#7 Hilary Ridway

Hilary Ridway began running by training to take part in our annual Windermere marathon. She’s now an ultra-athlete and encourages others to find the same hidden strength that she found through Brathay.

'Brathay was my first marathon ever, and only did that after being 'encouraged ' by Sonja, a runner from Barrow who’s completed many of Brathay’s 10in10 challenges where you run 10 marathons in in 10 days. I then went on to do the London marathon and now I run ultra-marathons of 50 miles or more.

The confidence and wellbeing I get from running has got me through a tough 18 months recently while encouraging others to try longer runs, literally dragging them out to share the love, gives me immense pleasure too. I love it when you can see them finding strength that they never knew they had.

Brathay is a super place, with a great mission and vision. The charity’s running events are very friendly but challenging, just what running should be about.'