Hello all you Harriers out there from your committee!

How is everyone. We hope you are all well, keeping safe and of course following the lockdown measures for everyone’s health and safety.

We have a few things to share with you as promised in our last message to you 2 weeks ago. In addition we want to let you know about a few competition opportunities you might like to try over the next week to ten days and then perhaps if successful we follow this on a monthly basis until we return back to something like sporting normality. Let us know if you think these are good ideas by emailing me on andycfox@outlook.com

This message covers information on Congratulations on IOM Sports Awards, Training for younger athletes, Fun Garden Pentathlon Competition, The one mile/one kilometre challenge, next committee meeting, where to find coaching contacts on the website and opportunities to keep fit available through Manx Sport and Recreation.

So here goes:

Congratulations

To Petra Atchison on Winning Administrator of the Year for 2019 in the IOM Virtual Sports Awards last week. A very much deserved award so well done from all at the club!

Also congratulations to former member Joe Reid who won the Sportsman of the Year award. A fantastic achievement and acknowledgement of a great year for him in 2019.

It was great to have other members nominated – John Whitlow as Coach of the Year, the Northern League Team for Team of the year and Rachael Franklin (again a former member now) as Sportswoman of the Year. I am not sure if I have missed anyone out who was nominated but well done to all and in particular Joe and Petra.

Training and Funetics for youngsters.

In the last message we listed how young athletes might warm up and cool down if trying Funetics. This is copied again below. Then try some of the exercises which are covered in the videos on the links attached.

https://funetics.co.uk/for-parents/funetics-activity-videos/

These exercises will help with the Fun Pentathlon which is explained next.

Make sure you try and follow this pattern in any training session –

Warm up

  1. Stretches – try to cover all areas – shoulders, arms, middle/waist, thighs, hamstrings, calves, ankles
  2. Jog 4 or 5 mins is better than nothing, 8 or 10 mins even better. No space in the garden to jog far then jog on the spot or skip – have you got a rope or old bit of washing line – all can be used it does not have to have handles and cost £6!!!
  3. Drills – the youngsters should know what drills to do but lets give some examples to help mums and dads set this up. Try to do each over 6 to 10m whatever you have available in your garden or garage, also do 2 or 3 of each drill –
    1. Slow Motion High Knees
    2. Flicks (flicking heels up at back to bottom – short steps, fast feet)
    3. High Knees (bring knees up to Waist height, short steps, fast feet, stay tall)
    4. 6 lunges in a line 3 on each side
    5. 6 sumos in a line 3 on each side (basically a squat)
    6. Jolly feet – straight legs on tip toes – need to do 20m or so maybe do these around the garden, be careful on corners.
    7. Skipping (no rope) – forwards 20m or round garden then similar skipping backwards.
    8. Try cross overs – if they do not know what these are leave them for now!
  1. Strides – if you have space in garden or maybe on the pavement outside your house or a quiet space near home – try 3 or four 10 sec to 16 sec strides – a stride is a fast run but not flat out at say 70 – 80% effort.

Session

  1. Choose between 4 and 8 of the exercises in Funetics – some require a great deal of repetition some you would do once or twice – it should be obvious!

Cool Down

  1. Finish off with a cool down jog or skip and then a few stretches to finish off – if you have done a fair bit of running then hamstring and calf stretches are the main ones needed.

This pattern should ensure athletes are ready to train and then cool down properly so the aim is no injuries etc.

Fun Sportshall/Garden Pentathlon.

This link will take you to information from UKA about this fun family event –

http://www.sportshall.org/homepentathlon

The events covered are –

Standing Long Jump, Speed Bounce, Shuttle Run, Target Throw and Vertical Jump.

The link gives notes on how to set these events up and how to do them safely – please follow these notes carefully. The idea is that a family, children and parent(s) all have a go and time and measure each other’s performances – so yes it is a bit competitive but it should above all be fun.

As well as the notes about how to do the events there is also a score chart which scores your performances and gives a total score. If you want you can send your details to UKA and go on the National leader board. But please do send your details to me so I can set up a Manx Harriers result. We can all do a practice Pentathlon this week and then by Sunday 10th May you could forward your full result and I will post this with an overall club result split into age groups on Monday 11th May.

I had a go in my Garden this morning and my first set of results looked like this –

Standing Long Jump – 1m 81cms – points from score sheet – 50

Speed Bounce – 42 reps – points score – 40

Shuttle Run – 40 secs – points score – 15

Target Throw – 16 – points score – 48

Vertical Jump – 31 – points score – 32

My total score – 185 (I hope to better next time!!!)

I would need your result set out like this or please forward the results sheet to me which you have to download! Just attach it to your email.

Some thoughts – The Pentathlon was originally set up for indoors and the shuttle run was over 10m. The diagram still shows this but the notes stress it should be 5m so it can work in most gardens and you run 20 shuttles to make 100m. Obviously work on this as 10m would mean you would be quicker. By the way be prepared to be a little dizzy afterwards!!!

I hope we will have a Manx Harriers Score Board up on 11th May and then we do this once a month to add a little spice to our exercise.

1 Mile and 1km – Time Trial Challenge

Monday 4th May sees the 66th anniversary of the first sub 4 minute mile run by the British athlete Roger Bannister in 1954. The British Milers Club is holding a competition to commemorate this achievement and we felt it would be good if our club members would like to do the same.

The idea is that from Saturday 2nd May through to Tuesday 5th May you might run one mile as fast as you can. You choose which day and time suits you best to try this. Younger athletes might try 1km. You then send your time, age and the exact distance covered (if you have a garmin or sports watch) to Andy on andycfox@outlook.com and he will work out your time and produce a result as well as your age grading which allows a comparison between age and gender. There will obviously be a 1km result and an older athlete result over 1 mile. Please send your results to Andy by Wednesday evening 6th May. The results will be posted on website and facebook and also sent out via email on Thursday 7th May.

Things to note –

  • Try to do this somewhere quiet or at a quiet time of the day
  • Make sure you social distance – more than 2m if at all possible
  • Be considerate to other road, pavement, promenade, park users!
  • Tip – you will be running on your own and the temptation is to go off too fast. Maybe set off under control and finish strongly rather than run out of steam half way round.
  • If your garmin is set up in kilometres you need to cover 1,609m for the mile!

We hope you like this idea and join in with the challenge. If you would like to do more running challenges let Andy know when you email him your result. He and his training group have other challenges coming up soon and others are welcome to join in if they wish to!!!

Next Committee Meeting is Next Week.

We meet next Monday and at that stage should be able to inform members of any other decisions made regarding the present crisis and our sport.

Conclusion.

We hope all are keen to perhaps try to bring a little more competition into their exercise at the minute either with the Mile/1Km time trial or the fun Pentathlon. Do pass on your results to Andy so we can show our performances, compare and maybe discuss them online – all the sorts of things we do in our usual competitive environment but have been unable to of late. The email address is andycfox@outlook.com

Also do remember our coaches are available to give help and advice if required. Contact details can be found on the Club Website on the training page.

In addition Manx Sport and Recreation are organising many sessions via zoom – Zumba, Yoga, Mobility etc. Check out the NSC and MSR pages on facebook and websites for details and maybe try something a little different to keep fit and motivated.

 

Take care and stay safe.

All the best,

Andy

On behalf of the Manx Harriers Club Committee.

%d bloggers like this: