Navan club officials blue in the face !

Officials at Claremont Stadium in Navan are almost blue in the face at this stage over their new track and it's hardly a month old?

Planning for the future condition of more than a €250,000 investment in upgrading the facility, officials are now seeking the co-operation of members to avoid using lanes one and two at the 400-metre track simply to reduce wear and tear.

The plan is to keep the two inside lanes for competition use - which makes sense.

For training purposes - which also makes sense - track users are requested to run in lane eight - the outside lane.

This shouldn't be an issue as it will enhance the training of each athlete as 400 metres in lane eight is longer than 400 metres in lane one - as all good athletes know?

To assist and to remind track users - LANE SAVER GATES are now in place on lanes one and two.

LANE SAVER GATES – WHY?

According to a club official

"For the longevity of our new athletic track, we have installed lane saver gates around the inside lane of the athletic

track to prevent athletes consistently using lanes 1 and 2 of the track during their training.

"In general, athletes who train on the running track will tend to run along the inside lanes, which over time can cause significantly more wear and tear to those lanes than to the rest of the track.

"The increased impact to the inside lanes overtime could then require further maintenance and repairs which are costly.

With the use of the lane saver barriers, the life of the inner track lanes will hopefully be prolonged and will give our track many more years of happy training for all athletes.

"We ask that athletes please don’t move the barriers without permission of the Stadium Staff to prevent damage to the track."