14. September 2010

Club Note

Welcome Back

Welcome back to all our athletes and coaches after the summer break. We are delighted to see so many of our athletes back and hope you are all full of energy and enthusiasm for the forthcoming Cross Country season. A big welcome also to all the new athletes who have joined the club. We hope you will all be with us for a long time and enjoy being part of our great club.

I hate to start with bad news, but as we return this season we are faced with a recurring problem. Some of our coaches for the 6-7pm session are no longer available, due to a change in work commitments and so we need to get some new coaches on board. Thankfully a couple of parents have already come forward, but we need more help, please. We are not asking anyone to commit to training every week. If we could get a number of volunteers we could set up a roster, with each person just helping every second or third Tuesday or Friday. We will send all our volunteers on the next available training course, which will only take 1 day or 2 evenings to complete. If anyone is available to help please contact Theresa on 0868635797 asap.

X-Country
Co. cross country competitions are on the 2nd of Oct in Avondale, Rathdrum at 11am and the 9th Oct. in Roundwood at 11am. Further details later. Dates for Relays and Sportshall will be issued later. This year the x-country distances are longer than previous years, so athletes need to be attending training regularly to be ready to meet the challenge. We will need everyone out there helping our club in the team competitions. Training will remain on the track until after these competitions and then we will move to the hall for the Fri. sessions. We will notify everyone beforehand.
Groups 1&2. To facilitate our athletes in groups 1&2 and hopefully improve attendance levels at Fri. training sessions, we are moving the training time to 6pm for all groups. If we get started on time, we can be finished for 7.30, allowing plenty of time for our athletes to have a social life, as well as getting their training done! Showers are available at both venues, so no excuses for not attending! Training times on Tues and Wed will remain the same as they are at present.

New Athletes
We have allowed all new athletes a couple of weeks to try athletics and see if they want to stay with it. We will have registration for these athletes next Tues and Fri, before and after training. Registration forms are being given out this week and you will need to bring these along, with a copy of your birth/baptisimal cert and €15 to cover registration and insurance till the end of Dec. We are keeping this group together for the first few weeks until they learn the warm-up drills and then they will be moved into age appropriate groups.
Club Shop,
We will have a club shop on the last Fri of every month, where club gear can be purchased or orders placed for hoodies, rainwear, singlets etc. We have arranged to purchase a quantity of club T-shirts, which athletes can use instead of singlets, at local and Co. competitions. This will mean that athletes will not have to purchase singlets until they move up to Leinster/National competitions. We also have a small number of spikes still available.

Sunday Morning Runs
The Sunday morning runs have re-started and you will be happy to know that we are starting an hour later this year at 10am instead of 9am. For those not familiar with this, we meet in different places each Sun and go for a long, easy run together. Next Sun we are in Glendalough, meeting at the visitor’s centre car park and ready to run by 10 o’clock. The Sun. long run is an integral part of an athletes training particularly at this time of year and is open to all athletes in groups 1&2, with athletes running varying distances appropriate to their age. Adult runners/joggers are welcome to join us.

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