Hopefully you did find the weekly “Athletics and Running @home” emails useful? It looks like you did from our stats!
While we are still running the above England Athletics campaign, we feel it is time we focus on looking ahead and this means being more single-minded in talking all things RunTogether. Hopefully, our first two articles should demonstrate this. Please enjoy.
Running 1:1
Following the latest guidance set out by the government in relation to social distancing rules and COVID-19, you are now able to meet with one person from outside your household to exercise outdoors, while following social distancing guidelines. Yeh! Whoop!
But at all times, you should continue to observe social distancing guidelines when you are outside your home, including ensuring you are 2 metres away from anyone outside your household.
So what does this mean re using the RunTogether programme?
Quite simply, we invite you to use the RunTogether platform to organise these 1:1 runs or training sessions.
As a runner in an existing RunTogether group your Run Leader already has the ability to create group runs and sessions that you can book on to. Your Run Leader will just need to make sure that only you can join your leader per session.
Next month England Athletics is planning on testing a new online coaching support offer for our affiliated runners, members of our RunTogether groups and the general public. The support offer will provide runners with exclusive access to a dedicated England Athletics performance coach who will design a personalised training plan which will be delivered through an interactive daily training calendar. Runners will receive expert advice, tutorials and training tips tailored to their needs to enhance their running experience and help meet their personal goals.
The test period will run for 3 months and the content will be based on the response to our survey - we love to get your views so please take part in the survey. It should take no more than 10 minutes and you could win one of three pairs of Aftershokz headphones.
Many of you have joined in with our Athletics and Running @home programme which wouldn’t have happened without your support and enthusiasm. The England Athletics Volunteer Awards this year will acknowledge this contribution with a new award category based on community support given through our Athletics and Running @home programme. In addition, we will be recognizing RunTogether groups who have helped make us proud since nominations closed in June last year for the 2019 awards. Help us celebrate the unsung heroes of our community by nominating online today!
A well-fitting, comfortable and highly supportive sports bra can be essential for female runners and those doing other types of high-impact exercise - research shows that 80% of females wear the wrong bra size and 72% report breast discomfort whilst exercising. Runderwear are there to help you find the perfect fitting bra!
Through our partners Runderwear, female athletes and runners can access a free online bra size calculator and order a FREE Runder:Fit Guide (including a tape measure and info to help you measure yourself to understand what a perfect sports bra fit looks and feels like).
Your children have still got time to help reward our nation’s keyworkers, and win prizes, by entering our ‘funetics Design a Rainbow Medal with KJT’ competition – backed by World Heptathlon Champion and funetics ambassador Katarina Johnson-Thompson (closing date Friday 22 May). By entering, you can also access a new free funetics Home School Pack (specifically designed to help primary school children keep active and to support learning in a home environment).
"I’ve never grown out of that mentality that athletics is a grassroots sport. Anyone can take part; it’s what makes our sport so approachable and achievable.”
During the ongoing lockdown period it is important that take care of your mental wellbeing and that of others. Visit our website for some useful advice and links to free mental health resources and organisations
Through our virtual running partnership with Racefully, all England Athletics affiliated clubs and RunTogether groups and their runners are able to access the Premium Tribes app for free.
We're making sure we show our gratitude and support for our country’s NHS workers, carers and keyworkers. Please join us and give a massive #ClapForOurCarers at 8pm each Thursday as we thank all the keyworkers in the England Athletics family, and those across England and the rest of the UK, who are keeping us safe and keeping our country turning.