For these runners, running clubs aren’t just about exercise (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
Although many of us started pounding the pavements during lockdown, in 2024, running fever truly took hold.
By April, Strava had 120 million registered users, a 26% increase from the previous year, and on-trend athletics brand, Hoka, has seen record-breaking sales figures.
Places for the Hackney Half marathon 2025 sold out within two weeks, while a staggering 840,318 people entered the ballot of next year’s London Marathon – a new world record, which wildly surpassed the previous year’s total of 578,304.
But we’re not just lacing up our trainers to keep fit. Runners are clocking up the kilometers for all sorts of reasons: to find love, be part of a community, or achieve peace of mind.
Here, Metro.co.uk speaks to three runners about how joining a running club led tolife-changing friendships.
Join the country’s biggest running club (even if you’re a walker)
Joining parkrun is free – it doesn’t matter if you’re a keen runner, a jogger, a walker, a social stroller or are keen to volunteer and cheer from the sidelines.
Register for parkrun here.
Did we mention it’s free (tick) and you only need to do it once (tick tick).
‘It helped me through my stalking nightmare’
When the pandemic hit and the UK was plunged into lockdown in March 2020, Philip Dehany was advised to shield.
As someone living with HIV, medics warned him that catching Covid-19 could be life-threatening.
As such, Philip decided to leave London, and head north to the Lake District, to stay with his parents.
Philip tells Metro.co.uk, that the moved helped him to ‘reconnect’ with his mum and dad, both in their late 60s, but as the days turned into weeks, then months, he began to struggle.
Philip started running during lockdown (Picture: Philip Dehany)
In a sinister turn of events, Philip, then a theatre blogger, had been targeted by an online stalker – a total stranger – who began emailing him.
The man publicly shared Philip’s HIV status (then information only known to close friends and family) and one evening, even phoned Philip’s mum. Philip has described his ordeal as ‘hell’ and says it drove him to the brink of suicide.
‘I found myself becoming more reclusive as I withdrew from social media to hide,’ the 42-year-old recalls.
‘The weekly food shop found me filling the trolley with snacks and junk food to fuel my television marathons, and I began to put on weight.
‘By the end of the lockdowns, when my stalker was finally arrested, I had put on two stone, while hiding from the world in my mother’s back bedroom.’
In the depths of his struggles, Philip reached out to the Terrence Higgins Trust, where he was offered the opportunity to run the London Marathon in support of them.
Philip signed up to run the London Marathon with the Terrence Higgins Trust (Picture: Philip Dehany)
As part of his training, Philip spent hours running between the neighbouring villages …read more
Source:: Metro
