Organising Running in a Pandemic

In the first few days and weeks of lockdown it was very hard to think of organised running as we all feared for the worst and worried about keeping our friends and families safe. However, with the emphasis on daily exercise, it soon became clear that we should start to look at virtual ways to help the Shuffler community stay motivated and share their experiences of running.

At the monthly on-line Committee meetings a number of ideas were discussed, and over the past few months Kelly, Thomas and Jan have organised a number of virtual running challenges, encouraging members to celebrate their runs and keeping runners informed of progress through Facebook posts.

Throughout the Spring we kept a very close eye on the Government’s, English Athletic’s’ (EA) and related sports body guidelines. These were initially clear that running in groups wouldn’t be taking place for some time; however the update on the 3rd July 2020 enabled small groups of up to six to start running with appropriate social distancing and risk assessments, and greater numbers permissible in ‘COVID Secure Environments’. At this stage the Committee took the view that the priority should be a return to track running, as this could be made ‘COVID Secure’ in a way that running on potentially busy town paths and streets couldn’t. We were highly conscious of maintaining safety for members and particularly for the wider public. Hence, Jan Cook and myself were appointed the Club’s COVID Coordinators (as required by EA), and as soon as the London Road Track reopened, we were prepared with our approved risk assessments and guidance. We were able to offer a trial Thursday night session on the very first week that the track was available. Particular thanks goes to Thomas Vaughan for his amazing work in setting up a brand new bespoke booking system in super quick time.

Thursday night track sessions have now been running successfully since 30th July. If you haven’t been able to get to these sessions they are really fun but we make great efforts to maintain social distancing and encouraging feedback on how we can make these even safer.

With our track numbers limited to 30 to ensure safety we still had a strong desire to offer more running opportunities for our members; however it was clear that we couldn’t have large groups starting in the Quarry where the environment cannot be made adequately safe for runners and the general public. However, by considering alternative start locations, small groups, potentially staggered start times and carefully chosen wide routes with few pedestrians and good sightlines, we have developed a new model for club road running. We are delighted to announce a trial of the first small group sessions on Monday evenings and Thursday day times starting in mid September. Thorough risk assessments have been undertaken and these will be further informed by the trial. We hope that we can expand to offer safely more sessions and routes as soon as possible. In the meantime we are also trialling a further track night on a Tuesday due to the popularity of the current sessions.

We have seen families and communities respond so very differently to the pandemic and our runners have been no different - many have continued running and set up small informal networks. At the same time many have found it really hard to keep their motivation and running going when faced with the challenges that lockdown has brought. We are really conscious of this and keen to get the Shufflers out running again but will only do this when it is safe to do so and with careful measures in place. Do let us know what else we can do to help you as we try to meet these challenges.

John Short on behalf of the Shufflers Committee