Qualified women’s running coach

Hello I’m Carly, I’m a women’s running coach and founder of RunTheShire, an online and in person running community for women.

I am a qualified running coach and trail run leader with England Athletics. I’m a qualified PT specialising in strength for runners, outdoor first aider and I also hold CISMPA certifications in Movement in Menopause and The Female Body in Training. I live in Worcestershire with my husband, children and a growing number of pets. I’m an experienced road and trail runner and have competed in short, medium and long distance races including the London Marathon and several ultra marathons (anything over 31 miles). My favourite place to run is the Malvern Hills, I’m very lucky to have them so close to home and love nothing more than getting up there early enough for a cloud inversion sunrise. If you’ve never experienced one I highly recommend setting the early alarm and looking for a nearby hill. 

I set up RunTheShire at the end of 2021 out of a desire to create opportunities for women in and around Worcester to get out and run together with the fundamental belief that we should be free to enjoy movement without pressure, fear or judgement.

I’ve run on and off for years, but started getting more consistent with it in 2017 after my youngest daughter was born to help combat some of the feelings of anxiety I had. I discovered trail running in 2019 and now the trails are my happy place. I was hooked, it just felt like a really fun adventure every time I laced up. There was less pressure to run fast on the trails, in fact I found walking or power hiking was encouraged. In trail running races I was never asked what time I completed it in, it just wasn’t important, it was much more about the experience and how much mud you managed to get covered in – this allowed me to develop my confidence as a runner in a really fun and zero pressure way.

Something wasn’t quite right however. I noticed a lack of women out the trails and at trail running events – surely there must be other women who enjoyed this too?

It wasn’t just a gut feeling, gender inequality in trail running stats backed it up too. According to reports, the Fell Running Association (FRA) in the UK has circa 8,500 members, of which only 23% are female. However, active participants differ from membership, which is made up of predominantly older male members. When you look at racing, and in particular ultra trail events, RunRepeats’s 2020 ’State of Ultra Running’ report revealed that only 23% of ultra participants were female (albeit this number has been increasing steadily by about 3% each year since the 1990s). Finally, according to a UNESCO report, 40% of all sports participants are women, yet women’s sports receive only around 4% of all sports media coverage. You can’t be what you can’t see as the saying goes.

So I decided to do something about it – I wanted more women to experience the fun and freedom that running, in particular trailing running had given me too. So I gained my England Athletics Leader in Running Fitness and Trail and Fell Run Leader qualifications and set up a Facebook event and asked if any of my friends wanted to run a local off-road route with me.

That day I took 8 local women out on a short trail and we had an absolute hoot. The conversations that took place made me realise that Worcester needed a women only run group. Many of the women on that run either didn’t feel confident enough to run on their own, were worried about getting lost or being alone in a remote place. The most common theme was that women always put themselves last and so just didn’t get out enough.

There were a lot of women who also wanted to get out and run in the city, but felt intimidated about joining larger groups or running in the dark during the winter months. So in January 2022, on a cold and wet Monday night, I launched Worcester’s first women only learn to run course, and subsequently a social run group.

Now, two years later, I am a qualified run coach and have helped several different groups of women learn to run and have taken countless women out to enjoy the views on the trails. In 2023 I partnered with InUnity, a non-profit organisation, with their women’s wellbeing initiatives and created a team kit which through the sale of running tshirts supported a local women’s charity. I also host a weekly social run group, improvers courses and technical events and coach several women 1-2-1 to become stronger, happier and more confident runners.

At the heart of it all is a fun, safe and inclusive environment for women to exercise and enjoy spending time together. I love the RunTheShire community – we have a lot of fun together, around the city and out in the countryside, and everyone really believes in the ability of each and every runner. We cheer each other on the good days, push each other when we need to but we are also a great support to each other on the harder days.

Women in Sport research has found that women can see the benefits of getting more active but there are many barriers for women when it comes to sport. It really isn’t as easy as ‘putting on a pair of trainers’ as some would have you think. There are lots of different reasons as to why someone might think twice or simply not feel able to – especially for Black or Asian women, women in their midlife and menopause years, those with caring responsibilities or those with financial restraints.

It is my hope that through RunTheShire, I can play a small part in changing this narrative. I want women, both in person and those who run with us as part of our wider online community, to know that RunTheShire is that space where they can feel confident in their abilities and feel free to give anything a go. I hope, just like I found, running becomes a tool to enable this confidence in all aspects of their life.

I feel honoured that women want to spend their time with me and trust me to help them achieve their goals. Monday’s are now my favourite day of the week because I’ll be running with my team and I feel incredibly grateful that I get to call this my job.