Socially distanced run for Sheffield food banks

The Streetrunners completed just more than 72 miles on Sunday in Sharrow, smashing their original target of £1,000, with more than £1,700 raised by the end of the weekend.

Lucy Wood, organiser of the Waywood Runners StreetRun group, said: “I feel incredibly proud of all the people on my street and the ladies who’ve been running with me every week. After a lot of hard work over a difficult period, they’ve done so well.”

The Waywood Runners came together after residents of Wayland and Bowood roads saw Lucy doing a weekly run around her local streets, finishing just before the weekly Thursday evening clap for carers.

Several other women asked if they could join in, and worked out how the group could operate under social distancing, with overtakers warning slower runners from behind, and runners using both pavements and the quiet local roads to keep 2m apart.

The event helped neighbours meet each other, and inspired several women to take up running again after years of absence.

With many local runners missing the social running offered by parkrun Lucy has launched the StreetRun idea as a small scale, socially distanced alternative, and has already received enquiries from runners thinking about another StreetRun in Nether Edge.

The ethos of the event is that it’s open to both new and experienced runners, that participants can walk or run, do as many laps as they like, and family members and kids can join in too, as long as all households keep their distance from one another.

After raising £300 by running 25 laps of the circuit for the NHS early in the lockdown, Lucy decided to set a date where all the Waywood Runners could try to run 19 laps to raise money for food banks helping the most vulnerable during the Covid 19 pandemic.

She said: “There is clearly an appetite for this, and I think StreetRun fills a gap.”

To donate, visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/the-waywood-19 or see streetrun.co.uk for more information.