Update on London Heathside training
This is to keep you up to speed on getting back to training principally on the track and possibly using some of our other venues.
As you know, some of the lockdown restrictions have been lifted with the result that 6 people (from different households) can now gather outside, providing the social distancing rule is maintained. We are putting together a plan that takes this relaxation into account although this is not an easy situation to resolve and that whatever we put in place will have limitations and need constant review.
The current guidelines re. who and how people can train together are clear and can be found here, https://www.englandathletics.org/athletics-and-running/news/guidance-update-step-2/
Overriding all of this and possibly the biggest deterrent to returning to group training is the governments “test and trace” policy which all of our members would be obliged to follow. This is fully explained here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works
We have asked the Finsbury Park Sports Partnership to reopen the facility but only the track and infield will be available for use. The pavilion will be closed so there WILL NOT be any toilet facilities available. Opening the track remains dependent on Haringey and FPSP acceptance of our Plans and Risk Assessment but we would seek to be open at the following times:
Tues/Thurs 4-9pm
Saturday and Sunday 9-1pm
To enable us to stick to the social distancing rules the track will be divided off into 4 zones available in 60min time slots. Use of the LJ and TJ pits and the HJ and PV beds is prohibited. For the time being ONLY COACHES can book a slot via a diary system we are creating. As things progress and the lockdown restrictions are eased this of course will be reviewed. Your coach, once he has booked his or her slots will be in contact with you to see if you want to be part of that group. The coaches will be responsible for conducting their group within England Athletics guidelines and:
Opening the track and locking up
Ensuring there are no more than 5 athletes in each of their groups (and these groups remain the same people)
Ensuring athletes understand the constraints on training, remain in the zones and social distance
All equipment (hurdles/starting blocks) are cleaned between sessions
Booking their slots and dealing with any dispute between themselves
To help comply with the guidelines, I am very grateful that the following have agreed to take up these special posts:
Club Covid19 officer, Simon Baker assisted by Chris Hartley
Maintaining the booking calendar/register, Michael Hickey
Head coach/coaches contact point and on the ground arbiter of disputes, Mark Lawrence
Ditto for YA’s, Russell Weston and Ruth Miller.
Competition is still banned until July 1st. It is not clear that this date will hold, my personal opinion is that it will be much later.
Obviously with these tight restrictions we will not, for the time being, be able to accommodate the large long-distance groups that use the track under Jacob. Jacob and Kim will be in touch and continue to supply training plans for their groups, using road/off road venues. There hopefully will be slots available for some of our middle distance athletes. Nilesh is looking at setting sessions again from the YMCA but Highgate Woods is presently closing at 7pm so these sessions would probably have to use Ally Pally. At the moment there are no plans to return to the Royal Free venue but I’ll keep you updated on that one too.
This is, as you can imagine, a complicated minefield to navigate and has taken considerable work to get to this point. I would like to thank all of the committee members who have worked so hard on this. We have first had to recognise the need for groups of young athletes to get together, not so much to be ready for competition but mainly for their general fitness and mental wellbeing and so we are giving YA’s some priority. However, I am sure this applies to many of our senior members too.
UK wide there are still some 7-8000 people catching COVID 19 everyday who subsequently feed into the numbers for hospitalisation and maybe worse. This we are told is improving everyday but I believe we as a club need to behave responsibly to the general population and ensure that we move very slowly and carefully at every stage. The last thing we want is that somewhere down the line there is a local news story pointing to us as an infection centre. That could be disastrous for our future.