SOLE SISTERS
Minreet Kaur talks about Running Sisters, a group she set up to get South Asian women active
‘WHEN I TURNED 41 LAST YEAR, I felt I needed to exercise more, because I’d put on weight and didn’t feel good about myself. I started doing parkrun after lockdown; it was tough, but I felt really good afterwards and wanted to run more.
So I started a community running group, Running Sisters, to encourage South Asian women to run. It’s a nice way to build that sense of community. A lot of South Asian women tell me they can’t run and it’s not for them – that’s just how I felt before I started running. I never had anyone encourage me except my mum. The runs are often quite local – we run along a beautiful canal in west London and I try to get us together three times a week.
The biggest success story for me was when one of the ladies in the group said to me she would only ever run 5K and, at the time, thought that was a long run; she never thought she could run 10K and enjoy it.
She recently hurt her wrist and it’s in a cast, but she’s still running – how inspiring. The other is my mum, who’s 71 and never thought she could run. She’s now signed up for her first half marathon later this year, which we’re running together.
I always reflect on my first run and remember my lungs feeling tight; I was gasping for breath, had finished all of my water before the run ended and was feeling exhausted; it was so hard and tiring. I never thought I could do it again but I kept on running. Now, 10K feels like a walk in the park.
It’s a fairly new running club, but it’s slowly getting bigger. Many South Asian women struggle to find the time, as they have family and can lack confidence. Many don’t want to run outdoors and feel they can’t, when really they can. I welcome anyone who wants to take up running. My dream is to move this club to different parts of the UK and to help more South Asian women start running.
There are lots of barriers South Asian women face: one of them is that it’s quite intimidating to start running and we also don’t feel safe. There’s also a lack of South Asian women running on social media and few role models. We mostly see Asian men running and that’s not very encouraging for women.
One of the runners who came along for the first time thought she wasn’t going to be able to run. We did a gentle 5K and she felt really good and wants to come again. It gave her the confidence that she can do it. I’ve had many more women take interest and it’s exciting to know this is the start of something big that’s making a change in the way the Asian community feels about running.’