| Welcome
to Arena 80 AC
Ron
Grover President and Founder provides a personal insight into Arena 80
AC's Foundations
As
an athlete I was a sprinter (to me a mile is like a marathon). I won many
school and later senior titles at local, county and national level. My
PBs were 100 meters - 10:07, 200 meters - 21:10 and 400 meters - 47:30.
All these were achieved between 1957 and 1959 while doing national service.
These were vast improvements on my club competitive times and were solely
due to good facilities and having a chance to be coached. After leaving
national service I concentrated on coaching because it was greatly needed
at club level and indeed still is 40 years later.
My
coaching involvement reached a peak in the late seventies when I was on
a national coaching committee to oversee the introduction and development
of the fun run jogger boom coming from the USA. In particular, my area
of work was with the female runner. There was very little coaching and
training for the female distance runner, and from that point I have always
specialised in their coaching and training at all level from the fun runner
right through to national and international athletes.
When
I formed Arena 80 AC in 1980 my first member was Carol Wilson who along
with ten other women and one man could in no way complete one lap of Withdean
Stadium running.
Since
then I have coached many of our women to win county, area and national
titles and for one of our vets, world titles. |
