Hi All,

Hope you and your family are all well and staying safe.

These past 4-6 weeks have been challenging times for all of us, with a world changing around us and causing an abrupt end to the Summer Athletics and total absence of a Winter Athletics Season. As a country we have been very lucky and I would like to think through the observance of social distancing and good hygiene practices we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. As a club under both Queensland Athletics and Little Athletics Queensland we will be awaiting advice from our governing bodies and our State Chief Medical Officer as to how we progress as a club and facility in training, events and the like once some of the Covid-19 restrictions are eased.

As a club and an athletics community we will continue to support each other, and continue to communicate the relevant issues (without boring you on issues that you are already being bombarded with from other sources).

With all of this front of mind, I confident you are all taking this time with your family to connect see the value in it together. Hopefully you are all keeping fit and running your own (ITR) Isolation Training Regime so that when the season does get underway again we are not starting from a negative base. 😉

With that in mind I have created a Toowong Harriers Athletics Club on Strava, the purpose of which is to act as a platform where we can train as a club albeit as individuals, but also as a space to run some fun virtual events. We have used Strava as it is fairly agnostic and $free for you to become a member, you can use Garmin, Fibit, Suunto, or basically any GPS enabled smart device to record runs and post them compare data with other club members (pending on your privacy settings).

To get started, create your own free Strava account and then search Clubs, Toowong Harriers, and request to join, from here you should be able to see other club members and upcoming events. The events are as much about competing with your friends and club mates as they about encouraging you to get up and get active, and perhaps the time you set in the first event you can better yourself in the next event.

The first of which will be a Virtual Cross Country race series over 4, 3 or 2 km age dependant on a fortnightly basis. The first Virtual XC race#1 will be held on the weekend of the 9th May 7.00am through to 7.00pm on the 10th May, all you have to do is perform a running activity of the specified length on any coarse that meets the criteria (where ever you maybe isolated) label and post this on your Strava. From here we will collate the results and that is a Virtual Race completed. I have posted further instructions on the Club Strava Event itself.

So please get active, join in, get your family to join in (even if they are not Toowong Harrrier’s Club members) do the events, we are One Athletic Community.

If you would like or need some assistance, advice with this or want to discuss an idea for the club with please feel free to contact me.

Kind regards

Ross Anderson

President

Toowong Harriers Athletics Club