By my own admission, I am mostly an introverted person. From a young age, my school reports would often say ‘she is very quiet’ or ‘ she needs to speak up more.’ I would shy away from school performances and would rather have bit parts in the class assemblies if everyone needed to be involved. But the one thing that gave me a voice was playing sports. It could have been so different if my parents had pushed me more towards an academically heavy pathway that is still coveted by Chinese culture. Instead, they allowed me and my two siblings to pursue what we enjoyed, which I am forever grateful for. It hasn’t always been easy, as again I was always being told I should project my voice more, but over time I’ve developed my own style of communication. A piece of advice a colleague once told me is that coaching and public speaking is like putting on an act, a different persona if you will. It also helps having the confidence to put yourself in group and public situations.

Now anyone who knows me will tell you I could talk for ages about running. That’s what led me to applying to the role as Women’s Programme Coach at The Running Charity. But also why I love to be a race pacer and be involved with parkrun. Only this year I took the leap into being Race Director at my local event. It wasn’t any less scary standing on the bench and seeing a sea of familiar faces staring back at me. Also going back to the point above about avoiding school performances, I don’t think my younger self would have had any inkling about me learning to dance, being happy to be up the front of the class amongst more of my experienced classmates and then taking the first of many performance exams. The point is that if I didn’t feel confident enough to try any of it I would never learn anything new. I always remind young people that it’s all good and well being used to your comfort zone but you can’t grow by playing it safe forever, something I wish someone could have told me a long time ago. In 4 years, I have seen a lot of young people develop into the best versions they can be. They should be proud of all they achieve with us and beyond their time on the programme. Especially so for some of our current cohort. I’m super nervous but also excited for them, as they are currently training for their first London Marathon. I can’t wait to see what it does for their confidence and self belief when they cross that famous finish line down The Mall.

As I’ve said before in a previous blog, I feel like a mother/sister figure to the young women I support. I want to help them find their voices. Help them develop their confidence. Make them realise it’s possible to pursue the things that make them happy. I’ve also been working on trying to equip them with the knowledge they need as women in terms of health, rights and even opportunities because they might not have had someone else tell them about these things (sadly more often than we realise). Sometimes I feel a bit helpless about certain topics, especially ones that have been in the news time and again recently. But it’s important that the young women know they can talk about what worries them because it might be that someone has dismissed them in the past. Or they were just told to “get on with it” and not make a fuss. The latter is something I’ve seen and read a lot with regards to women’s health, which frankly is quite frustrating when we have more information at our fingertips than ever before. We shouldn’t have to keep fighting to be heard and yet it still happens. Team GB athletes Dina Asher-Smith and Eilish McColgan used their platform to speak up about how periods can impact sporting performances. Some women were quite dismissive of this and yet it needs to be talked about because these athletes are role models to the next generation of sporting women. A young girl or woman will see this and realise that it’s normal to feel a bit lethargic and not be performing at your best all the time. Organisations such as The Well HQ and The Active Pregnancy Foundation are helping to educate women about their health and how to approach exercise at different stages of our development. Their existence came about because there wasn’t any comprehensive advice available to women when they go through pregnancy, the menopause and menstrual cycles in general. Recently, I spoke with ultrarunner Sophie Power about how she is trying to level up the start line for female runners through She Races, after her experience of UTMB not allowing her to defer her place when she became pregnant, a policy which she is working to change with races right now. These women are helping us to make a change against practices and institutions that still work against us. They’re standing up for us. We’re standing up for the young women we support at The Running Charity.

Raise those voices!

Carmen is The Running Charity’s ‘Women’s Programme Coach’ in London. You can follow her over on Twitter