Bye bye, Coach Potato!

Today was my last day as an athletics coach.
The crew were visibly distressed. 

(In the extra shot I managed to capture their delight when I told them that I could possibly be convinced to sign for another year. Needless to say, they did not pressurise me too much...) 

It's been a great experience.
They are a delightful bunch of happy, enthusiastic, just-competitive-enough-without-being-obsessed kids. 

And I have enjoyed the coaching sessions with Justin, Aibhin, David, and more recently Jason. But especially with Darren. Poor thing had a big piece of dust in his eye as I left. 

The head coach tried to convince me to reconsider, and even offered me three times my current compensation as a voluntary coach. 
The experience has been great but it is time for me to make a bit more me time. 
If the tide is right at 10 am on a Sunday, I can decide to go on an impromptu kayaking session. 
If the weather is exceptionally clement on a Saturday afternoon, and guaranteed to be dry for the next 48 hours, we can take off on a last minute camping trip without feeling guilty for letting anyone down (God knows that "last minute" and "camping" are among Mrs Raheny's favourite expressions, especially when combined in the same handy sentence!)

The club, and Paul, and Darren have been particularly good to me. 
I left today with a heavy heart. And a heavy gift bag with three very fine bottles of wine (I am impressed guys!). 
Strangely enough, there was no voucher for sport equipment, or a new pair of runners, or ultra-tight ultra-light running shorts. 
Just three very fine bottles of wine.
They know exactly what type of coach I am.

Thanks a mil, all of you.

Go Blackrock, go! 

(Running since 1944)