Lightning running club sees growth during pandemic
Many sports clubs were shuttered by the pandemic in 2020 or had reduced numbers with modified rules, but not the Kawartha Lakes Lightning Running Club.
The club tripled from 20 to 60 athletes. Founded by head coach Darl Sutherland in 2016 for distance runners, it’s expanded to include sprinters and some field events. Sutherland recruited two coaches, longtime Crestwood Secondary School teacher and coach Wendy Jones and 16-year-old I.E. Weldon Secondary School student Kyra Carson, to assist him.
It’s grown beyond Sutherland’s expectations and has sparked new ambitions.
He’s had preliminary talks with a Catholic school board official and Holy Cross Secondary School phys-ed staff about a potential partnership.
The long-range goal for Sutherland is to host provincial or even national meets on the new track expected to open this summer at Holy Cross.
The pandemic forced Athletics Ontario to split its 2020 provincial cross country championships into smaller regional events.
Sutherland was in talks to host a regional event in Peterborough until COVID-19 cases began to rise and he, in talks with the local health unit, decided it wasn’t a good idea to bring in runners from red zones. Markham ended up hosting the event.
Sutherland did host two small invitational meets at St. Peter Secondary School and Jackson Park earlier with modified health and safety protocols.
Kingston will host the provincial championships in 2021 and ’22. “We would be in a position to apply for 2023,” Sutherland said.
Prior to this year, the majority of Sutherland’s athletes were senior high school age but most of his newcomers are juniors. The growth, he says, was from parents looking for physical activity for their children during the pandemic.
“We were hosting little meets and it was coming out in the newspaper and people were hearing about us and contacting me and through word of mouth from the team,” he said.
“One week I had six emails from different parents who wanted their son or daughter to come out and try it. They’d come out and try it for a couple of weeks and we never had anyone say no after they tried it.”
Sutherland said he started coaching in 2012 mostly as a form of mental therapy when injuries forced him to give up his competitive career.
He coached at his alma mater, Fleming College, and started working with a few high school athletes. In ’16, he started the Lightning, which recently was registered as a non-profit charity.
“It started with six or seven athletes who were all high school age,” he said. “I decided to give these kids more of my time.”
His ambition is to provide them with opportunities he never had.
“I was a good athlete but I
think I could have been a lot better,” he said.
“I was never able to get the opportunities I needed because I didn’t have a coach who sent me to a provincial or national race.”
His goal is to keep the sport affordable for his athletes, many who come from modest financial means, so he’s scraped together sponsors and donations to help send them to meets.
He’s had athletes compete in the Ontario Summer Games, indoor and outdoor provincial and national track and field and cross country championships.
Now he’d like to find sponsors and partner with the school
board to purchase laser timing equipment. It would allow the club and school board to host major track meets. The cost is $25,000, Sutherland said.
He’s offering gold ($500-plus), silver ($250-plus) and bronze (under $250) sponsorships to help with both timing equipment and athlete costs.
“Our team fees are low but I’m never going to turn an athlete away who needs the help,” Sutherland said.
Anyone interested in sponsoring can email Darl_Sutherland @hotmail.com. Please visit kawarthalakeslightning.com for more information.