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The winner of this year's Farmers Guardian Farming Hero is Scottish chilli farmer, Sheena Horner, who spearheaded a running campaign to improve mental health in throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, galvanising the farming community to achieve it with her.

Launched last October to co-incide with #AgMentalHealthWeek, teams from the four nations of the UK and one representing ‘the rest of the world' were tasked to run 1,000 miles by the end of this January.

Smashing their target within a month, the teams, which saw 1,200 farmers and industry professionals take part, went on to run just short of 65,000 miles, the equivalent of two and a half times around the world.

With each participant paying a £20 joining fee, #Run1000 event raised more than £60,000 for five farming charities and plans are already in place to do it again next year.

Team spirit

All the activity was recorded on Strava as the virtual running group spurred each other on to achieve new goals while raising money for The Farming Community Network, Embrace Farm, The Do More Agriculture Foundation, RSABI and the DPJ Foundation.

Sheena said: "Our aim was to inspire rural dwellers to take to the countryside to get out and run or walk, to help improve their mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic."

"We also wanted to give people a forum to talk, to compete and to have fun during the darkest months of winter."

On winning the award, Sheena said: "It's absolutely fantastic to have won this award and when I was told I had to sit down but its not just me.

"I might have come up with the idea but its all about the people who took part and came on board with me. We have been overwhelmed with the success of #Run1000 and hope everybody will be ready to do it all over again in January 2022.

Editor of Farmers Guardian Ben Briggs said: "What Sheena Horner and her #Run1000 counterparts did was nothing short of extraordinary and really showed the community spirit, and togetherness, which are central to the farming community.

"Not only did they raise thousands of pounds for charity, but they also changed the lives of certain participants and helped them transform their mental and physical health in the process."

#Run1000

• The initiative's founder and Captain of Team Scotland, Sheena Horner, was joined by Charles Anyan Captain for Team England, Emma Picton-Jones, Captain for Team Wales, Peter Hynes for Team Ireland and Jason Meadows leading the Rest of the World.
• The first team to reach 1,000 miles was Wales; the 567 supporters also had the most Strava group members, clocked up the most mileage in January and raised £12,700.
• Team Scotland logged the most distance per group member and raised £7,461.
• Team England raised the most money at just over £18,300.
• The most improved runner was Peter Hynes, and the initiative had some real stars who were consistently running more than 120 km (75 miles) a week.