Colleen Jackson is a recovering alcoholic coming up to six years of sobriety. She joined the group in 2019. She says:

“Recovery Runners has helped me achieve what I thought was impossible for someone like me. I remember putting their postcode into my sat nav and telling myself that if it was more than 15 minutes’ drive I wouldn’t bother going. It was four minutes, so cursing the sat nav, I decided to give it a go. I’d forgotten that I hadn’t run since school and couldn’t believe how hard it was to run for 90 seconds! We all downloaded the BBC Couch to 5k app and our ‘homework’ was to complete two more runs before we went back the following week. A WhatsApp group offered more opportunities for us to encourage each other between meet ups.

My head was telling me to give up because I couldn’t do it, but Recovery Runners believed in me when I no longer believed in myself.

The support from Recovery Runners is amazing because they understand how your head works when you’re in recovery. I didn’t get sober and sort my life out until I was 48 and the best thing I did was take that first step and admit I needed help. I’m now 51, and since I started running last September and stopped smoking, I’ve lost nearly three stone.

My mental health has improved massively too. I’ve made loads of new friends and now have a body that after four kids I thought was long gone! I used to drink to change the way I felt – I never thought that exercise and running would do that without the drama and hangovers.”

Colleen is now a regular Parkrunner and recently completed the Leeds 10k. She has also signed up for four more 10k races this year.