New for Road Runners
Tuesday 12 May 2009
UK Athletics, the governing body of the sport in Great Britain, has launched a website dedicated to road running.
The website offers a number of crucial services to athletes such as advice on training, dealing with injuries, nutrition, the most suitable gear, events, how to run for charity and much more. There is also help for event organisers including a race director's portal, with advice and guidance on medical, police and safety issues, online licensing and the cheapest online entries in the marketplace and a race calendar with nearly 2,000 races throughout the UK listed.
The idea was conceived two years ago, when in order to meet the needs and demands of the ever-growing road running fraternity, UKA set up the Road Running Leadership Group that consisted of some of the major road race organisers, governing bodies and other organisations throughout Britain with an interest in road running.
Since then, the group has evolved and has appointed and elected representatives, advisors and professional staff including chairman Geoff Wightman, President of the LOC for the 2008 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, former IAAF World Cross Country Champion Ian Stewart, who is the Senior Endurance Manager at UK Athletics, and Dave Bedford, race director of the London Marathon and a member of the IAAF Cross Country and Road Running Committees among others.
Pierce O'Callaghan, former Communication Manager of European Athletics, is the Business Manager.
The aim of RunBritain is simple: to make British road running the best in the world in terms of organisation, development and performance.
The website also aims to address the current situation whereby over 80 percent of entrants in road races do not belong to an athletics/running club by establishing an online running club with the ultimate aim of encouraging these runners to enter the "real" club system.
"Our clear priority is support for membership of running clubs. As the content on the website builds over the next few months, we will ensure that links to Britain's local clubs are to the fore," said Wightman.
"Last year over 2 million Britons took part in road races. I am sure that this number will increase in coming years and, in parallel, I hope that RunBritain will encourage growing numbers of these runners to discover the joys of membership of their local running club."
The web site can be found by clicking on http://www.realbuzzrunbritain.com/home/