Our community is awakening to new times, physical activity is good for your body, but did you know that physical activity is also beneficial for your mental health and wellbeing? For this reason, it has brought Mayor of Faversham Alison Reynolds and Faversham Running Club Chairman Paul Higgins together to create some practical steps to help and support others. The theme Inspired to Run, Love to Run, Free to Run is a campaign to support the people of Faversham and surrounding villages. Working together it was realised that small changes will generate a massive impact to our community. Choices you make will have such a positive benefit to your wellbeing, and it can be all possible with those first steps.

Our lives have changed dramatically over the last twelve months, and it will not go back to how it was. This is true of the transformation at Faversham Running Club affiliated to England Athletics as we were one of the first Kent clubs to return as a COVID secure environment in 2020. This experience has now placed Faversham with a growing running community. Cllr Reynolds asked how will people get involved, especially if anxious about joining a club. Firstly, our town running club was created to support our community open for all abilities. If you wish for elite running then look for an athletics club, if you wish to get fit come along to see what it is all about.

The benefits of running in a safe, small group, enjoying the run, having a chat and a laugh at the same time is what you will experience. Faversham Running club has many years of experience and knowledge to support you potentially as a beginner to running. Our running leaders provide a free weekly programme ‘couch to 5k’. It is completely free to run with the club around our beautiful countryside and coastal scenery. Seasoned runners can also join our weekly running events with a simple online registration to join small group activities. After this experience, we offer a cost-effective membership and registration to England Athletics, which provides you with amazing benefits and unlimited discounts. An open invitation to Alison to come along for a taster session was offered. Alison mentions that her own family enjoyed the camaraderie of the club so have first-hand experience with the benefits available.