Run Mummy Run is 9 years old on 16th December 2021. At the time of its creation in 2012, there was no other online women’s running support community of this kind in the UK. Spotting a huge gap, Leanne Davies, co-owner and founder of RMR, set about creating a small Facebook Group to connect likeminded women runners. At the time, she had no idea that it would take off like it has, proving how much a community of this kind was needed.
Since then, Run Mummy Run has grown incredibly and now has a collective community of over 190,000 active women, and we’ve been able to extend our team to support this growing community. Last year, we launched our exclusive Heritage collection, celebrating the Run Mummy Run community. If you’d like to find out more about Run Mummy Run and how it all began, then do please read all about it here: www.runmummyrun.co.uk/community/rmr-heritage/
As well as the main Run Mummy Run community group, our collective of free communities includes our Run Mummy Run Regional Groups, our Pre-Loved & Secret Sales Group, the Active Women’s Community and The Healthier Track. We also love connecting with our members on social media via Instagram and Facebook – if you use the hashtag #RunMummyRun we can see all your running achievements.
On our 9th birthday (and as we start planning for an epic decade celebration in 2022), we wanted to look back over the last year of Run Mummy Run. Despite a global pandemic and lockdowns, the Run Mummy Run community has thrived. Our community became a vital place for support and love during the pandemic; we were incredibly honoured when the editor of Women’s Running magazine described us as the ‘5th emergency service for women’.
We’ve also been able to realise a few dreams, working with some amazing partners, creating new communities and even starting our very own running club. So read on to find out more about what’s happened from year 8 to year 9.
Run Mummy Run Community Run Club (RMR CRC)
In April 2021, we launched our very own online running club, something we’ve wanted to do for a very long time. The Run Mummy Run Community Run Club in association with ASICS has a significant membership that has far surpassed our expectations, and we’ve loved watching our members’ journeys with their running this year.
Membership of the club includes the option to affiliate with England Athletics for those who want to, but everyone benefits from weekly sessions set by our own in-house coach, Strava challenges for extra motivation, expert content on a range of topics, a monthly newsletter with all the latest updates, exclusive RMR CRC kit and discounts from our partners.
We’re really looking forward to growing the online running club further in 2022. We can’t thank our Family Partner ASICS enough – their help has enabled us to launch this online running club. ASICS is also responsible for the amazing club vests, which our members have been proudly wearing on their runs, to races, parkrun, community meet ups and events all year.
Find out more and join the Run Mummy Run Community Run Club
Active Women’s Community (AWC)
This year also saw the official launch of the Active Women’s Community. This is a brand-new free online multisport community for women, a sister community for Run Mummy Run.
This new group is for all active women, whether you run, bike or swim; enjoy sports like tennis and netball; or like to spend time on the mat doing yoga or Pilates. It is full of support and advice from likeminded women, enabling you to share your passion for sport – whatever it is you enjoy doing.
The AWC is supported by our partners in the sports industry, to bring you exclusive offers and expert advice.
We’re really proud of this new community and we have some very exciting plans for it in 2022. We even launched a t-shirt and hoody for AWC members, and we’ve loved seeing you in your new kit! The community group is so inspiring, packed with active women doing all kinds of sports – it’s definitely made us want to try a new sport or two!
Join the Active Women’s Community for free
Run Mummy Run podcast
Another big step for us this year was launching our very own podcast, Running Conversations, featuring real-life stories from women who run. We’ve wanted to do this for a very long time. Our main RMR community is packed with inspirational women going amazing things, and this was our chance to chat to them and find out more.
The first series features 6 episodes, and they are all available to listen to now on your chosen podcast platform. Each episode has a conversation with a woman about their running, as well as a little content from brands within the running world giving advice and information on key kit items.
We’re really grateful to all the brands who have chosen to support our podcast this year and we’re in the middle of planning Series 2, with even more great guests. If you know an amazing woman who should be featured, do nominate them for a future episode.
Our partners
We also have to say a huge thank you to all the partners who have worked with us in 2021 to help keep the community free.
Our Partnerships Director and co-owner of Run Mummy Run, Becs Richardson, has been working hard throughout the last year to engage with brands who share the same ethos as Run Mummy Run and build these essential partnerships.
Therefore, we want to give a warm welcome to our Run Mummy Run Community Partners for 2022. These include Family Partners ASICS and Garmin; Charity Partners Alzheimer’s Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support; Supporting Partners Destination Sport Experiences (our first official travel partner!) and Erdinger Alkoholfrei. We couldn’t do what we do without these partners supporting Run Mummy Run and our communities.
We hope that you’ll enjoy the exciting content and opportunities that these brands help us to deliver, while also keeping our communities free for everyone to gain support and motivation. Watch out for further news from our 2022 partners in the new year.
Looking forwards
Now we are looking forward to 2022, with even more great things planned. We will be going into the second year of the Run Mummy Run Community Run Club in association with ASICS and we’d love to see that get even bigger. We’re planning more opportunities for our RMR community to meet up in real life. We’re working with more experts and partners to bring you some amazing content. We’re looking at developing the Active Women’s Community and The Healthier Track (our wellness and nutrition community) further over the next year. Watch this space!
We want to say a huge thank you to our incredibly hard-working core team, who work across all areas of the community, shop and social media channels. And also to all our loyal ambassadors and volunteers who work tirelessly supporting our community and ensuring every woman feels welcome. We could not do this without them.
Finally, thank you to everyone in our community. Everything is possible because of you and how much you support us – you are the heart of Run Mummy Run.
What an incredible 9 years achievement Leanne and the rmr crew, happy birthday 🥳 and it has amazing to be part of this journey as a member, am incredible proud of this group of sisterhood and thank you for inspiring me and following my journey to realise my goal of accomplishing 100 marathons this year, it’s been so special and I thank this group daily for the bottom of my heart and love how this group support one another, it’s just very heartwarming and inspiring and long may this group continue for many decades 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽😍😍😍😍🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Thank you so much from me personally Toks. Feel so honoured to have had you as a member since the very beginning. You have given our community so much love and support it truly wouldn’t be the same without you. Thank you xxx