In January we told you about the “Great Walk For Parkinson’s” that will take place every Sunday in March, 2024.
Now we bring you another charity fitness proposal which will run through the whole of 2024: Lanzarote’s answer to the increasingly popular Park Run: the Sun Run.
It’s organised by the Ministry of Fitness, which it is a local club in Costa Teguise which has taken the approach to fitness as a blend of keeping fitter, socialising and generating a community for locals and visitors alike. M.O.F.’s founder, Stacey Lee’s aim as your captain is to keep everyone moving and being the best version of themselves with support and care from their team mates. What started as a small like-minded group of friends meeting once a week for a workout in 2015 has organically grown into a regular weekly schedule of fitness classes, walks, treks, dinners and meet ups with varying activities and with a group of lovely people of all ages and abilities! So how did Stacey Lee fall into this M.O.F leadership? Well, she has always been the sporty type since she can remember as a youngster. She thinks her first regular sport was Gymnastics which she loved and definitely assisted in her mobility as she grew up into a teenager. Eventually she moved on to other less demanding activities such as dance and cross-country running but ultimately, she found her true love with football! After training with her younger brother’s team, it was agreed she needed to find a girls’ team and that’s when she became a player for Crystal Palace Ladies team, before long her dad was given the opportunity to become the club manager with her mum as the treasurer. She enjoyed years of playing at a good level until she turned 18 and decided to take some time out and move to Lanzarote for a summer.
So, in 1997 she arrived in Lanzarote as a young girl, working in a local bar and one summer quickly turned into many more. Once again, she found herself turning to sport to keep herself active and took up trail running, playing Padel tennis and ultimately football again. Unfortunately, that’s where things took a turn for her as she got a nasty injury in a match and ruptured her cruciate ligament and damaged her cartilage. Many months of rehabilitation and after having ligament reconstruction she decided she would not be able to compete in football again and would focus more on strength/interval training to be as strong as she could be. This led her to become a group fitness coach and starting the Ministry of Fitness where they started with just one bootcamp a week. Fastforward to today and she now teaches step, weight lifting, HITT and mobility and organise a weekly 5km Park Run style event every Saturday.
When setting up the 5km Sun Run Steacy really wanted to use it as a way to help a local charity who needed the extra support. After a few discussions with her squad and other locals the name “La Casa de las Estrellas” was repeatedly mentioned. After getting in contact with Liala (“La Casa de las Estrellas”‘ the founder) they agreed that they were the association they wanted to help, after hearing about their great work but with little to no funding it was a no brainer!
So, for 2024 all proceeds from Lanzarote’s Sun Run will go towards keeping this Animal Sanctuary operating and help them continue their already incredible work.
If you would like to join in the charity Sun Run (or join them for any of the other classes M.O.F. offers) head over to www.ministryoffitness.club and sign up because let’s face it, movement is medicine!
There is €5 registration fee for the Sun Run that goes entirely to the charity. It takes places every Saturday at 9am in Costa Teguise. The run / jog / walk takes places along the promenade and all fitness levels are welcome. There is no better way to get the weekend started!
