those that would like to come along and try us out, and also other options including private 1:1 or group trail runs, personal coaching, monthly virtual challenges and more.

Our August schedule has just been released. You can find the booking calendar and lots more information over at www.remarkablerunning.co.uk, and follow us on social media via @remarkablerunning on Facebook and Instagram.

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Remarkable Running is also involved in the peer-to-peer mental health support, Run Talk Run, which meets in Lincoln on Tuesday evenings. Should you be interested in joining a Run Talk Run, please check out www.runtalkrun.com or contact us via on social media or email.