When Najma Abdi of Sole Striders reached out to us to ask if we'd like to host the kick-off to the community's new Stride It Forward programme for beginner runners, we knew there was only one answer. From chatting with Najma, it's clear that her one goal is to help more people find their own space within running and help them experience the joy in movement that she has found for herself. Liam sat down with Najma to chat more about her personal running journey and how the new Stride It Forward programme is bringing new runners into the London community.

Runlimited: Hi, Najma! What is your background in running and how did you get started with your personal running journey?

Najma Abdi: I started running probably two and a half years ago now. I was going to the gym quite consistently, wanting to lose some weight. 

I was that person where I would never run for the bus – and I know everyone says that – but I genuinely wouldn’t; if I was late, I was late that day. There was a session at the gym called Sweatex at Thirdspace: it's a really cool class where you would do some weight sessions and then sessions on the treadmill.This specific session, you had headphones on and the instructor in the class is like telling you that you can actually run faster than you think you can, what’s the worst that can happen? 
And so I would go to each session and I would run much faster than I thought I could, and I was like “this is fun! If this is fun on the treadmill, imagine doing it outside.” 

My friend at the time – who's also the cofounder of Sole Striders – also wanted to start running at the same time. She had gone to a women's-only club that had opened up quite recently, quite close to us and she said “Oh my God, it's amazing, you have to come!” I went the following week and, 
I mean, pretty much fell in love with it that way. One, because obviously, you're running your first 5K, but it doesn't feel like you're running, because you're running at a comfy pace, you're chatting to people and meeting new people each week. It was more that I was going for the social aspect, with the bonus of getting my run in. 

RL: So you’ve taken the social element of running, and gone from having never really run before to last year running three marathons. Was that always the plan once you started? To run the marathon? 

NA: It just kind of happened. When I started running, I realised that I like running, but also like running with a goal or having something that's going to keep me accountable.

As soon as I started running, I signed up for the Queen Elizabeth Park Half Marathon and ran it three months into when I started running. But I never thought I'd run the London Marathon. 
I never thought I'd run any marathon, to be fair. I’d never watched the marathon before and I never even knew about these races. I think my first year running, I probably did two or three half marathons and really enjoyed them, and I was like “Half marathon is the distance for me”. You know, it starts getting difficult about the 15, 16K mark, but you know you’ve only got four or five KM left. A Marathon, 42K, I didn’t think I could do that. 

But I signed up to London and managed to get a spot and I thought, you know what? If I'm going to do the London Marathon, I may as well just do all the majors! 
Which is crazy because obviously there's six of them and some of them are very difficult to get into. 

While I was running London, I already knew I was running Berlin and Chicago later on that year. When I was running London, I remember, the last two miles I had bumped into one of my friends, who was also running it. And we were just there saying “I don't know what made us think that we could do this marathon!” and she said “Well, you have two more coming up!” I told her “Don't remind me, not right now!” I never thought I'd run a marathon, let  alone three in one a year. But I think I learnt my lesson, I definitely bit off more than I could chew; three in one year was not so great. 
I think this year, my plan is to do one. I saw all the social media posts about New York Marathon last year and thought “New York Marathon's got to be the one that I do next year”, because it looks so good. 
So yeah, hopefully New York this year, but we'll see. 

RL: What do you feel like getting into the marathon and then doing three in a year has taught you? 

NA: My biggest lesson is physio is very important and if you have any slight niggle you should probably see a physio just to make sure it doesn't get worse. And I would say strength training is so important, because if you don't strength train, you probably will get injured and then you can't run. 


It's also important to find the right shoes. I remember when I started, I didn't really know about getting Gait Analysis, actually. So I bought a pair of trainers and thought they'd be fine. 
And then I realised that I actually spent £140 on a pair of trainers that didn't make me feel confident and comfortable while I was running and that I’d probably not wear again. That was when I started to realise that people go to stores and test different trainers and get expert help on what's best for you. 

Also I learned that, yes, marathon training is difficult, but it can be really fun, especially when you do it with a community because you're not doing it solo. I'm not having to go on a 16 kilometre run on my own on Sunday morning and dread it. I can find a running community where everybody is doing the same thing, go along and I don't have to think about it because someone else is leading that run. All you need to know is that you'll be running for X amount of time and by the time we're finished, you've had a good time and you have got your long run finished. 
So I say definitely utilise the networks around you to make training a bit more enjoyable. 

RL: Totally agree. You're doing my job for me by talking about getting a gait analysis and shoes and all that. 
So thank you!

On your community point, co-founding Sole Striders, tell us more about what the main impetus behind that was, your focus with the group and what Sole Striders offers.

NA: Mona and I started running with another club that ran on the road, and we really enjoyed road running. But they then moved to track sessions, which a lot of women’s running communities in London do, mainly because of safety, which is completely understandable. At that point in our running journey, we only ran once a week and so we didn't feel like track sessions were actually that much fun. We wanted to go back to having fun. 


We had done a couple of races by that point and realised it's so important to get more women into this space – getting them empowered and to take up space in the start line and build their confidence. So we started Sole Striders. 

Our main ethos is empowering women of all backgrounds, getting them to embrace movement, whether that's running or other things. 
We also do walks and hikes, as well as our Active Movement Series where we spotlight specific sports and physical activities per month, where it's completely free. It removes the cost barrier mainly, and more people are able to do it. 

We focus more on the connections and social elements of movement. 
For our social run on a Friday, we run at a very comfy pace, we'll kind of take it as the group wants to because this is the perfect company to network because as we grow older, we find it a bit more difficult to meet people and build connections 

We also want people to fall in love with running. Like, not because you just love running, but because of the community and what you get out of it, which I think ultimately will make you fall in love with a sport. 

RL: You collaborate with lots of other communities in London, ASRA and Amaliah, are two that I've seen on your Instagram recently. How important is that to you? 
Because for us as a brand at Runlimited, that's been a real core part of what we've done. What is the importance of bringing communities together outside of Sole Striders? 

NA: Particularly in the running scene, I don't think there needs to be an agnostic bill where, if I'm part of this community, I can only attend that community. 
Everyone runs on different days and if you want to get to meet loads of different people, and  if that's the way you want to get your run in, definitely do. 

We partner regularly with ASRA [a Muslim women’s running community founded by Sarah-Isha Muhammad-Jones] because they also run on a Friday at a similar time to us, so it's easy for us to kind of combine our runs. We have members that will kind of go between Sole Striders and ASRA, so it's nice for us to join up so people can all come together. 

For cheer-zones we’ll collab with pretty much all of the London running communities, because it's much nicer to run through a section where loads of people all cheering for you. I do think that running, particularly London, has a great community feel where, you know, it's big, but it's actually not that big and everybody knows each other. So we may as well work together because we're all here doing the same thing to promote movement and get people to fall in love with running.

I would always say running is for everybody, you can definitely jump around between running communities. And we also love working with people that at organisations for other sports, so we've also worked with Barakah, a women's group do weekly football sessions. So we partnered up with them because we wanted to host football. Rather than creating something new we found a group that specialises in what we wanted. 

Sometimes it's just looking and seeing who's actually best-placed to do that and working with them. That way you give them the recognition that they need, but also you introduce your community to other communities as well, so it benefits everyone. 


Sometimes it's just looking and seeing who's actually best-placed to do that and working with them. That way you give them the recognition that they need, but also you introduce your community to other communities as well, so it benefits everyone. 


RL: As you mentioned, that also helps break down barriers to getting involved with exercise – running, hiking, football, whatever it is. What are some common barriers that are faced, certainly within your community, the larger community of Muslim women, and women more generally in running? 
And how do you focus with Sole Striders to combat these issues?

NA: One is around safety. Running, particularly as a woman, and as someone that's visibly Muslim, can be a barrier, especially if you're trying to go running you own. Right now, if we're running after 4 p.m and it's pitch black outside, it's probably not safe for women alone. 

We chose to run on a Friday evening, not only because it starts a weekend off right and everyone's finished with work but you're able to get people together in London to run in the dark, which you probably wouldn't do as a woman or as a solo runner in the evenings. 

I will say one question that we always get is what to wear to run, especially if people adhere to modest wear. 
It can be quite difficult: can I wear a hijab? what am I supposed to wear on my head? There's so many hijabs, either large brands like Nike and Asics have come out of the one recently, or some smaller brands if you prefer to support them. Other brands provide long and modest tops now. It's much easier to find on the market now than you would five, 10 years ago. But as a new person coming in, you might not know where to find those. 
So we use our group people to drop a question in and someone will give advice. 

We do get the beginners that join us for the first time when we're doing road running, who are too embarrassed to go on the road. And I don't think that's specific to Muslim women. 
I think it's probably just women in general, where you think that everyone's watching you and everyone's going to be like “Oh, she's running! Why is she running?” when actually – and we always do try and use this analogy – you probably saw a runner run past you yesterday. Do you remember them? The answer is almost always no. 
No one actually cares and everybody's doing their own thing. Especially when you're in running clothes, people know that you're out for a jog. 


RL: And with Stride It Forward more specifically, you're trying to break down some of some of those hesitancies about running. 
But tell us more about the programme itself. And again, the motivation to encourage more people into the sport. What are some things that you've built into Stride at Forward that you hadn't seen in your own running journey or in other beginner running programmes?

Stride It Forward is a six-week, beginner 5km programme where you are partnered with a more experienced mentor within Sole Striders. One mentor to one or two mentees. 


Essentially, it came about because we get messages quite often around ‘I've never run 5km before. 
Do you think I can still join?’ And obviously the answer is always, yes. We run at a very comfortable pace. There are breaks. So you could probably do it. But there is still that hesitancy of “am I going to be the slowest person?” 
Or, “are people going to have to stop for me?” 

So we wanted to create a programme where you'd have that one-to-one support with someone who had recently started their running journey, or have been running for a while and can give you that expertise. 


It's a six week programme. There are two runs a week we recommend you do with your mentor. 
It's okay being given a plan, but as a new person having to complete that plan solo, you probably won't ever start it. Together with a mentor it removes that stress of doing it alone. That mentor has that knowledge and that support to provide to runners. 

We offer resources as well, so we have stretches and exercises that you can do before and after a run. Your mentor can help you with those, but also, if you decide to go on a solo run that week, or after they complete the 5K programme, you know what to do. 


Overall it removes that added pressure of needing to know all of this information because actually, you’re just running with the mentor. 

The plan gives you options too. There is a plan where you can walk-run and by the end of the six-weeks you can complete that 5K. There are additional plans where, if you’ve got a higher fitness level and can run for longer blocks of time too. 

We have our finale on the 14th February where they will complete the Southwark Parkrun with their mentors and at the end of we’ll have a celebratory breakfast to congratulate them on completing their first 5K. Then they can join our Friday ones because they now feel comfortable, and know that they can actually run the distance. 

That's why we called it Stride It Forward.It's for those that have been a part of our community to then give back to our new joiners and also for them to feel like they've got the right support and build connections. 

RL: I love the idea of having a mentor. 
That's not something that I've come across before and having someone that has been through the same journey recently, I think must be huge. Everyone started something at some point in their life and just having someone telling them, “you can do this, I've been through it, I know what you're feeling”. 
It's so important. When you came in with the group on Saturday where everyone was sitting down with their mentor, you could see the nervousness almost washing away from people. How have the first few weeks been?

NA: They're almost finishing week two and it's going well so far. 
One person in our group chat mentioned how before starting the programme, she was really nervous about this and she realised after week one, she didn't have anything to be nervous about, so that's great. I'm also a mentor for this, and my mentee didn't really think she could run for as long as she did during our last session and I was like “exactly! and it gets easier each time because you're building slowly, so it's a bit more sustainable!” 

We'll do a proper feedback session midway through and then again at the end of the six-weeks to see how we can improve. But so far, so good! 


People were super nervous about this because this is the first time they're doing anything like this, but when you have that and that constant support from one person messaging you and checking in and going on those runs with you, it removes that issue almost entirely. It's amazing!

Thanks, Najma!

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You can find out more about Sole Striders from their Instagram.