Stornoway Running and Athletics Club
District Development Coaches Islands’ Visit
This past weekend three of the North District Development coaches from Scottish Athletics visited Stornoway to work with young isles athletes and help build a vision for their future in the sport. The islands have been successful in recent years with athletics success coming from both North Uist AAC and Stornoway R & AC athletes. Most notable as the two clubs progress in athletics achievement has been success of the Western Isles Rhodes World Island Games squad were voted the best Island team by the Lewis and Harris sports council! Therefore the continued success of the clubs and the Western Isles collectively will very much depend on the young talent currently training with NUAAC and SRAC.
The visit from the Scottish Athletics, North Development coaches was therefore most beneficial as the young athletes of the future did sessions with Charlie Forbes, endurance coach, Alastair Cameron, jumps coach and Tracy “T” throws coach. After introductory chat, the athletes from throughout Lewis and Uist split into disciplines that they excelled in, or at least favoured!
Charlie delivered a double endurance session in the course of the day that tested the resolve of those attending and all did very well. The first session was a track session that cantered on hard efforts with short recovery, aimed at improving speed endurance. The afternoon session in the Castle Grounds with the strongest selected from the track session ran the well know “Horseshoe” route that accounted for approximately two and a half to three minute efforts on an undulating surface. Good effort was put in by all and the learning of what future individual progress would take was taken on board.
Similar learning outcome was presented to the jumpers and throwers from Alastair and Tracy as they endeavoured to teach the basic skills within their events. Warm-up, drills, balance, co-ordination and control were all emphasised as central to the development of the young athlete’s future in the sport. All the core skills of strength, balance, coordination etc are central to all sports and the participation in athletics was presented as a means to also assist in whatever other chosen sports the youngsters had an interest in.
Aspirations of young athletes involved in sport throughout the islands’ has risen with the participation in the Word Island Games and from the successes all ready achieved at the past two games. During the day further inspiration was given in a talk by former Olympian and three times Commonwealth gold medallist Kirsty Wade. Kristy’s successes like the more recent local role model success come by hard work, enthusiasm, enjoyment and some coaching advice. SRAC and NUAAC therefore thank Charlie, Alastair and Tracy as they work throughout the Region to help promote participation in the islands’ and also to Kirsty Wade who’s whose athletic record stands as a marker to hopefully be reached by those from these shores!
Alf T