By Peter Jardine, Head of Communications
Keep Moving Forward: jogscotland launch new Strategy
Liz McColgan running through the Tayside countryside – or indeed the mean streets of Dundee – in her early teens predates the launch of jogscotland by roughly a quarter of a century.
Yet surely few observers would dispute she perfectly fits the description as a path-finder or pioneer for the programme.
Guest of Honour at our 4J Awards Dinner in October, the running legend was very keen to highlight the benefits of jogscotland.
In those very early years, she was sometimes chased through the streets of Dundee by gangs of youths or stopped and accosted for behaviour that was regarded as very much out of the ordinary. If not downright ‘weird’.
But here we are almost 50 years later with both groups out running or women jogging thankfully now acceptable and commonplace in Scotland’s towns and cities.
‘I started running quite simply by getting a wee pair of shoes and getting out the door,’ Liz told us in a special interview.
‘I didn’t have a great background in Dundee – my mum and dad were not working, not that much food on the table, electricity shortages. We didn’t have the funds for me to go and do other more expensive sports.
‘Athletics for me at that time was get out the door and run in the countryside. That got me into running and it helped me escape problems at home. From there, that running in the fields became so much more.’
‘We’re on right track – if we #SALtogether’ – Liz McColgan
That’s an understatement from the legend that is Liz who in the years that followed amassed medals, records and bit city marathon victories in a stellar career. But that is not our story here.
‘Running helped me mentally at that time,’ she recalled.
‘You can gain that feeling immediately after exercise. Sometimes motivation can be difficult. It is winter nights and you hesitate to get out. But, if you can, it helps.
‘So a programme like jogscotland is really really good to encourage that in folk. You can meet with like-mined people and get out and run together. Not necessarily the fittest or the fastest.
‘It then becomes like a social thing an d you are all going through it. You don’t have to do it in a group – you can do it on your own.
‘We’re fortunate now in Scotland to have great parks in our towns and cities. The jogscotland programme supports that activity in the community so well and I think the community aspect is huge.’
So what was it like in the late 1970s and early 1980s for a female to run in Dundee housing estates?
‘It has become so much more acceptable for women to go out and run or for groups to go out and run,’ she said.
‘When I started on the streets of Dundee that just was not the case.
‘I used to get stopped in the street an asked ‘What are you doing?’. At times I was followed – and chased – by gangs. Because I was doing something so radical. People seemed to think I was a ‘weirdo’ for being out a run.
‘The truth is there are great benefits to be had and I think women are realising that now. It can help with depression or anxiety or that kind of stuff. Running can release you from all that.
‘Education programmes about the benefits are out there and nowadays people can read all that (which wasn’t the case when I started).
‘There is information there which will help you learn more about weight loss or body image or whatever aspect you want to apply to you.
‘So for me it is really important for general well-being. It is not about winning races. It is about you challenging yourself and getting a feelgood factor about what you are accomplishing.’
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Features, jogscotland, Liz McColgan