Hi members!

Today we are unveiling a new initiative to support all members in their training initiatives for reaching personal goals.

Many of you (more than half the club) responded to our recent survey on training and training goals. That survey identified a few key races that most people were aiming at for this year. As well, many of you indicated a desire to train with other club members with similar goals, and even just to connect for group runs throughout the week. We have used the results of that survey to shape this initiative.

The plan consists of two parts.

The first part is that we have purchased a club subscription to an online training planning and tracking service: CrossTrainer.ca. This service allows an individual to set up a training plan and then track it online throughout the year. The service is quite comprehensive including every sort of sport activity, gym workouts, things around the home like gardening, nutrition, and elements of mental training. You can upload Garmin results, etc.

A major part of the system is that it lets us set up Training Teams with a Trainer. Our intention is to use this facility to organize training workouts for groups and events throughout the year. The Trainer can set up training activities for all members of the training team. (More on this below.)

Some members have been enrolled already to check out the system. For anyone else who is joining a training group or wants to use the service on an individual basis, please contact Anthony Paul (anthonypaul@gmail.com) to get an ID created. (You may have to add info@crosstrainer.ca to your email contacts to avoid spam filtering.)

The second aspect of the plan is to organize more group training and running activities. We currently have two programs in progress that people are welcome to join:

Early Workout Group – Trainer: Ed Durnford. This group does workouts on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 6:00 AM. The current training goal is the Tely 10. Some of our faster club members are in this group, but Ed assures me all paces are welcome as the runners regroup between intervals and at points during the runs. Following the Tely, the group will prepare for Fall Marathons (but the training is adaptable to half-marathons and the C2C).

Tely PB Group – Trainer: Will Small. This group does workouts on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 6:00 PM. The training goal is the Tely 10, with emphasis on people achieving a PB. Current participants range mainly in the 70 min – 90 min Tely times.

Two other trainers have also volunteered. Alison Jones will lead a group after the Regatta who will be preparing for Fall Marathons. We are not sure about the timing for this one. Will is not sure what his group/time will be doing after the Tely (if anything), so this one might also schedule Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Heather Hiscock is another volunteer. She is interested in preparation for the Mews and also the Turkey Trot 10k for slower pace runners.

So, when you sign up for Crosstrainer with Anthony, please indicate if you are interested in any of these groups as well!

I also wanted to bring to the attention of all members that we have added the Tuesday and Thursday group runs by Will to our regular weekly running schedule. You can count on those runs happening every week until further notice if you are interested in getting together with others. As well, Christiane & Rob have started another evening run, on Friday evenings from the Aquarena. Please check our calendar on www.athleticsnortheast.com for details on all of our scheduled weekly club runs.

This initiative recognizes that one of the main purposes of our club must be to assist our members in reaching running and development goals. With the participation of many we can develop and build on this and move forward on that goal!

Steve