Meet the Leader - Martine
Martine joined Weight Watchers in January 2017 and to help her lose weight and started walking or cycling with her family nearly every day after work. She reached her goal weight in May 2017, losing 4 stone in total. In June 2017 Weight Watchers set a challenge for all its members to do a 5k and Martine’s Coach, Michelle, now a fellow Rogue Leader, picked Shipley parkrun for her group’s 5k. Martine really enjoyed it even though she’d never ran in her life before had always hated it.
A little later on in 2017, with her good friend Rachel’s encouragement, Martine agreed to give a running club a try, hoping it would help her keep off the weight she’d lost. Martine admits she finds it difficult to get out and go to places with lots of people, especially those she hasn’t met before, as she was dealing with depression and anxiety, but she surprised herself that she actually went and, even more surprisingly, she loved it! Since then, she hasn’t looked back. Initially, she only wanted to be able to run a 5k parkrun but ran 109 miles for the mental health charity Mind during RED (Run Every Day) January 2018 and, after just 6 months of running, she ran her first half marathon at Carsington Water in February 2018.
Martine took on 100 miles in May for Mind and clocked up 117 miles and ran her second half at the Robin Hood Half Marathon, taking 8 minutes of her personal best time, despite being out injured for the six weeks leading up to it. She has now taken part in numerous 5k and 10k runs, is almost in double figures of Half Marathons run and completed her first marathon, the virtual london marathon, in autumn 2021.
Martine is a champion for mental health. She followed her passion by undertaking a career change in 2020 and now works as a Group Development Officer for the Derbyshire Recovery and Peer Support Service, part of the charity Rethink Mental Illness. She leads on all things mental health with Rogue Runners Ripley and is passionate about developing the links between positive physical and mental health. She knows from personal experience how being physically active can help people of all ages and abilities stay mentally healthy and is always available for anyone to turn to for help and advice. Her hard work and support of everyone, both in our group and the wider community, meant Martine was nominated, and was awarded, the 2021 Ripley Town Council Certificate of Merit. We are all so proud (and lucky) to have someone like Martine in our group.
Above all else though, Martine enjoys running with her “fabulous running family” who she loves very much and credits a lot of her achievements to their support and encouragement. She is unfailingly supportive and enjoys supporting runners of all abilities. An unfailingly supportive person and always willing to give her time generously, Martine is always available to step in and lead any one of our sessions when needed. She supports beginners on our Monday evening programmes and often leads sessions on our Wednesday evening group nights. She is also a regular participant on our Friday evening trail runs and Saturday morning longer runs. In fact, wherever there is a Rogue run, Martine won't usually be too far away!
