New Striders Website & Blog

After 76 posts the first Striders blogspot is now closing down. Striders have their own domain name: striders.com.au and a blog attached to that site.

No more posts will be made to this site now so please click on the link then bookmark it for future reference.
http://www.striders.com.au

A word of thanks to blogger.com for making available the excellent resource of bloggin for free.

Keeping Track of Your Training

So you want to achieve some new goals this year with running? Join the club. No matter what your standard, setting goals is important and having some help in achieving them is critical. I've bitten the bullet and begun keeping more detailed records of my training, as I prepare for some big races. There are a number of online options, where you can log in and update your training diary. These options usually provide some graphs to track a number of factors, including distance covered weekly/monthly, yearly; speed; weight etc.

Check out these for good examples:

http://www.runningahead.com

http://www.coolrunning.com

You will need to register [free] in order to use the training diaries.

Other options are excel spreadsheets, which you can use on your PDA [my preference] or on your desktop. A number of free spreadsheets are made available online, I have found an excellent one for free from David Hay, download it from his website: http://www.davidhays.net/running/runlog/runlog.html

This spreadsheet has everything, it even calculates how far you've run to the moon and around world. The more important features are the graphs and pace calculators and race time predictors. Brilliant stuff and its free.

You can of course buy software, but why would you when so much of it is available for free. The bought stuff might look prettier but its all the same stuff really. Besides, looking pretty is for cyclists, us runner's are more interested in running than looking good. If you want to look good you don't run! That's why Nike ran an add campaign last year called 'run ugly'.

If you are the more traditional type you can get a free run diary with your Runners World subscription, or purchase one from Athletes's Foot. If you have a photograpic memory then reading this post has been a waste of time, carry on regardless.

Totally off topic now so I'll sign off. Happy diarising.

New Developments at Striders

Striders will be relaunching in 2007, building on the strengths that have developed in 2007, and the patterns that have emerged. We will be having a publicity campaign in late January to raise our profile, as well as launching our new dedicated website with blog which you can find at www.striders.com.au, coming online in a few weeks after I've got back from holiday.

Our Tuesday evening group is growing, and we've had an influx of women. The group is now divided into two, with a faster and slower group. Women feel particularly more comfortable running with each other, and with others of a similar ability. Each group has a facilitator to guide participants through the evenings activities.

We have also comissioned our first club singlet, for a look at teh design and more info contact Stan. Singlets are cotton backed microfibre and and perfect for increasing our profile.

The Tuesday morning group is still operating, using the attractive bush tracks around Lake Samsonvale [Bullocky's Rest], 5:30am each Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning long runs [18km - 21km] start from Lilley Road Park, 5am. Our route takes us up to the waterworks at Lake Samsonvale via Kremczow Road, Bray Park and Joyner, back down via Samsonvale and Ira Buckby for a finish in the park. This run is for experienced runners who are in training for long distance running or triathlon events.

Thursday morning hill sessions, starting from Lilley Road park at 5:30, and other locations like Clear Mountain. This session is for runner's who would like to improve their anaerobic fitness and turn hills into opportunities to shine!

Here's to a year filled with new running adventures and achievements in 2007!