Spa Striders use Club Run to prepare for 5k and 10k events
Warwickshire based club Spa Striders are one of a number of clubs who have recently completed the Club Run programme.
The club which is based in Leamington Spa with a membership of around 200 welcomed the visits by Gloucestershire-based coach, Kerry Newell. In excess of 80 of the club’s runners accessed the Club Run sessions, with an average turn out of over 40 runners per session.
The sessions were aimed at helping prepare runners for the 5 miles and 10k distances, with a number of the club’s runners going on to set personal bests at a 10k race in February. "Many felt like they could judge the pace better thanks to the tempo sessions Kerry had introduced us to." said Chairman, Matt Leydon.
Matt who is also working towards completing his CiRF coaching qualification went on to add: "I found it really useful to watch Kerry at work and learn from her. Other leaders have started to think about how we can adapt our sessions to be more time-based rather than mileage-based."
Another runner added, "I liked the structure of the Club Run programme, each session was progressive and built on what we had learnt from the previous session. The warm ups were great - we don’t do enough of them and this made it fun and everyone was able to take part and show how bad they are at hopscotch!"
Kerry also took time at the end of each session to discuss a range of topics from nutrition, injury prevention and targeting specific races, which club members found really useful.
Kerry who is one of a team of around 30 Club Run coach deliverers commented: "I really enjoyed my visits to Spa Striders. The club made me feel really welcome and everyone was really receptive to trying new things. As a coach education tutor of LiRF and CiRF it was really great to be able to model what we talk about in the classroom setting in a real club environment, with all the typical challenges that clubs face around meeting the needs of a wide range of running abilities and winter training nights."