Welcome to the Official Weston A.C. Website

We have now set up the second virtual challenge using the Open Track platform.

Our challenge is to complete a 1 mile run to support the 2.6 campaign that you will have seen announced in connection with the London marathon postponement recently.

The challenge is free for all WAC members to take part in with a suggested minimum donation of £2 to Weston Hospicecare, our chosen charity.

Run 1 mile on a course chosen by you any time between 13/5/20 and 20:00 on the 24/5/20.

Your run should be completed solo and take notice of the applicable government restrictions. Please make sure that you maintain social distancing and give priority to pedestrians and members of the public.

Please choose a course for your safety considering: location, road crossings, surface etc. and consider the time of day that you intend to run to limit disruption to others.

Please choose a course with the start and finish close together if possible - max 2 loops. If you choose a point to point course please try to make sure that the start and finish are at the same elevation. If you do choose a point to point course a penalty may be applied for any elevation drop or favourable wind conditions.

Results will be issued on an outright time basis. The result will also go towards a team challenge with the times of the first 4 members of a team being added together.

Please enter the race as described below. Please can the captain from each team let me know the 4 (or more) members of your team so that we can add to your entry.

Please submit your 1 mile Garmin or Strava segment record to the Open Track system by 20:59 on 24/5. Detailed instructions on how to submit your result are on the Open Track site.

To register for the event go to www.Opentrack.run. You will need to look under Virtual and Competitions where you will find the WAC 1 mile Challenge dated 12 to 24 May 2020. You will need to register with Open Track before entering if you have not already done this.

During these troubled times you would like to think everyone would be looking out for each other but unfortunately at the weekend a lady runner was subjected to harassment and verbal abuse whilst running in a country lane in the Weston area.

A vehicle with 3 males slowed down and followed the runner for a time, after verbally harassing her they stopped in front blocking the route. Luckily thanks to taking a calm approach and running round the back of the vehicle and quickly reaching a more populated area no physical harm was done but it must have been a very unnerving episode to experience.

The runner in question is fine but has asked me to warn you that unfortunately there are these people around and about the advice received from the police office that the incident was reported to.

The officer advised that, if you are nervous or concerned about running alone when taking your daily exercise, it would be a completely acceptable reason for running with one other person (not of your household) as long as current social distancing rules are observed.

You should not need to but unfortunately you also need to think about: where you are going to run, what time of day, who knows where you are going and when you expect to be back. You should also take a fully charged phone with you.

Jim Wotton

Please note the end date for this challenge has been extended to 10th May

We promised to set up a virtual challenge using the Open Track platform that has been made available to affiliated clubs by England Athletics.

Our challenge is to complete a 2.6 mile run to support the 2.6 campaign that you may have seen announced last week. £7m has already been raised through events taking place.

The challenge is free for all WAC members to take part in with a suggested minimum donation of £5 to Weston Hospicecare our chosen charity.

Run 2.6 miles on a course chosen by you any time between 30/4/20 and 20:00 on the 3/5/20.

Your run should be completed solo and take notice of the applicable government restrictions. Please make sure that you maintain social distancing and give priority to pedestrians and members of the public.

Please choose a course for your safety considering: location, road crossings, surface etc. and consider the time of day that you intend to run to limit disruption to others.

Please choose a course with the start and finish close together if possible - max 4 loops. If you choose a point to point course please try to make sure that the start and finish are at the same elevation. If you do choose a point to point course a penalty may be applied for any elevation drop or favourable wind conditions.

Results will be issued on an outright time and age graded basis.

Please submit your 2.6 mile Garmin or Strava segment record to the Open Track system by 20:59 on 3/5. Detailed instructions on how to submit your result are on the Open Track site.

To register for the event go to www.Opentrack.run. You will need to look under Virtual and Competitions where you will find the WAC 2.6 Challenge dated 30/4 to 3/5. You will need to register with Open Track before entering.

I mentioned in my mail on Sunday that the coaching team want to provide as much support as we can in these difficult times. We know that all EA activity is suspended until 31/5 at least, having seen yesterday that the Berlin marathon has been postponed again from 27/9, I don't see any changes happening quickly for us.

I know that many members have been enjoying their running recently and a bit of R & R from continual racing etc has certainly seemed to help. At the same time we have seen people taking on their own challenges and structured sessions. For those people who would like a bit of support and some session ideas, to help improve or maintain their distance/speed etc. we will post some sessions for you to consider. You can do these on a suitable circuit near to you and at anytime or day to suit you.

Jason has been posting detail of a virtual Saturday session and you will see from the welcome page training section that this has now been posted together with a suggestion of a Fartlek hill circuit for Thursday.

Sheryl has posted detail of our plans on the Weston facebook page and we also will post on there detail of suggested challenges that you may wish to take on too. The first challenge mentioned is tackling your pr on the KDH hill in Weston Woods or Rochester Close climb up Totterdown.

The England Athletics site has a lot of information and ideas that some members may find useful. There are a number of webinars and athlete interviews taking place each week and a club night quiz at 7:00pm for those missing their club meetings.

For any members who are home schooling youngsters EA have made the Athletics 365 information available free to everybody (coaches/leaders/members) until May 2021. This is an ideal guide that takes children through all aspects of running, jumping, throwing. It has a series of different levels that children can achieve on many topics that work towards a balanced development. Seeing some of the exercises and the different levels that need to be shown at each topic may really help you with ideas.

There will be more on facebook regularly but hopefully this message gives you some idea of the support the coaching team are trying to provide.

With regret due to the ongoing Corvid19 situation there will be no Beacon Batch Race this year - hope to see you in 2021

Club memberships for 2020/2021 are now due for renewal. Your committee have taken the decision that in this unprecedented period and with the current suspension of all athletic activity the £20 WAC fee will be waived for this year. We will require you to update your record on the membership system in due course and renew your EA affiliation if appropriate plus paying the EA fee. You may have seen yesterday that EA have decided to hold the annual figure at £15 for 2020/2021.

We will need to make amendments to the system to remove the £20 WAC renewal fee for this year so please do not try to update your records at this point. Until we have updated the system and know when the suspension of all activity will end we will provide an extension of all current memberships. EA have confirmed today that the date by which you need to pay to renew your membership is extended this year until 31/08/2020, hopefully we will have more news on this situation well before then.

A mail to this effect has been sent out to all members via the membership system tonight. We have also confirmed the postponement of the AGM and detail of the Sodbury ballot postponement.

If you do not see the mail in your inbox please check the mail address on your membership profile or look in your spam folder.


Jim Wotton

Following our club announcement yesterday EA have now updated their position and you will see that they have suspended all activity until the end of April

EA Coronavirus Statement: last updated 17 March at 9am

The UK government has advised that everyone in the UK should now avoid “non-essential” travel and contact with others to fight coronavirus. Whilst it has not issued any ban on public gatherings of any size either indoors or outdoors at this stage, the advice is to avoid non-essential contact with others, including going to sporting events, pubs, clubs, theatres and social venues.

As a result, England Athletics advises that all face-to-face activity such as club training sessions, events, competitions, club committee and face-to-face meetings, athlete camps, running groups and social events should be suspended until at least the end of April.

The decision has been taken in the interests of athletes, runners, officials, coaches, volunteers, supporters and the wider athletics and running communities. This decision is also in alignment with actions taken by the home country athletics federations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and is similar to action taken by other sports.

Where possible, athletes and runners at all levels are encouraged to maintain their own personal fitness and keep active during this time, while following government guidelines about safe distance and safe exercise environments.

We appreciate that the current situation will undoubtedly place our member clubs in a difficult situation and we are working with UKA and the other Home Country Athletics Federations on the best way to help alleviate the situation and will update you as plans evolve.

Following the government briefings of Monday 16th March 2020 the actions being taken to tackle the Coronavirus emergency now call on all of us to change our behaviours to help the effort.

In addition to actions for certain parts of the community to self isolate and other requests they have asked all of us to try to work from home where possible, avoid unnecessary travel and non-essential gatherings.

With the particular request to limit travel and gatherings your committee has decided that as a socially responsible club we should suspend all official club sessions for the foreseeable future.

We will resume as soon as developments allow but in the meantime stay safe and keep running.

With the extra time that you may have available why not try getting involved in helping out with supporting shopping and deliveries for the self isolating people in your area, family or neighbourhood watch etc.

In light of developments with the spread of COVID-19 and the fact that we now have confirmed cases in the local area we have taken the decision not to hold the March prom races this Thursday evening.

It would not be fair to our runners, volunteers or venue team to risk the spread of infection.

We would like to apologise to all our runners for the disappointment this news will no doubt bring, but the health of you all and our volunteers is paramount.

We will discuss over the coming days whether we might be able to hold the race at a later date or whether we might need to shorten the 2019-20 series.

In the meantime, keep healthy and keep running.

Weston AC

IMPORTANT - Cancellation of this Thursday's Prom Race

We would like to apologise to all our runners for the disappointment this news will no doubt bring, but the health of you all and our volunteers is paramount.

We will discuss over the coming days whether we might be able to hold the race at a later date or whether we might need to shorten the 2019-20 series.

In the meantime, keep healthy and keep running.