Ryan Althaus, a local runner and founder of Team Sweaty Sheep, a Christian ministry focused around fitness, is starting a running group for Louisville's homeless population. The group will start meeting in May, as part of the addiction recovery program at Wayside Christian Mission, but anyone who's interested in welcome to join for the group runs.
Why running? "Running is a natural and cheap means of building a healthy self-awareness and self-confidence that individuals need to move forward in being agents of their own recovery," says Althaus.
He's teamed up with local running stores Fleet Feet, Ken Combs Running Store and Blue Mile, as well as local churches, to provide group members with running shoes and gear. His ultimate goal is to get a group ready to run or walk the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon in 2015.
Althaus is also looking for runners and fitness instructors to volunteer. He says he'd like to have runners from the community join the beginning runners in the group for the weekly 3-mile runs. The idea is for experienced runners to act as mentors and coaches. He'd like to have fitness instructors (yoga, pilates, etc.) to lead classes at Wayside on non-running days.
This is short notice (I just learned about the group yesterday) but there's a meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Wayside Christian Mission for anyone who's interested in getting involved. For more information about the meeting, or if you can't make the meeting but want to get involved, contact Ryan at ryan@sweatysheep.com or (443) 223-7334.
