Lockdown2 finished yesterday 1st December. South Gloucestershire is now in Tier 3 and this will be reviewed and any changes announced in two weeks on Wednesday 16th December. England Athletics have yet to update their guidance but the government website covers the situation in Tier3 with respect to ‘going for a run’.
Full details are here…
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-3-very-high-alert?priority-taxon=774cee22-d896-44c1-a611-e3109cce8eae#sport-and-physical-activity
Sport and physical activity
In line with guidance from sporting national governing bodies, you can take part in organised sport and physical activity outdoors with any number of people. However, you should avoid contact in training and, for some sports, avoid contact in all activities. Read the guidance on what this means for your sport.
Gyms and sports facilities will be open for individual exercise and exercise in single households or support bubbles only. Indoor group activities and exercise classes should not take place.
You can continue to do unlimited exercise alone, or in an outdoor public place in groups up to 6.
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We had a special Committee Meeting on Monday night to discuss what we should do as a Club regarding returning to meeting and going for a run from the car park on a Tuesday and Thursday. A brief message was put out on the Members Facebook page on Monday and a fuller version is below.
• It was agreed that within the rules of Tier 3 we could return to the previous arrangements from Thursday 3rd December and meet up in the car park with Covid secure conditions and go for a run in groups of up to 6 people.
• It was also recognised that South Glos had a very high infection rate (albeit now it is dropping) and we have a lot of members that fall into the vulnerable category mainly due to age.
• Our Captain had carried out a quick poll of the Group Leaders and he reported that if we return to meeting on Tuesdays & Thursdays we will struggle to have leaders for all Groups at the moment. We need more leaders willing to turn out on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• We also discussed other issues affecting the return to running as an organised Club activity such as the wave of negative comments about runners surfacing on Social Media.
As a Committee those present unanimously agreed that whilst we could legally recommence the Group runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays we should hold off for two weeks whilst we are in Tier3 with high infection rates and look to recommence after 16th December when we would hopefully go down to Tier2 with lower infection rates (we will review on or around 16th Dec). In the meantime those that want to run can use the existing WhatsApp groups to make their own arrangements. Kevin will continue to post ‘Route of the Week’ and ‘Virtual Tuesday’ and we will look at some alternative Thursday sessions arranged on Zoom:
Thursday 3rd December – Pilates with Mel
Thursday 10th December – Body Con with Taryn
Assuming we do decide to recommence Club runs after 16th December we will target Thursday 17th December as the “Christmas Lights run†(in Groups of 6 of course)
1. Weekly Route and Virtual Tuesday efforts.
To continue to keep us running together whilst apart during the next few weeks Captain Kevin will post two events each week: Kevin posts The Virtual Tuesday efforts on the Members Facebook page on a Monday and the Route of the week also on the Members Facebook page published on a Saturday. These routes are only published on the TRC Members Facebook page. If you do not have access to Facebook and want to take part please e-mail captain@thornburyrunningclub.co.uk and Kevin will forward the information to you.
2. Events Diary TRC Diary 2020-21
Many of our Members are missing competing in races and the opportunities to enter real races are limited. However if you look hard enough there are still quite a lot of real races out there – attached this week is a list of 25 ‘local’ events over the next few months. We will aim to keep this list updated on a regular basis.
Most of these events are listed by one of the 3 organisations referenced at the foot of the list. The assumption is that if the event is listed on RunBritain or Time Outdoors or DBMax the event has been Licenced and will go ahead as per the dates given in a Covid secure environment.
If you wish to look further afield or into later next year then go to the organisation’s lists directly by copying & pasting the link given into your browser.
3. Club Quiz Night (on Zoom) – Wednesday 16th December 19.45 – 22.15
In the absence of the usual Xmas social events we will be holding a Club Quiz Night on Zoom. Mark West is arranging and it will be open to all Members. Caution: Hyde United & Newport County Questions may be included! Zoom details to follow. Please put the date in your Diary.
4. Virtual Riverbank Rollick – January 2021
Entries for the Virtual Rollick have now gone live on Race Nation with full details via the Facebook Page.
https://race-nation.co.uk/register/thornbury-running-club/virtual-rollick-2021
This event is open to all TRC Members. To make sure that the spirit of the infamous ‘Rollick’ is not lost, we expect at least half of your run to be off-road and to involve an acceptable level of mud wind and water.
To this end we would encourage all participants to upload photographic evidence of rivers, dirty trainers, muddy faces or any other inspired pictures from their chosen routes on to our Facebook event page (https://fb.me/e/1Mtu7LIaX) to assure us that you have suffered appropriate and traditional levels of discomfort. All participants will receive a medal for their efforts and whilst we will NOT be providing prizes for the speediest runners, we will judge the photos received via Facebook and reward the muddiest and grubbiest accordingly.
• Run your own socially distanced 9.6 mile route
• Run any time between 1st and 31st January 2021 – go on you know you want to do it on New Years Day!
• Follow the instructions and the link emailed to you to in order to submit your elapsed time (not moving time)
accompanied by a screenshot of your run from your running application of choice
• Medals will be posted during February as we collate the results and assess the photos
• Places can be transferred using the Race Nation web portal
• Entries are limited to 400 and will close when this limit is reached or at 13:00 on January 31st, whichever
comes soonest
• Runs must be completed and evidence submitted before 23:59 on January 31st.
This year’s event will be held in support of our two current club charities, to which we will be donating at least 50% of the proceeds. If you would like to make an additional donation, please pay their respective websites a visit: –
• ‘Made a Mark’ https://madeamarkcharity.com foundation which exists to
make memories for bereaved children’ and
• ‘CALM’ https://www.thecalmzone.net in memory of Thornbury Running Club
member Liam Jones
That’s all for this week and we will keep you advised if anything changes.
If you have any events to add to the Diary or if you have anything to add or any suggestions or announcements please send by e-mail to trc@rensh.idps.co.uk