Running Through is a research project from the University of Nottingham to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on the running community - and now on the Nordic Walking community too.
Whether you have had Covid-19 or not, this is your chance to contribute to an understanding of the impact the pandemic has had on our community and, ultimately, to recommendations that can be made regarding training load, intensity and infection recovery.
If enough Nordic Walkers participate the researchers will be able to analyse their anonymised research data to answer questions that specifically look at injuries, illness and health of Nordic Walking participants. So please sign up and encourage all your Nordic Walking friends and colleagues to join in too.
You can follow Running Through on their social media:
facebook.com/UoNRunningThrough
twitter.com/_Runningthrough
twitter.com/instagram.com/UON_runningthrough/
What do you need to do to join this research?
You will need to:
- Register with the research project.
- Use one of the associate fitness tracker apps - Strava or Garmin - when you Nordic Walk. Alternatively you could sync your favourite app with Strava or Garmin.
- Complete a weekly questionnaire sent by email for six months.
There is no need to change any of your activities or habits - just carry on as you would normally do.
How to register with Running Through
First of all, be aware that the project has been set up for runners so the language in the project is based around running and jogging. British Nordic Walking approached the researchers to suggest also looking at Nordic Walking on hearing about the project but it is too late to make changes to the research questions to include reference to Nordic Walking. The instructions below show you how to flag up that you are a Nordic Walker in the registration process.
Step 1. Go to the Running Through website and sign up
The website is https://runningthrough.org/ - just click on Sign Up Now.
Step 2. Make sure that you read the Participant Information Sheet before you go further.
There will be a link to this document which will tell you all you need to know about your involvement in the project.
Step 3. Complete the consent form
All your personal data will be treated confidentially.
Step 4. Complete the registration form
This will include submitting details of your height, weight, etc., your activity preferences (it talks about running but read this as Nordic Walking), and about your health habits, and about various health conditions.
PLEASE NOTE
This is the section where you need to flag up that you are a Nordic Walker. Do this by:
- Going to the question, Which terrain do you most commonly run on?
- Clicking on Other.
Then, Under Please Specify, put Nordic Walking on Road or Nordic Walking on Trail. The researchers will use this to identify who is a Nordic Walker.
Continue through this questionnaire, remembering that you need to read "running" and "jogging" as "Nordic Walking".
Step 5. Connect to your fitness tracker
The partner apps for this research project are Garmin and Strava. You will need an account for one of these to connect your Running Through account.
Once the connection has been made, this will be shown on your Running Through account.
And that's it. You're good to go. All you need to do is make sure you are using you tracker app when you Nordic Walk - if you use your tracker for more than one type of exercise, you might want to name each Nordic Walking activity accordingly - and complete the weekly questionnaire.
And, of course, to spread the word - we'd like as many Nordic Walkers as possible to participate.