There is usually a moment at an Accelerate clinic when the noise gives it away.
Someone is racing a friend. Another group is trying something they have never done before. There is laughter from one end of the track and, somewhere else, a young athlete has suddenly discovered that changing one small thing can make running feel very different.
It looks like fun.
It is supposed to.
But underneath it sits something much more deliberate.
FAST Running has been delivering school holiday clinics since April 2024. What began as an opportunity to give young athletes a different experience during the holidays has developed into Accelerate — Canberra’s dedicated school holiday clinic focused on speed, agility and better movement.
Our July 2026 clinic was another chapter in that story.
Built Around Running Fast
Children run everywhere.
They run in athletics. They run towards the football. They chase an opponent in rugby. They lead for the ball in AFL. They accelerate onto a pass in netball, close space in hockey and sprint between wickets in cricket.
Yet simply asking a young athlete to run faster doesn’t necessarily teach them how to do it.
That is where Accelerate is different.
The clinic introduces young athletes to some of the movement qualities that underpin speed: how they react, accelerate, coordinate their bodies, apply force, control their limbs and ultimately move quickly.
In July, our athletes experienced a carefully constructed progression incorporating movement, reaction, sprint development, acceleration, jumping and a variety of challenges designed to make them think, move and compete.
We won’t give away all our secrets.
But nothing is included simply because it looks impressive on Instagram.
There is a reason behind what we do.
Serious Coaching Doesn’t Have to Feel Serious
One of the principles behind Accelerate from the beginning has been that good coaching and enjoyment aren’t opposites.
Young athletes learn when they are engaged.
So throughout a clinic, technical development can sit alongside games. Competition can sit alongside instruction. An athlete might be concentrating intensely on a new movement one minute and racing a teammate the next.
Sometimes they don’t even realise how much learning is taking place.
That balance matters to us.
Accelerate isn’t designed to turn a school holiday into another high-pressure training environment. Nor is it simply supervised activity with a few running races added.
We want young athletes to leave having learned something, experienced something and enjoyed themselves enough to want to come back.
July Was Important for Another Reason
There was something slightly different about our July clinic.
FAST Head Performance Coach Steve Dodt wasn’t there.
And that was a good thing.
Not because he needed a holiday — although he might argue otherwise — but because it demonstrated how much FAST has developed.
The clinic was planned within our established Accelerate framework and delivered by the FAST coaching team.
That matters.
Over the past several years we have invested not only in developing athletes, but in developing coaches and creating a shared coaching language across FAST.
A strong sporting program should be bigger than one person.
The July clinic showed that Accelerate has become exactly that.
Our coaches could take the principles on which the program was built, bring their own personalities and coaching strengths to the day, and deliver the experience our young athletes have come to expect.
For the athletes, Accelerate continued.
For us, that was an important measure of progress.
From School Holidays to the Centre of Running Excellence
Accelerate also sits within something much larger.
FAST now works with athletes across different ages, events, sports and stages of development. Some are learning the fundamentals of running. Others compete at school level. Some represent the ACT. Others compete nationally and internationally.
The environments are different, but the underlying question remains remarkably similar:
How can we help this athlete move better and run faster?
Our answers aren’t based simply on what happens to be fashionable in speed training.
FAST Performance continues to measure athletes, analyse competition and training performances, study athlete development and refine how we coach.
That work increasingly sits under our Centre of Running Excellence.
Accelerate gives younger athletes access to that environment.
It doesn’t mean treating a nine-year-old like an elite sprinter. Quite the opposite.
Good development means meeting an athlete where they are.
For a young athlete at Accelerate, that can mean learning through movement, games, challenges and competition. As athletes develop, the coaching develops with them.
Backed by What Happens Next
Since the first clinic in April 2024, we have watched Accelerate athletes return to their schools, athletics clubs and other sports.
Some have subsequently produced significant improvements in competition. Some have progressed into regular FAST programs. Some have represented their region or the ACT.
Others simply leave running a little better and understanding their body a little more than when they arrived.
All of those outcomes matter.
We are careful about claiming that one clinic creates a particular competition result. Athlete development doesn’t work like that.
But after more than two years of delivering Accelerate, we have something more valuable than a promise.
We have a body of work.
We have athletes who have returned clinic after clinic. We have families who have trusted us with their children. We have coaches who have developed alongside the program. And we have years of FAST athlete performances helping inform the way we think about speed and development.
That is what we mean when we say our coaching is backed by results.
The Next Accelerate
The July clinic is finished.
The photographs capture a few hours of running, jumping, racing, learning and plenty of smiling.
But Accelerate keeps evolving.
Future clinics will introduce new athletes to FAST, challenge returning athletes in different ways and continue giving young people an opportunity that remains unusual in Canberra: a school holiday clinic dedicated specifically to developing speed and agility.
We know children arrive for different reasons.
Some already love athletics.
Some want to become quicker for another sport.
Some have been told they are fast and want to discover just how fast they might become.
And some simply want to have a go.
They are all welcome.
Because before the times, rankings, medals and representative teams, there is something much simpler.
There is a young athlete discovering what their body can do.
That’s a pretty good place for Running Excellence to begin.
Accelerate by FAST Running.
The Centre of Running Excellence.
Running Excellence grows. 🖤❤️
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