“I’m very proud of it, it’s incredibly precious to me.”

Those are the words of Catherine Hickey who was talking about the ladies’ group at Charlton Kings Running Club.

The group meet at 9.15 at Kings Hall every Friday morning and will run anything between 5K and 10K and yes, they do meet every Friday morning without fail, whatever the weather.

“If I’m not there, they will go for a run by themselves,” said mum-of-two Catherine who founded the club back in May 2010.

“It’s much, much more than just a running club. We go for a run, we put the world to rights, we go for a coffee.

“It’s good for our mental health, I’ve made some amazing friendships, it’s an amazing support network.

“I jokingly call them my third baby!”

About 20 ladies meet up for the run – there are hundreds on the club’s Facebook page – and Catherine continued: “We go off-road and on-road, basically we run around Charlton Kings and Cheltenham.

“We decide on the day where we are going to run, although 10K is the maximum distance, we are definitely grassroots.”

Catherine, a fitness instructor – her business name is Catherine Jasat – was a decent runner back in the day.

Brought up in Charlton Kings, the one-time Balcarras School pupil competed for Cheltenham Harriers and the county as a junior.

“I always loved running,” she said. “I’d run 800 metres and do cross-country in the winter, I was a decent club runner.”

Her dad was a very good runner, running 800 and 1,500 metres for Birchfield Harriers and Catherine, who was also a good swimmer when she was growing up, says that he was her motivation for taking up running when she was younger.

A combination of factors – contracting glandular fever at 17, going to university, starting a family in her mid-20s – saw her give up the sport for some 10 years, although she still ran intermittently in Birmingham where she was living.

By the time she moved back to Charlton Kings some 13 years ago she’d already got back into her running because she had joined a ladies’ group in Birmingham.

“My motivation to run and exercise consistently was to be a positive role model for my boys,” she said. “It’s something I really believe in as a coach, parents are the most important role model their kids will see. I ran 10Ks, half marathons and marathons.”

She’s got a best marathon time of three hours, 20 minutes set in Brighton in 2013 and clearly enjoys the distance because she’s also completed the 26.2-mile race in New York, Amsterdam, London, Edinburgh and Dublin.

“If you’re going to do something stupid you might as well travel,” laughed Catherine, who has also run the Cotswold Way, which covers 104 miles.

Such is her love for all things running that setting up her own running club seemed a perfectly natural thing for Catherine to do, and a year after establishing the ladies’ group she set up a mixed running group which meets on a Thursday evening.

That has since been rebranded as a 5K running section with a greater emphasis on things such as technique and mobility.

“I really want to get it up and running,” she said.

So what would she say to anyone who is thinking about taking up the sport?

“Give it a go,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “Most people can run, you don’t have to be able to do half-marathons or marathons.

“It’s a great sport to get into. Once you’ve got your kit it’s effectively free, you can leave your front door and go for a run.

“We have runners of any standard. It’s my favourite sport, I love it.”

So do the ladies who meet up for the club’s Friday run with Catherine adding: “A lot of them move their work around so that they can make the 9.15 run.”

So what happens if Christmas Day falls on a Friday?

“We run on Christmas Eve,” laughed Catherine. “Actually, pre-Covid, we’d been organising runs on Christmas Eve starting at 9am. We were getting 50 people turning up – men, women, children, it was brilliant.”