As 2017 draws to a close I wanted to just take a minute to consider how far we've come!  You can see all our achievements and milestones right here but we wanted to just focus on a few before we take on 2018.

We've had some great support from England Athletics and Run Together.  Some of the EA team joined us for a run, I wrote an article for a coaching magazine and then the group went on to win the Yorkshire and Humber Group of the Year award.  We've continued to work with the team at EA and Run Together too with feedback on the Group Leader app, as well as the website, with hopes for some improvements in 2018 for both Run Leaders and participants.

As the group has continued to grow in Tingley, Emma decided to complete the LiRF course to support me, this was soon followed by Andrea and Hazel.  The growth in the team meant that we could expand to other locations including Drighlington and now Overton has it's own weekly session.

A couple of months ago we started to collate a bunch of testimonials to show that the group is for anyone, this has helped so far, but we're keen to get some more so please get in touch to tell us what TRF means to you.

Back in May the group raised £200 for Kirkwood Hospice by donating £1 each time they ran with us.  We've chosen JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation UK) for our January charity.  It's not compulsory, but we are keen for every run attended in January that each runner gives the Run Leader £1.  These will be collected together to create a final donation at the end of the month.  With additional sessions and bigger numbers we hope to be able to make a positive impact.

The group has gone on a whole journey this year with some goals reached that in 2016 some would never have thought they were possible.  Again, we would love to share these stories too.  In Autumn we asked what your goals were and after a recent review it seems many of you have already achieved these, or are certainly on track, so well done!  As a final thought I guess the biggest journey of 2017 was that of Strawberry.  When I was told at 16 weeks pregnant that I need to stop running, and limit my walking it was tough.  But the whole group came on the journey for the next 20 weeks as Megan ran with a different fruit each week until baby Ellie arrived....if only Megan had known that the watermelon didn't need to be so big!

Thank you to all my Run Leaders, and to each of you who have joined us this year.  If you're yet to join us then we look forward to seeing you in 2018!

Until then, Happy New Year.....you'll find me at Pontefract then Rothwell parkruns on NYD!

Natalie