A WIRRAL woman has created a groundbreaking group to help get women into running. 

Rachel Brown created the 'Mums to Marathons' community after running became her release following a tough battle with depression, mental illness and family tragedy.

Now the community has more than 600 members and she continues to inspire her 'orange army' of women to get fit and feel great about themselves.

She said: “A few years ago, I was in a terrible state mentally. I was suffering from post-natal depression and just hated the way I looked to the point of paranoia. I'd been seriously ill during pregnancy, had become really fat and was at an all-time low.

“When running was suggested as a way of losing weight, I didn't hold much faith as, although I'd been fit in the past I couldn't run - at all.

“Anyway, I decided to have a go and begin running the same night I was due to start fitness class. I reckoned my home was only 1.5 miles away from the class so I would actually run there. I had to stop about six times on the way and when I arrived I was red-faced and breathless. I thought I was about to collapse.

“But soon I could run a mile without stopping then I was doing four, maybe five miles and even further.

"As the weight started to drop off, I noticed another massive change – my confidence was coming back and my low ebbs were getting less and less. I was really starting to feel great.”

The orange army community, named for their orange running kit, also pulls together to raise huge amounts of cash for Claire House children's hospice with more than £300,000 raised so far from sponsored trekking across the Sahara Desert, walking the Pyrenees and tackling Mount Kilimanjaro.

In May they are set to take on the Grand Canyon and then in 2020, the New York Marathon.

Rachel added: "Don't ever think you can't do it because I'm telling you that you can - even if all you can run at the moment is the bath.

“Absolutely anything is possible as everyone in the Orange Army can prove.”

Rachel will be holding an 'open house' at Pacific Road Business Hub in Birkenhead on Thursday, February 23 from 5pm to sign up more recruits for her 'orange army'.