SORRELL WALSH

Co-founder and co-captain of WMN RUN, a community set up initially to get more women into endurance running. Now, its mission is to inspire women to aim higher than the boundaries set for them in all aspects of life.

In my first 100k race, Race to the Stones, I managed to place as first woman, but I couldn’t understand where all the others were. In my mind, there should have been 10 women in front of me and so many more in the field. I did some research and found that it’s generally an 80/20 split men to women – or worse – in ultrarunning, and I couldn’t understand why women weren’t taking part or why they didn’t feel as though it was a space for them.

So, ultrarunner Cat Simpson and I created a campaign to encourage more women to run the following year’s Race to the Stones. That’s how WMN RUN was born; it provided a space for women to come and tackle their next goal together. The following year, Cat and I managed to get 52 women to the start line. But while our motivation of getting more women into endurance sport is still a big goal, we want to empower women in work, life or other sports, too.

We’ve always felt that we offer a safe space in our groups. Running as a pack provides a sense of safety, which is a great thing. While it’s a shame that some women don’t feel safe on their own and need to think about these things, it’s reassuring to know that groups such as ours can provide safety when we’re out running in the depths and darkness of winter or early in the morning. We find people are fairly clued up on ensuring that they are safe – don’t run in dark parks or along canals on your own, etc – but it’s so sad that these are behaviours we inherit and are still second nature to us.

We want to continue empowering women through movement, allowing them to share their goals, however big or small they may be. It’s not about segregating women; it’s about elevating them to an equal playing field. But a different sort of space is created when women come together and take ownership of something they either didn’t see a space for themselves in before or had ever considered doing.’