I love coaching.  It’s been all the more frustrating then that I’ve had little opportunity to do much of it recently.  No one seems to wants to throw despite the conveyor belt that has taken half a dozen Spartans to top national level in recent times.  The junior track athletes are being well looked after.  No wonder I look forward to taking my Highlands group in the week and helping out with the Minis on Sunday mornings.  The Minis are the youngest Spartan athletes in Years 3-6.

But with both Dave and Danny away today I was rostered to take the session at Langfords.  And with other coaches disappearing to England with Sportshall teams or otherwise fading out of sight I set up a rather different session to the usual one that the Minis are used to in the winter.  Now, Sportshall Athletics has been a great innovation in recent years and it means the little ones can train indoors during the winter.  (I remember when it was different and they trained outdoors like everyone else.)  But I do find Sportshall somewhat limiting.  The events are fun but…samey.  So the equipment stayed locked up this morning. We had warm-up routines, games, a long drills session, shuttle races, start practice – even a little run outside.  We finished with a few stretches which the children aren’t used to.  I think (I know) that they found the session harder than usual, which is no bad thing.

I’ll be happy to hand off again to Dave next week though.