Alert Level 2 guidelines

Today the Government announced an increase to the number of people who can gather together at Alert Level 2. From 12 noon Friday 29 May, we can hold gatherings with up to 100 people. The government also said that no later than 22 June, four weeks from today, it will consider a move to Alert Level 1. Sport NZ has said all sports activities can go ahead, unrestricted, at Alert Level 1. 

Athletics Wellington will review its plan to re-start the season on Thursday. The Scottish Management Committee will meet soon to plan when and how the club can re-start our season.

In the meantime, informal training groups need to maintain contact tracing registers and to continue safe distancing and good hygiene. Avoid running where space is limited and where you might come into close contact with members of the public.

Athletics NZ Virtual Ekiden

There is one week left to compete in the Athletics New Zealand National Ekiden Virtual Relay Champs. So far we think 72 of 128 people in Scottish teams have completed their leg. And two teams have run their full marathon distance -both in under 3 hours. The 35G team (2:52) of  Hayden Smith, Ray Manahan, Iain Shaw and Phil Sadgrove lead the Senior D team (2:57) of Matthew Brett, Bex Hutchinson, Malcolm Kerr and Jasmine Smith by just 5 minutes. 

I saw many impressive ekiden runs on Strava over the weekend. I forgot to note them down and couldn’t find most of them when I went to look this evening. But they included 10km PBs to Lucy Fauth and Seamus Kane (sub 30 mins!), and big 10km runs by Grant McLean and Paul Barwick. 

You can find details of all the Scottish teams and race details here. If you are in a team and want to contact the people in your team contact your club captains Danielle and Ben.

Each team needs to run 42.2km. Three people run a leg of 10km and one person runs 12.2km. Athletes upload their individual results (as many as you like in the month) and are collated into your team’s times.

We are tracking Scottish Ekiden results in an online spreadsheet. Please add any results you know of to the spreadsheet. Be aware that these are not the official entries though. You need to submit official entries for each leg need to Athletics NZ.

Social Distance Running May

There is one week left for the End of May Social Distance Running Challenge.

Submit your entries

Here are the challenges for the second half of May:

Fortnightly Challenge

Run a loop in both directions. Running loops in opposite directions helps keep your posture in line and prevent you from getting dizzy. If you’re Nicholas Bagnall your double loop could be the Makara Loop. The rest of us are allowed more prosaic options.

Monthly challenge

Do a Triathlon – go for a bike ride, swim and run all in one go. For authenticity make sure you report that your run was longer than it was.

2-minute mission

Two minutes of bicep curls. For us non-triathletes, biceps are the bits of your body that hang off your shoulders. Make them curly.

Just for fun

Run a Scottish symbol, or a word. Maybe a lion, a kilt, a unicorn (I found out today it’s the national animal of Scotland). Or, for those who enjoyed the restricted viewing version of the body parts challenge, Scotland has got some good swearwords you could try.

Check out Dan Jones on NewsHub’s SuperSport Sunday

Tokyo Olympics: NZ marathon runner Daniel Jones wants to extend Kenya stay

Have your say on the track and field season

Athletics Wellington is consulting on what next summer’s track and field programme should look like. It has got too few helpers and officials to run meets safely and efficiently. Some of its most experienced officials have retired.  There are now not enough helpers and officials to confidently offer a similar track and field programme in 2020/21.  It also needs new people for a track and field committee, and people willing to be meeting manager on the day of the meets.

Possible options are:

  1. No programme led by the Centre, but active support for meets organised by others (eg. club-led meets such as the Agency 10,000m and the Kiwi Throwers meet and the Capital Classic)
  2. A much-reduced programme, led by Athletics Wellington. This might involve having reduced programme meets held on Sunday afternoons, following the junior interclub meets, and would only have one field event running at a time.  However, this option still requires more helpers who are willing to plan the 2020/21 season programme and manage the events on the day.
  3. A programme led by Athletics Wellington, generally similar to 2019/20 – but this would only be feasible if a significant number of people will commit to help plan and manage the season programme, and support the events on the day as a helper, official or Meeting Manager.

Athletics Wellington has more information on these options and is seeking feedback on what people want. It is also asking for offers of the support that would be needed for Options 2 and 3 to be viable.