Clare Sports Partnership Walk To Jog 3K Challenge Building Momentum

If you happen to be one of the people around the Mullagh area in West Clare who use the local walking track for exercise, you may have seen something happening there which would have caught your attention.

There is no need to be concerned about the man circling the track early in the morning issuing instructions to himself though, because it is all part of a growing initiative from Clare Sports Partnership which is being spearheaded by Coore native Pat Sexton.

The Walk to Jog 3km Programme has been an instant success with close to 400 participants signing up in an effort to boost their fitness levels while also getting in their daily exercise. With the Covid-19 restrictions in place, it means that co-ordinators like Pat cannot run these type of programmes in the traditional manner, so he has devised a alternative way to keep people engaged.

“People register with us for free and they will receive a podcast three times a week for the eight week duration with their sessions. All they have to do is pop in their headphones and listen to my instructions as I psychically do the programme myself. There will be 24 sessions in total for the programme. On day one they will jog for 3 and a half minutes with a goal to building this up to 30 minutes on day 24 of the programme. Participants can complete their workout on the run, local track, around their garden or on the spot at home depending on their circumstances whilst all adhering to current 2km radius restrictions. The instructions are based on time rather than distance so I will tell you to jog for 30 seconds rather than 500 metres because people can often judge distances differently” he explained.

With the country still effectively on lockdown in the bid to curb the spread of Covid-19, the numbers of people getting out for daily walks has increased over the past few weeks. It was that trend in his local area that gave Pat the idea to help people put some structure on their exercise.

“To be honest about it, it was when I was at home and saw neighbours out walking that you would never see out on the road and there seemed to be an increase in the amount of people doing that. From talking to some of those that I met, they are nearly getting bored at this stage of walking around the same roads so this was something to develop it a bit for those people. This programme can help encourage them to pick up the pace a bit and set themselves that extra little challenge while they are out for that walk. The beauty of the programme is that people can get their session at a time that suits them so they can fit it around their own schedule to suit work or family life. The other thing that comes out of it is that you basically competing against yourself. The traditional Couch to 5k runs are in big groups and you always have the few down the back who might struggle and you lose them once they get disheartened. This one is different in that you are just there yourself and people seem to enjoy that” he outlined.

Pat says the feedback so far has been positive and is hopeful that it can be a habit that people maintain in the long term to help with keeping themselves healthy.

“It is aimed at total beginners and we have heard back from people who said jogging was not their thing but they still did the first few days and found it was manageable. We are targeting the people who could be out walking but aren’t at the moment while also putting pressure on those who are already active to challenge themselves to increase the intensity to a jog. It is all about creating habit and trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We have had huge praise for our frontline workers in what they are doing to tackle Covid-19 and when it is all over, it should be up to us to maintain our health so that we don’t have to put more pressure on the system and give those workers some bit of a bit of a break when things go back to normal. We need to do our bit to look after ourselves and that is one of the most important things” he stated.

People looking to register for the programme can visit the Clare Sports Partnership website for more information.