A running club are hoping to break down barriers and attract more people to take up the sport.

RunTogether Canterbury officially started last May and have gone from strength-to-strength since.

Having seen numbers grow, the club now have three run leaders and two mental health champions, Virginia Lumsden and Kerry Laker.

Group leader Emily Mickleburgh said: “I asked for feedback earlier in the year, just to see what people thought and what they wanted, just to make sure I was hitting the right pitch.

“One of the things that came out of it was people wanted to do slightly longer runs. I’m a plodder - I have one speed and it’s not very fast - so I tend to look after the couch to 5k and the 5k runners.

“We have now got Hannah, she’s just qualified. She’s a marathon runner and she’s good with the long distances. We have got Carolyn Jeffery, she works in the NHS with me. She’s more of a sprinter but is absolutely full of beans and is the most enthusiastic person.

“We also have got a deaf runner that’s just joined us. I work in speech and language, so I know sign language, and Carolyn works in speech and language as well. She’s got a relative who is deaf so she’s good with speech and language.

“We are trying to welcome everybody and make it all-inclusive - I just want to take down the barriers, I suppose.

“There’s lots of people who are nervous about joining a group, nervous about meeting other people, and the biggest fear is going along to a new running group and not being able to keep up.

“I just want to remove that. If I end up walking with someone at the back, then that’s exactly what I’ll do. That’s absolutely fine and they can come back the next week.

“We want to get everybody out and running, and talking to people because that’s just so important.”

Mickleburgh explained how the group first formed.

“When [the first] lockdown happened - I work for the NHS - and I got redeployed and had to work in hospital wards which is something I’d never done before.

“I found it really hard and so I started running more myself in the evenings because I needed it.

“Because, obviously, everyone was in lockdown, you start chatting to people online more and it turned out there was this community of people who were doing a similar thing. I had a few friends that were running and we decided we would start running together when the lockdown was lifted.

“Then, of course, we went into another lockdown and I said ‘Maybe we should do this properly, we’ll set up an actual group’.

“So, in the second lockdown, I contacted England Athletics and found out I could do this RunTogether training.

“They have a website and everything so essentially, once you are qualified, you can then set up a website, using their template, and run with it.

“So I funded the first qualification myself and started the group. We went live in May last year and it just escalated.

“We have got some really good runners that run with the slowest runners. They’re really supportive and that’s exactly the ethos I’m going for.

“Now we have got two more run leaders we can expand with the sort of runs we can offer people.

“There were six of us to start with - there was me and a group of friends, really. Then a friend invited a friend who invited a friend and I set up the website.

“I have now run three couch to 5k groups. We have got runners that are now running with the group who couldn’t run at all.

“We have got more than 100 registered with RunTogether Canterbury but not all of those people actually run with us. Some have booked and then not turned out.

“I would say approximately 70 have run with us, and we have probably a core group of about 25 to 30.”

The group have been supported by a grant from Active Kent & Medway, too.

“It’s a completely not-for-profit group,” Mickleburgh explained.

“I don’t charge for the runs. So, obviously, I don’t make any money from it. The courses cost nearly £200 each to get the run leaders and that sort of thing so I was really grateful for the grant.”

There’s also a big age range with Emily’s mum, Theresa, among the group.

Emily said: “The youngest is 19 or 20 and my mum, Theresa, is a member. She’s 72 and she did the Wingham 5k.

“My mum has been a runner her whole life as well so she’s actually a really good advocate.”

RunTogether Canterbury are not the only running club in the city but Mickleburgh believes they offer something different.

She said: “We have got quite a few running groups in Canterbury. We have got Invicta East Kent, which I’ve actually been part of.

“My son runs with Invicta East Kent and he’s quite an elite runner. My mum was a coach many years ago when I ran for Invicta East Kent when I was a teenager.

“Then there’s Canterbury Harriers. They’re a fantastic group but they are more competitive and enter a lot of competitions. There’s Beginners2Runners Canterbury which are brilliant for the beginners.

“But really, what I try to offer is a social group with running on the side almost because I find that’s what a lot of people want. If we can’t talk while they’re running, we’re running too fast.

“It gives you the motivation if you know that you are running with other people. It helps you get out and, then when you get out, the feedback is that everybody feels really good.

“We always take this sweaty selfie at the end of a run and it’s just a nice community that’s sort of growing.”

With one of the club’s two mental health champions now wanting to be a group leader as well, Mickleburgh admits they could be on the lookout for more support soon.

“We will be scouting for more funding soon,” she said. “But at the moment, I’m enjoying being able to share the workload.”

The two run leaders were recently initiated and forced to run the streets of Canterbury with monkey and giraffe helium balloons.

Mickleburgh said: “That’s just my sense of humour. Carolyn has long legs and she’s speedy, and giraffes are actually quite speedy.

“Monkeys are very family-oriented and very nurturing, and I thought the animals fitted their personalities!”

The club have two groups which run either 8k or 5k and meet at Sainsbury’s in Canterbury at 6.15pm on Thursdays.

Go to groups.runtogether.co.uk/RunTogetherCanterbury for more information.