Leader’s evening March ’24 – Hyde Park Harriers

A massive thank you to all who attended our leaders’ evening on 5th March or submitted items to be discussed. We had a mix of people, from experienced leaders to people who had never led before. We had a really good chat about the many aspects of leading.

Here’s a write up of what we discussed on the night – starting with a few key messages, then going into top tips and FAQs. We hope this helps you in your leading – whether you’re completely new or a seasoned regular!

As always, we have lots of stuff available for our leaders on the website, or get in touch with us at hello@hydeparkharriers.co.uk if we can help you with anything else!.

What we ask of our leaders

Take a group out on a run, and get them back to the start point safely, vaguely at the pace and distanced advertised – that’s it!

Things we would appreciate you do in addition:

Sign up in advance to lead a group (using the spreadsheet on the Leaders’ Facebook page)
Plot a route, and communicate this to your group via Spond in advance if you like
Use Spond to identify a backmarker, and communicate with your backmarker throughout the run to keep your group together
Take attendance on Spond – it really helps our Spondmin!
Take a picture of your group at some point on the run, and post on Facebook afterwards

Lead how you like!

There’s no one way to lead – no wrong way either.
You can limit group sizes on Spond if you let the Spondmin know via the Facebook group
Use Spond to communicate in advance of your run… or not! It’s up to you – but Spond is a great tool to make things easier. You can share your plan in advance (e.g. the route), and identify a backmarker before the run.
It can be really useful to give your group a briefing on the night before you set off to let them know how you want to lead. Most leaders like to be at the front and the backmarker at the back, some people like to lead from the back, whichever you prefer – let your group know! It can also be useful to remind people (especially new people) how to communicate hazards to those behind them – wave a hand out and pass messages down the group.
For the route, it is entirely up to you what to do! Use a route from the route library, be crazy creative, or just do the same route the group did last week – a group with a leader who just does a repeat of last week’s route is better than a group that doesn’t go ahead at all! There’s no need to invent a shiny new route or do anything out the ordinary.

Keeping groups together is key

Keeping pace was often reported as a big barrier to leading – there were lots of suggestions how to keep pace whether that be using your running watch to notify you of pace, go by feel or get another member of the group to set the pace (top tip – lead a group far slower than your top pace, making it easier to keep a gentle pace and communicate with your group).
No one cares if the pace is off – if you go too fast but the group stick together, great! Well done team! Similarly, if you go too slow, great! Everyone has a chill one that evening. If anyone complains (which is incredibly rare!) suggest that they lead next time, or get them to set the pace if you’re comfortable with doing so.
Ultimately it is more important to keep the group together than it is to keep pace. Assign a backmarker, regularly check in with them, and keep them in sight. Try to avoid the group getting too strung out and don’t let anyone become isolated – especially intimidating on dark runs! There were a few reports of backmarkers getting lost on occasions when the front of the group went out of sight and turned off.
If the group is quite widely split up in pace, there are a few tactics to deal with this – looping (which helps everyone feel included whilst keeping everyone together), doing laps of short loops (e.g. in Woodhouse Moor), have an idea of where you can cut your route short if you group is slower than expected or longer if the group is smashing it, or split into two groups (e.g. the backmarker could take a shorter route with those who are struggling with pace).

We have lots of resources available to help you lead:

There are lots of guides and ideas on the leaders’ section of our website.
Join our Leaders’ FaceBook group where we organise leading and can ask each other for support (ask a leader or committee member for access).
We have just made a NEW route library with routes ranging from 4 km to 16 km. Let us know if you need more or different distances, and do send us any routes you’d like to see up there!
If you are interested in formal leading qualifications, the club will fund you for England Athletics run leading courses – just let us know and we’ll get you sorted! We do ask that you lead 13 runs in 2 years (that’s one every 8 weeks).

Some ideas / suggestions that were raised on the night:

A good way to do your first lead would be group 1 or Kirkstall hills. For group 1, pacing doesn’t matter as you accommodate whoever turns up on the day. For Kirkstall hills, all you have to do is set the group off together and meet at the end – the majority of people are incredibly familiar with the route, and you don’t even have to do the hills if you don’t want to!
Group 1 is often lacking a leader – if every leader in our Leader’s Facebook group led group 1 once every 2 years we wouldn’t need to cancel. For many people, group 1 is where they start with the club, so it’d be great if we can offer this group consistently.
Don’t feel like you’re on your own leading – you can always ask your group to help with pacing, route, etc. from others within your group. You can also always ask in the Leaders’ FaceBook group for help and advice in advance of runs too.
It was pointed out that leaders often get asked questions about running injuries – please advise people to go to their doctor or physio…. Unless you are a qualified doctor or physio and are happy to discuss.
Please register attendance on Spond for each session, it helps the Spondmin when they have to do clearouts. Top tip – do a headcount of your group, if you the same number on the night as the number registered on Spond, there’s no need to do a name-by-name register, just tick all as attended.

Questions we had on the night:

Is there a process to follow when you notice people have signed up for multiple groups?

There’s currently no mechanism on the Spond app to prevent sign ups to multiple groups. We ask that people don’t sign up to multiple groups, but sometimes it happens – also, we do have several members with the exact same name! Best thing to do if you notice this, is just drop a polite message to the person checking if they are aware they’re signed up to two groups, and ask them to pick one.

Large groups can be difficult to lead especially for new leaders. Is it possible to have smaller groups?

Absolutely! If you want to lead, but fell that 20 runners is too many – just ask the Spondmin, they can change the max numbers on a group. Alternatively, you could arrange to have a second leader, and the two of you take 10 people out from the same group.

What about if I’m down to lead, but have to drop out (e.g. running late from work, illness etc.)?

We would recommend that you only sign up to lead if you’re confident you’re coming to session in good time. Sometimes, we have the best intentions, but life happens! If you’re no longer able to lead, post it in Spond as soon as you can to ask for someone else to step in. Alternatively, if you know quite early you’re no longer able to lead, then ask in the Leaders’ FaceBook group for a replacement leader.

Not sure the new 12-group format solves problems of groups oversubscribing…?

The expansion of Tuesday runs into the 12-group sessions were introduced for multiple reasons. Firstly, we were regularly taking 12 groups out in the old 8-group format where we would often double up on groups 3-6, and give the Spondmin extra work in identifying additional leaders. Also, the paces between the groups weren’t evenly spaced, so the new pace brackets were developed to address this and better bridge gaps between the groups. Oversubscribing is still an issue – hence we need more lovely leaders! It’s great our club is so popular and the more leaders we have, the more folks will be able to run with us.

Do I have to carry a phone around with me as a leader?

You don’t have to, but we would recommend it – Ideally you would need a device to register attendance on Spond, and a phone is handy if incidents happen – e.g. if you need to call a taxi to get people back to The Edge). If you don’t tend to carry a phone however, it would be an idea to team up with someone else in the group (e.g. if you have identified a backmarker in advance) so you know you have access to a phone if you need it.

Can the leaders’ rota be moved onto Spond rather than Googledocs?

This has been discussed at previous committee meetings. Spond has it’s limitations, and we have found that the current systems works best for all involved – i.e. both leaders and the Spondmin. We’re always welcome to new suggestions though so let us know if you have ideas by emailing us.

Could the announcements on the steps be done earlier / be shorter so runs can start sooner?

We’ll discuss this at the next committee meeting.

And finally….

As always, we are super grateful to everyone who volunteers to lead or support sessions. Thank you for all you do!

If you have any feedback or questions at any point – get in touch with us at hello@hydeparkharriers.co.uk