Queensland Athletics sent a letter out today to all registered athletes regarding their Guidelines for Athletics.
This included the following statement:
“Clubs should cancel all regular training sessions where more than 10 individuals are involved. Where small groups (less than 10) training is organised strict social distancing. In addition to the sanitisation of equipment being used by the athletes and coaching, shall be implemented.”
They have made this recommendation based on what they think will happen in the near future. It is not the current guidelines from Athletics Australia, The AIS or the government at any level. It is not a current requirement or law that we must follow.
The federal government has today put out more strict rules for dealing with the pandemic.
https://www.facebook.com/healthgovau/videos/1686150938205283/
https://www.health.gov.au/…/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for…
They include banning of any groups of more than 100 in enclosed spaces and 500 in the outdoors. Of note is that Gyms and Pools will not be closed and schools have been asked to stay open. These rules may change quickly and we will post here about any changes.
I was able to talk to Qld Athletics today and it was suggested that we could break up our larger training sessions into smaller groups of no more than 10 and this would meet their recommendation. We can do this by separating into pace groups at the start of the session which have social distancing from the other pace groups. This is probably similar to what happens at a session anyway. When you arrive at a session can you please congregate in your pace groups and keep at least 2 metres between groups.
We will have a more lenient policy with kids. They do not seem to be affected the same as older people. The youngest person to die from Coronavirus in the US was early 50’s, in the UK was 45 and in Europe was 21 (but he had leukaemia). They will also already be mixing with much larger groups at their schools. The government has specifically asked schools to continue and not be closed. It has been theorised that the big mistake in Italy was school closures, where infected kids passed on the disease to grandparents who were looking after them because they were not at school. Can parents at training please practice social distancing with the recommended 1.5 metres space.
Our previously published guidelines I believe should still stand regardless of this letter from Qld Athletics. However, I would like to add the following policies:
- Runners to separate into pace groups of no more than 10 as soon as they arrive at training.
- Parents at kids sessions to practice social distancing of 1.5 Metres.
- Please do not come to training session if you have any of the symptoms of illness and in particular shortness of breath, coughing or sneezing.
- We will continue to offer training sessions until the Federal government changes their rules on dealing with this pandemic.
Please remember the purpose of the current government guidelines is to spread the rate of infection over a longer period of time so that health services are not overwhelmed. It is unlikely to have a major impact on the total number of infections. This will likely extend the period of disruption and race cancellations to over 6 months but will significantly reduce the number of fatalities.
It is important that in this current anxious time that runners do not lose the social interaction and mental stress relief they gain from training in a group. The AIS guidelines emphasise the importance of maintaining our exercise routine for physical and mental health.
With all fun runs, cross countries and Parkruns cancelled for the foreseeable future it is important to maintain your commitment to running. Hopefully, the Brisbane Road Runners club will continue. We will be organising some informal training races, for club members only, that can fill the void left in the race calendar. This will be posted in the next few days. The long run this weekend will go ahead but we will be following our new social distancing policy.
We are open and ready to help you through the Covid-19 pandemic.
To our running community and intraining Running Centre Community
We do hope you are staying well and happy through this difficult period. You know that keeping up an exercise routine and in touch with your community as best as possible will help you stay positive and able to navigate frequent changes in our daily activities.
As a local and community-oriented business your health, motivation and ability to continue running is our highest priority.
Since we serve best with one on one care in both our retail shop and in our podiatry/physiotherapy clinic our intraining team have taken the following actions to mitigate the extraordinary circumstances:
- Extra care in hand washing after every customer
- Regular cleaning of surfaces, treadmill, chairs, clinic desks and benches and doors handles
- Doors left open or ajar to avoid handle contact
- No attendance at work if any symptoms of the virus
- None of us has travelled overseas – and won’t be for a few months!!
We will have free shipping of products over $35.
The best part of our ongoing service to you is that we will always be friendly helpful and work to find exactly what you need.
Training groups will continue as we closely follow the Federal Health Guidelines and our policy for these is currently as seen below. We are in constant conversations with our coaching team who are super keen to see you keep running in a safe and healthy manner.
As runners we make goals, but it is the work we do, the people we meet, the way we approach our training and who we become on the road to get there that is so much more wonderful than any finisher’s medal.
Love your running. Stay healthy and safe and keep coming to see us for all your running needs.
Steve and Margot