Redway Runners

August 21, 2023 by Martin Lawrence
Frontpage Article, Headlines, News Specials

Did you know Redway Runners is all ‘run’ and organised by volunteers who willingly give up their time and often there runs to make this the fantastic club that we all have.

We think we have well over 100 volunteers in the club, when you include all the run leads, committee, events teams then so many who help in so many aspects of the club, we probably have around 120 people helping you.

They all work together for the club to deliver our aim which is to be a fun, social running club, for the benefit of runners and value for money (membership, £5 a year!). We like to think we mostly achieve this.

Sometimes we need your help though to make sure that things run smoothly and make the job of the run leads a bit easier, there are several ways you can help

Try to attend the right group for you, two of our key runs are the social/club run and the step up run. step up runs are a shorter run, usually up to about 3 miles and at an easier pace. Then the social/club runs are longer than this and usually at a quicker pace, we have a guide of about 10 minutes and 30 seconds and quicker for social/club and slower than that then step up. If you are in the wrong group then this makes it more difficult for the run lead to manage, plus runners in the group feel pressure to run faster than the ‘advertised’ pace.
Why not ‘Step Up to Social’, especially on the Sunday runs, we know it can be daunting to join the Sunday club social run, but they operate the same as the step up runs, the Sunday social do 60 minutes with loop backs, then you have the option to do an extra 30 minutes, the run leads are all great. If you are worried about making the ‘Step Up’ then I (Martin) am leading on the 10 September come join me.

Loop Backs, on many of our runs these are a way that we keep the group together making sure everyone gets the run for the time we say the run will be for, the loop backs (the front runners running back down the group to the tail and re-joining the group). If runners do not loop back and stop and wait for the tail this means they get time to get breath back and fly off again whilst the person at the back who has just got to the group has no chance to take that breather and is put under more pressure without a recovery opportunity.

The role of the tail on the run is to mark the back of the group and runners when doing a loop back should go back to the tail who will be moving along to keep the group going, they are also giving up time and run to help. Please consider helping as a tail runner, ideally on runs this role is shared so you can give up just a small part of your run to help the club. They are vital for safety of everyone and to make sure nobody get left behind or lost.

On the runs, please follow the runner’s guidelines, we have them on the weekly run schedule page as they are that important, link at bottom of this. Please be polite and nice to other runners and members of the public, remember we do not have exclusive use of the redways and paths, so please move over for runners doing loop backs or members of the public, a friendly ‘hi’ goes a long way, no one should come away from a run not feeling better for it

We love our volunteers and just helping them means we all get to have great runs enjoy the club that we have all worked so hard to build a great reputation for.

Finally, please do say thank you to the volunteers in the club, a thank you in person or on the club Facebook page on the posts goes a long way and do not cost anything

We will always be enjoying ‘Running Milton Keynes’ and THANK YOU for running with us

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