Running Leaders Course

Will and Fleur recently attended the Running Leaders Course with Run England in Portsmouth. Here are their experiences of the Programme… It sounds like they had a great day!

Firstly, it should be said that this is a great course! We found it professional, well managed and run by enthusiastic professionals who really understand what they are talking about. A real must for anyone who wants to lead – even on an ad hoc basis.

What surprised us was what hard work it was! We had thought that is would be a nice easy day with the trainers doing all the work and us just absorbing it all. Maybe a little run around outside and time for coffee and tea breaks throughout the day. None of it!

We got there at 8.45 for a 9 am sharp start. No messing about and straight into the first of many group activities and exercises – masses of interaction, discussion, PowerPoint slides, videos, more discussion, activities and group work, presentations, demonstrations…. This part of the day focussed on barriers to running and overcoming them, the role of the leader, Individual Centred Leaders (buzz words!).

Then followed the first of two assessed outside practical sessions in which we had to learn about correct warm up’s, cool downs, health and safety, risk assessment, how to manage mixed ability groups, motivation techniques…etc etc. 15 minutes for lunch (own sandwiches) no am or pm breaks – no time!

The second practical session entailed the planning and execution of a session from introduction to cool down. Back into the classroom again for review and feedback on the sessions and more input, discussion, activities and more general thinking! Input on injuries (and how to avoid them), managing complete beginners, footwear, some brief technical stuff around how we train, fitness factors and factors that affect performance. Why training works, Energy systems (Alactic, Lactate, Aerobic – bit technical for us this bit…) which made us think about how to work at our optimum. We then looked at training objectives and motivation for beginners. The Leadership role was further discussed and the day was rounded up with plenty of detail about what Run England can do for you. There was a really wide range of runners there (around 35) and it was great to chat to them too to see what they were doing, share ideas etc.

Overall it was totally knackering – the Sunday run would have been less so! But it was really valuable and enjoyable. The Run England team and their website are fantastic resources and it would seem that some government funding is out there for Clubs – including (if we understood correctly) assisting with fees to put people on this very course.

The key message for us to bring away from our day was actually about the warm up and ideas for fun training sessions to mix it up a bit. Perhaps more suited to the Summer months when we can access the Rec. at Waldron etc. The warm up is something that we know we don’t do – along with many other clubs so it would seem. Just 10 minutes on this before each session would be really good to introduce – even if this just meant utilising the car park at the Co-op…maybe something we could talk about.

See you at the Club soon.

Fleur and Will