The mighty green junior running club started back this past Sunday (September 22) with 14, eight to 14-year-olds taking part - seven were boys and seven were girls with the youngsters hailing from Tipton and Ottery St Mary as well as Sidmouth, writes Kerry Boyle.

With the weather not so predictable this time of year, we all started in the Sidmouth College gymnasium with a warm up, dynamic stretching and some running games looking at form, particularly their running arms.

We have been very lucky to recruit some more volunteers from the club to help take the groups so Claire Ashby (assistant coach) and Tim Dafforn (leader in running fitness), took the older group out (12-14 year olds), who did a steady run followed by some endurance training.

There were eight youngsters who stayed in the gym with Kerry Boyle (Athletics Coach) and Jenny Jepperson (Leader in running fitness) they looked at learning how to jump as far as they could measuring their distance with a standing jump and seeing how many times the could do the speed bounce in 20 seconds, they went on to learning how to do the pull throw which is the technique required to throw a javelin by using bean bags and howlers. The session was finished off with a relay followed by a warm-down and stretches and what was clear was that everyone had a great time.

The course runs for five weeks finishing on October 20, but will return after half term on November 10.

With more volunteers we have been able to increase the number of the groups so there are spaces still available for this course, please either visit the running club website: Sidmouth Running Club - Eat, Sleep, Run, Repeat or email the coaches on juniors@sidmouthrunningclub.co.uk