DJC @ The John Davies Western Area International Summer Training Camp

Summer! a time for relaxation, re-charging batteries, taking stock of the year and having a well earned rest before the Autumn and September begin to loom down on us.

Not so for Alanna, Maria, Lottie, Bogdan, Allan and Erin who all attended the John Davies Western Area International Summer Training Camp, DJC coach Roz also joined our juniors as part of the coaching team for the week. Gary Gregory was also part of the coaching team too so our players would have lets say familiar rather than friendly faces!

The aim of the Camp is for young athletes to experience coaching to an international level and to promote social contact between different European nations, for many of our players this would be their first experience at this level and therefore had little idea of what to expect, luckily seasoned players from South Brent and Kingsley School were on hand to help and advise our younger players.

The Camp is obviously residential meaning that players stay in rooms together and eat at the venue, Our players were roomed together to give them someone familiar to share their stay with. I have very positive feedback about the food! (Curry one night!) which I will pass on to Simon

The Camp had numerous Elite coaches brought in including Ben Fletcher(who also coaches at DJC) and Sophie Cox(who trained with Mike some years ago) to name a few who showed some of their techniques and our players were then able to work with players from other clubs and abroad whom they would not perhaps be familiar with.

Allan and Bogdan enjoyed the camp and returned home on the Tuesday after 2 full days, with the girls staying the whole week

Part of the ethos of the camp is to show the players what would be expected of them if they were to become elite level athletes(this includes 6am wake ups for runs and lots of strength and conditioning work) I know that this was something embraced by our players

Fun was also on the agenda with various water sports and 'Wipe-Out' style games being included on off site trips, A BBQ was also arranged as part of the social aspect

The only slight downside on the whole week was that Maria broke her big toe on the last session! however she remained in good spirits and didn't let it affect her overall experience for the week.

Speaking to Ros after the camp had concluded, she specifically mentioned how proud she was of all of the players and especially our girls who made it all the way to the end of the camp, being a former pre-cadet, Cadet, Junior, Senior and Masters GB squad member herself she knows a thing or two about training camps and she told me this was one was very good and tested the players but in a very positive way and she would recommend it for our higher graded players for next year

I am hoping that in 2019 that we will send double the amount of players who attended this year, our REDS squad in particular should all be trying to make the effort to attend

Finally a big thankyou to Simon for putting it all together and to Ros for coaching for the week and to all the other coaches who made it a week to remember