Wales rugby legend Gareth ‘Alfie’ Thomas has challenged a group of women from the same village to run the Cardiff Half Marathon. The group – dubbed ‘Alfie’s Angels’ – are almost all first-time runners and their progress will be captured for a BBC Wales documentary as part of BBC Wales’ returning Live Longer Wales season in the autumn.
The 18 women, aged 17 to 60, are all from the small village of Deri in Caerphilly, and have signed up to run the 13.1 mile race in October with cameras in tow. Many are related to each other and their day-jobs range from teachers to nurses, council employees to post office workers, students to retired grandmothers.
Gareth Thomas, who was the first rugby union player to earn 100 caps for Wales, is Team Captain, inspiring, encouraging and supporting the women through training exercises and health regimes.
‘Alfie’s Angels’ have varying levels of fitness and face some tough goals along their journey to race day. Step one is learning how to fit training into their already busy lives, but Gareth will be on hand mentoring them through the highs and lows, injuries and victories.
“Running a half marathon is not an easy thing to do and there’s going to be hard times especially coming from the position that most of these women are, having never run before. I want to help them because I know how important fitness is; this is one event that could potentially change their lives and I think to be a part of that is massively rewarding.”
“I also think the outreach could be huge, there’ll be other people sitting on a chair thinking I could actually be that woman, I could do what they are doing because they are normal people who are doing extraordinary things.” – Gareth Thomas
31 year-old Sherell Mclaughlan is a married mother of two who works for Caerphilly CBC as a Tenant Liaison Officer and says:
“For 15 years I’ve done absolutely no exercise and haven’t worried about my health and fitness. It’s been the last thing on my mind. Since having a family, I haven’t thought about myself and now I’m really excited about this opportunity but I’m just worried about how I’m going to fit exercise into my lifestyle.”
Another one of Alfie’s Angels, Liz Barrett gained three stone after going into premature labour and spending months at a hospital bedside.
“I’m doing this because it will kick-start me back into healthy eating to get fit and in turn lose weight. The hardest part is learning what and how to eat healthily again.” – Liz Barrett
Live Longer Wales will launch in September and run across BBC Wales services, featuring a range of programmes on television and radio as well as extra content online, all aimed at inspiring Wales to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
