Run Together: Run Leaders' Retreat

A question that we get asked a lot by friends abroad and visitors to our city is: "What's Running like in London?" 

The answer is truly difficult, but something that we always come back to is the sheer number of different ways in which you can approach running: there is a club, community, team and crew on every corner, for every level, for any background. Beginners programs, morning running sessions, clubs for mental health, crews for women, teams for those that want to race, communities for those who don't want to race... the list goes on (check out the Run Hub for more).

Through this diversity, each community has different needs, wants and approaches to running. With this comes potential for friction, but one thing that we at Runlimited aim to highlight is the shared power that each one of the city's collectives has. After all we all have a shared passion that is to run.

Luckily in London we find that the community at-large, for the most-part, is genuinely supportive of one-another. When building Runlimited, Jonty and Molly wanted to channel this energy into something even more intentional in order to serve as a community hub that brings together crews and communities and help them grow and develop. 

Before we even had a store space Runlimited have been bringing leaders and communities together with regular Run Leaders Retreats: experiences designed to provide club leaders with a chance to connect with each other in an intentional manner to share, collaborate and grow ideas together. 

The sixth Run Leaders Retreat brought together 16 club leaders from all corners of London. Supported by Salomon, we gathered at our St. Paul's shop to grab pairs of the Aeroglide 4 training shoe before a short run up to Shoreditch Park for Yoga with Sophie Bowles and sauna and plunge session on the SOAK Sauna canal boat.

The sauna environment provided a perfect place for developing relationships between leaders, with experienced sauna-goers helping those who were new to the experience. Conversations ranged from how to introduce running to new communities, and how remaining true to one's founding mission is central to creating authenticity in the running space.

Led by Sophie from NARCos (Not A Run Club (On Sundays)), our Yoga session was intended to provide calm at the end of the working day, and to showcase how a practice like Yoga can supplement running and health.

Runlimited aims to be one of the most collaborative brands in the running industry, and the Run Leaders Retreats is central to this concept. We believe that running is best when shared, and clubs can only grow by pulling each-other along the way. Thank you to the leaders across London and beyond for all that you do for the community, here's to many more retreats and even more collaboration.

- Runlimited 

Writing by Liam Dee