During 2010 a group of runners who enjoyed running together from David Lloyd, formed a running group, and this group entered teams in a few local events, i.e. the OU relay and Greensands Ridge relay race, we also met up several events in the area. Then a group of us decided to go over to Palma to run in either the 10k or half marathon, by this time the number of runners joining our group had grown, so after a bit of soul searching and contemplating decided to put our ‘unofficial’ group on a more formal footing and applied to the Association of Running Clubs (ARC) to become an affiliated club.
Anyway, one of the biggest decisions was what to call the club and yes we did consider ‘David Lloyd Redway Trotters’ which seemed a good idea at the time but common sense prevailed and we settled on David Lloyd Redway Runners’.
Our worries about having enough people to join were reduced when we decided to organise a Christmas meal on a Saturday night, only expecting a group of 10 or 11 to make it, we had a superb response with 38 enjoying a great social event and probably our official launch night, but officially David Lloyd Redway Runners was formed on the 1 January 2011.
During 2011 the running club grew quickly, and more trips happened to Berlin and Amsterdam. Team events have been undertaken with the OU Relay, Round MK Relay, Greensands Ridge Relay and Squeaky Bone Relay.
As well as team events many of the members meet up at events and also have regular social gatherings.
Additionally, we have had success in competitions (admittedly limited) winning the Ladies trophy in the OU Relay and our ladies winning parkrun in MK.
In 2012 the club became affiliated to England Athletics and the club continued to grow and in November 2012 to club went over 400 members.
In November 2012 the club also got nominated for two awards, winning the Bucks & MK sports award for ‘club of the year’ and the chair Martin won ‘volunteer of the year’ the prizes were presented by Gail Emms.
As well as this the club got to the last three in three in the BBC East awards for ‘Community Club of the Year in December 2012.
By the end of 2012 we had no trouble in filing the room at David Lloyd for the Christmas party with around 150 attending on the night.
In 2013 we launched our MultiSport group in the club.
In 2014 the club joined the Chiltern Cross Country league, also in 2014 we had a proposal from one of the club members to change the club name to ‘Redway Runners’ we held an EGM and the proposal was agreed and we changed the club name on the 1 November 2014 to become Redway Runners.
In 2015 the club held the first running of Beat the Barge, started early morning club runs and launched the Zero to Hero programme taking a group of non runners on a journey to run the Milton Keynes marathon.
For 2016 we launched our own Festival of running weekend, the Monday night club runs moved to the Decathlon store and we started a number of activities working with others, including, beginners groups for Mercedes and Santander, new run for the Canals and Rivers Trust. The club was promoted to division 1 of the Chiltern League Cross Country.
2017 saw continued growth for the club and the year also saw Milton Keynes celebrating a 50th birthday, the club took part by holding a number of events including a 50 icons run, some joint runs with MMKAC which showcased each decade of MK and a special MK50 Treasure hunt run. The club also did well with awards winning the England Athletics Club of the Year for the East plus the SportMK Club of the Year award. We were runners up in the National awards for Club of the Year with England Athletics and highly commended in the Women’s running magazine awards for Club of the Year.
2018 was another busy year for the club, with all the regular activities, but some of the highlights being a new and a really popular Running Expo, introducing an automated membership database, new events with the Old Money run and Farm run
2019 saw the summer ball and MK24 introduced. Redway Runners were promoted to league one of the Chiltern cross country league, we started our beginners groups ‘open’ evenings and held our first live show, Membership went over 3,300 and the club won the Bucks and MK Sports ‘Group of the Year’ award.
2020 started with Redway Runners launching into Newport Pagnell. But the Coronavirus pandemic that swept the world hit Redway Runners and runs in the club and Face to Face activity was cancelled on the 17 March 2020, click here for more.
2021 was about getting the club running again, we took the chance to change a few things, but the club by the end of the year was operating a full club timetable of runs, held all our events and held beginners groups again, giving us the base to start building again in 2022, read more about 2021 click here
2022 was another good year for the club, winning the SportMK Club of the Year award and coming runners up in the England Athletics Regional awards for ‘Club of the Year.’ Started work to improve how we react to medical issues, purchasing a club De-fib and doing train the trainer course with medical training for 2023
2023 saw a brighter Redway Runners year achieving all England Athletics newly introduced Standards for well run clubs, taking part in the Food Bank Run for the first time in February, we also started to deliver our own ‘Accredited’ First Aid Training to volunteers in the club. In May 2023, due to supply issues with the green kit a new brighter green kit was launched. We won the England Athletics ‘Club of the Year’ award for the South East region.
2024 the year started with the club doing the first survey about the club, this provided some interesting insights to the true value of the club from mental and physical healh to members.
So the club has some history and still has the core values of being, fun, social, value for money and for the benefit of members.
The club is completely run by volunteers who give up time for free for the benefit of running and our members and membership for the year to the 31 March remains at the same price as when we started at just £5, to ensure cost is not a barrier to joining or taking part.
The aims and objectives of the club are:
- To offer coaching and competitive opportunities in Athletics
- To promote the club within the local community and Athletics
- To ensure a duty of care to all members of the club
- To provide all its services in a way that is fair to everyone
- To promote social running
- Have an enjoyable weekly run
- Ensure weekly runs are sociable
- As well as running, the club offer focused sessions, i.e. hills, interval training and speed work
- To boldly go and explore new areas (sorry for the pun – but use different routes)
- Enter teams into team events each year, i.e. OU Relay, Greensands Ridge Relay, Round MK Relay
- Support runners
- Promote running
- Most Importantly….HAVE FUN!!
The club as well is affiliated with England Athletics (EA), Triathlon England and Association of Running clubs (ARC) is also a registered Run England Group, affiliated with South of England Athletics (SEAA) and Bucks AA and Sport Milton Keynes