RunningCommunity

Each month we dedicate a blog post to the latest goings-on within the Uganda Marathon (UGM) runners’ community. We include everything from news to shout-outs, for our 2015 runners, 2016 runners and team members.

After all, a big part of the Uganda Marathon is about the community it’s created for everyone involved.

Here’s a round-up of what’s been happening in January…

 

Our first training run for our 2016 International Runners

On January 23rd, we held our first Uganda Marathon 2016 training run at Peckham Rye parkrun. Mark, our running expect and current Mzungu champion, lead the session with a warm up, before the group joined 200 others runners in the 5K parkrun.

With a mix of runners and team members, and breakfast afterwards, it made a great way to kick off the weekend!

Mark side by side with UG
Mark (left), our running expert and a certified Athletics Coach, led the session

And the UGM group even got a mention in the parkrun’s race report!

We’ll have more social training runs soon, as they’re a great way to get a run in and chance for runners to get to know each other before Uganda. Watch our Facebook & emails for updates.

Parkruns… and more parkruns!

Since the start of the New Year, we’ve been going pretty big on parkruns. Including our parkrun at Peckham Rye, we’ve had some of our runners at parkruns for the last three weekends.

On January 16th there was a group of 2015 runners at Dulwich Park, and then at Tooting Common on 30th January, for Tooting’s first ever parkrun!

It was nice to catch up with everyone at the post-run breakfasts, especially with one of our former runners who got married over Christmas in New Zealand!

Featured Fundraising Page Winners!

Each week we select a runner’s fundraising page to give £10 to, for doing something awesome in their fundraising!

A massive shout-out to all our January winners:

Great work on getting your fundraising pages set up and getting off to a great start! We’ve added £10 to your fundraising total!

Remember to send the UGM team your URL when you’ve set up your fundraising page. After all, you’ve got to be in it to win it!

We have a competition winner!!

Congratulations to Hannah Spencer, our competition winner! In early January, we held a competition in partnership with Escape the City, where their email subscribers could enter a draw to win a free place in the Uganda Marathon 2016! A big thank you to the many people who participated, and Hannah- we’ll see you in Uganda!

If you missed the draw, filmed at Bugabira primary school in Uganda, here’s the video below.

 

Superhero Run

A big, big shout-out to our team members, runners, Project Awesome and everyone else involved in the 6K and 10K Superhero Run in London. The event has raised a great amount for a fantastic cause.

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In support of a superhero & Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Project Awesome ran dressed as Superheroes

If you would like to donate, it’s not too late…you can access the JustGiving page here.

Sign-ups galore! The UGM community is growing!

We’ve had a fantastic month in January with sign ups and we are thrilled our community is growing at such a pace. Thank you to everyone who has signed up. You are doing an amazing thing- helping to change lives in Uganda!

And finally…our 2016 International Runners are go, go , GOOOO!!

We’ve received Tweets and Facebook posts showing you kicking off your training and even booking ‘pre-Uganda’ races… and as people set up their fundraising pages, the first donations are starting to come in too! It’s all starting to get very exciting! We’re certainly feeling the buzz here! Thank you for all your efforts with both your training and fundraising.

Stay in touch and let us know how you’re getting on via email, Facebook & Twitter. 122 days to go!!!

 

 

Do you have news or want to give a shout-out to someone in the UGM community? Maybe you’ve hit a big milestone in your training for the UGM ’16 or a UGM ’15 runner with a story to tell. If so, we want to hear from you- drop us an email at: info@ugandamarathon.com (with ‘shoutout’ in the subject). We’ll include you in the blog for February, released at the beginning of next month.

Like to read more about what’s been going on in the UGM community:

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