A day in the life of a Nordic Walking International Trainer

Today it is just 3 weeks until the start of a week-long series of Nordic Walking events in Lahti, Finland. All part of INWA’s (International Nordic Walking Federation) Annual Convention and World Cup.

INWA is run almost entirely by volunteers, drawn from its member countries from all around the world. Together with Natalia Palacios Samper from Spain, I am Head of INWA Education, and an International Trainer. Part of my role is to curate the educational content of the convention, two days of workshops and lectures exploring the science and practical application of Nordic Walking. As an International Trainer I will also be delivering the two-day National Trainer course in Lahti, where I will be joined by student teacher trainers from Poland, Korea and Japan, plus student Instructors from Canada and Croatia.

For 2024, we are launching a new Learning Management System, digitising the INWA manual and offering a modern interactive online learning portal to complement the live practical days. The team has been producing and uploading educational content and testing the new system. It has been a lot of work, but I am excited to share it with this year’s cohort of students.

So today, as well as working on Nordic Walk Store (finalising the social media plan for the next month with our socials manager), it is flat out finalising everything for my parts of the INWA event that runs from the 9-15 September.

The theme of this year’s convention is how Nordic Walking can help to tackle the growing challenge of Obesity and Diabetes. We have some amazing contributions from Finland, Spain, New Zealand, and the UK, to name a few.

Today, I’m prepping my lectures and practical technique workshops, including a session on using the INWA 10 set teaching method to deepen the workout. A bit of travel planning to be done, working out how I get the train from Turku to Lahti. Then our social media manager, Kelly Bennett pinged me a message and asked me to record a short piece to camera outlining the key parts of the convention! Quick change into my INWA t-shirt, camera out.

As the day winds down, the final task on the agenda is to submit the proposed education budget to the INWA board. Once that's done, it'll be time to take Max, the dog, out for a well-deserved walk! Although the ‘To Do’ list still seems a bit daunting, it will all be worth it when we gather in Finland this September. Being part of the INWA Nordic Walking family and reconnecting with friends, both old and new from across the globe, is truly something to look forward to.

Karen Ingram is joint Head of Education for INWA and an International Trainer. The INWA convention runs from the 11-12^th September in Lahti, Finland, followed by the INWA World Cup.