Finally, springtime here in the UK is properly underway. For quite some time now, we’ve had the early signs of spring with the usual early blooms and longer days but the weather has remained stubbornly cold and often felt more like November than April.

This is a key time in the Sport Walking calendar, regardless of where you are in the world. For most, spring means the final build up to summer challenges (unless of course you’re opting for an autumn test). It’s not so much a time of total renewal, as it is in nature, it’s a time for refining your approach. The major work should have been done by now, with consistent training during the winter and springtime heralds an opportunity to enjoy time on the trail, as your challenge draws ever closer.

For us here at Sport Walk, this springtime is a bit different to normal. We’ve had a lot of disruption over the last year and this has impacted on what we’ve been able to do but now, just as the world around us is starting to green up and get ready for the move on into summer, we’re getting back into the flow and are excited about what lies ahead.

It’ll be a bit of a slow process but we’ll be gradually introducing new elements to Sport Walk and re-introducing a couple of old ones. Our focus has always been on promoting and developing Sport Walking and now we’re back in the flow, we’re planning to concentrate on growing the Sport Walking community and connecting with new organisations and groups to share what Sport Walking has to offer.

To help build the community, we’re going to be setting up a Facebook group, enabling all our friends and supporters to share their stories, experiences, photos, videos and tactics directly with other Sport Walkers and we’re also at the early stages of planning a comprehensive membership package, hosted on our ‘Skillspack’ site. On top of this, we’ll be bringing back ‘The Sport Walk Show’, with a new focus on answering viewers’ questions, as well as some short features and top tips.

We’ll be formalising our various Sport Walk Personal Challenges and providing more guidance and resources to help people take them on, so that we’re able not only to offer advice on how to walk more efficiently but real tangible personal challenges to take on, putting what you learn into practice.

Last but not least, this summer we’ll be re-introducing our ‘Walkshops’, starting with some starter sessions and then some more specialist ones, such as our walking at night session, to help people overcome their concerns about the night time section of a long ultra challenge.

We have different presences on different platforms and we understand that we mean different things to different people but now, our overriding objective is create a home for all Sport Walkers and to then encourage more people to come join us. It’s going to take some time but we’re excited by the prospect and are looking forward to all the work that lies ahead!