In this blog I shall try to share a unique perspective into a weekend that saw three fantastic performances from three of our young stars. I will be sharing some insight into the day itself, from my perspective. Why am I there? What difference am I looking to make? Surely I have my own life to live on weekends? Surely I could have said everything to them that week in training? Let’s just backtrack a little to bring everyone up to speed. This weekend saw twins Kiara and Abigai

Chanel Wins, Abi Podiums and Kiara is off to SAs The final day of August saw the best athletes in the Western Cape come together in the Western Cape Schools Cross Country Champs, to fight it out for national honours. We had 7 of our youngsters taking part between the ages of 10-17. These days are super tough - Racing against competition that you have never seen before...not knowing if you are fit enough to achieve a top six placing, and slot to SAs, it's essentially the fear

This Saturday saw the merging of the Western Province Athletics Cross Country Championships and the Western Province Schools Cross Country Championships. For this reason the usual 6 spots on the WP team that are normally up for grabs was extended to 12 – So a top 12 age group placing would see the athlete earn WP colours for our 18 athletes on the start line. This is pretty much the dream of any youngster competing on the cross country circuit. This year we had no fewer than

For the two Fridays past we graced the blue tartan of the Green Point Athletics Stadium, with some of our youngsters, for the first time in prep for the Fall's Cross Country races. Take a look at just some of the shots from our two-session training camp. There was a lot packed into the hour. Anyone who has been around our training will know that we oppose the 'over-training' of young and upcoming runners. Therefore the sessions were all about high relative intensities, low mi

This Saturday saw three of our athletics stars partake in the Western Cape Primary Schools Athletics Championships. We are proud to say that (in all likelihood) we have two of the three that will go on to take part in the South African Primary Schools Athletics Championship in Gauteng in two weeks time. It seems like every year at least one of our athletes are struck down with illness - Unfortunately for Abi this year it was her turn. After running high temperatures and being

This weekend saw the Western Province Primary Schools Athletics Championships take place. Although many of our talented youngsters (from southern suburbs schools) don't attend schools that do athletics, we do have a few lucky ones who are absolutely taking their opportunity to compete with open hands. Major kudos must go to Demi (1st - u12 Long Jump), Abi (3rd - u13 1500m) and Kiara (3rd - u13 800m) for all securing podium spots and achieving Western Province colours. Th

Friday afternoon saw the Annual Inter-Schools Cross Country meeting hosted Rustenburg Girls Junior School. For those who are like "inter-what?", this is the who's who of primary school running lasses in Cape Town as the 8 all-girls schools compete for bragging rights. For the second year running Rustenburg put on an incredible event to cross swords against St Cyprians, Herschel, Springfield, Wynberg Girls, Mickelfield, Greenfield and Oakhurst Thanks to our Off the Mark rabbit

This Saturday we had 17 (14 of eligible ages for WP selection) of our youngsters compete at the Cape Metro Schools Cross Country Champs. We start with the euphoria of two 2nd places. Sama and Chanel (u12 and u11 girls respectively) put in phenomenal performances to not just qualify for the WP team (top 6 places) but take 2nd place, within touching distance of the win. Sama upgraded for 3rd place from last year and Chanel enjoyed a meteoric rise from not qualifying for the tea

A report from the Cross Country Zonal Champs where several Off The Mark young athletes competed

A brief recap of the amazing Winter Cross Country Clinic held by Off The Mark Training during the June school holidays.

From April 3rd-9th we hosted our latest holiday clinic for young school students. Having done an athletics based clinic in December it seemed fitting to switch it up and focus on cross-country. The 5-day event was again proudly sponsored by Green Point KwikSpar, and was a massive success for all parties. Athletes were able to sign up for a single day, or all 5 - and its with a smug little grin on my face that I can proudly say that the majority of the runners were present EVE