YoungMeldrum runners have been active during lockdown
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TWO teenagers from YoungMeldrum Runners have been keeping themselves active and improving their fitness during lockdown.
As normal training has been unable to take place due to the current circumstances, Joe Chau and Stella Walker have kept focussed and motivated over the past three months by running and cycling almost every day and as a result they have both achieved new personal best times at various distances every single week.
They have lost weight, built up muscle and now are running at a much faster pace.
Commenting Joe said he feels that having the motivation to run during lockdown has improved his running altogether, saying: “I just decided to keep on running and my mother encouraged me to do it, I was doing it three times a week and after about 15 weeks I lost half a stone doing running, in March my personal best time to run was 1 minute 30 and when I came back to the club it was 58 seconds so it was much faster.
“I’ve been cycling about 50 miles a week, and also doing some sprinting, starting with a one mile warm up.
Talking about the importance of staying active, Stella feels that it has helped improved her mental health during this difficult time, and she said: “I’ve been doing lots of running and I also go to judo so they’ve been holding exercise and fitness classes outside at the moment, at the start of lockdown I was finding it hard to keep myself motivated and later on my coach Mark decided to do one to one coaching so it has definitely helped me become much more motivated to do things and keep active still during lockdown”
“I miss the group training because when we’re at the group training everyone is motivating each other.
“At least when we’re at the one to one coaching we’re just focussing on the one person and he can give us more feedback and what we can improve on”
“Keeping active during lockdown has helped my mental health and it keeps me much more positive”
Coach Mark Wylie is extremely proud of their efforts during lockdown, he added: “As Joe and Stella’s coach here at YoungMeldrum Runners I’m extremely proud of them both on how they have tackled almost 4 months of lockdown and increased their training in what has been very difficult times for us all.
"Initially having to train on their own several times each week which requires a lot of motivation and more recently with me during some one to one coaching sessions.
"Already the results are showing with both Joe and Stella smashing all their personal best times for various distances every single week during June.
"Hard work really does pay off.”
