Monday saw my second coaching session at Kingsway track, I had not managed to scare off all the previous weeks athletes! I set the session to follow on from the 10 x 400m last week, with a 4 x 800m effort.
My Run in England (RIE) group was down in numbers and they joined RIE leader of the year Amanda Thirsk for the second week in a row. This week they were doing speed work and the stories of tired legs haunted me at the Royton Road Runners (RRR) AGM on Friday (more on the AGM later).
My athletes that I coach did well in the track session, Colin showing yet again that his running style is very good and even paced (Clearly the fastest runner in the group). John is doing much better than expected, his multiple injuries from an accident 6 months ago (Not his fault, idiots on a motorbike crashed into him) are starting to ease allowing him to get back into training properly.
On Tuesday I had no time to get to the track for my interval session so I used the training feature on my Garmin 405 watch for the first time. It works a treat allowing to you program a warm up in either time or distance, Interval distance/time, number of reps and finally a cool down. It really is cool and is the next best option to having a coach (Though won't be out of coaching work as a result, me thinks). One downside to interval training is finding flat bit of pavement to use, to which my choice of "Broadway" and its smog filled traffic jams... not good when your lungs are craving oxygen.
Wednesday saw my inaugural carbon free commute to work... and back. I have run home from work (just 7.1 on the road, 8 using the canal tow path route) plenty of times but now I have a locker at work and the shower is not great but works! So Wednesday's are now a double run day... super fun!
Thursday I had just one runner to coach from the RIE group so after the session I had quick sprint home to get the legs ready for Saturdays parkrun.
Friday was the AGM for Royton Road Runners and the evening had the usual features, opening speeches, committee swearing in, finances (given by Ray Shaw who stood down after many years fabulous service) and then onto club matters. I was invited to give an update on my coach training progress which I duly did and regained my seat! Not long after I offered to look into the issue of group leaders, which Eileen raised at the AOB section. There have been rumbles about how groups have lost leaders and of particular interest to me is that base group is in danger of having no permanent leader, my RIE group is training to join the base group so It certainly needs addressing. Following the meeting most of the team taking part in the Pennine Bridleway race had a meeting, which I had to dragged away from giving marathon advice to Anne! The meeting was much needed to finalise the plan and Des Thorpe is doing a sterling job as team manager.
So Saturday was set to be the first test of my legs as my marathon training begins in earnest. I wanted a PB on the Heaton parkrun which has been 19:27 then a few months later 19:26 and then 19:25 a month or so ago. My target was 19:00 which although ambitious, my last effort of 19:25 was not pushing it hard and my training has been progressing well. So as I overtook Graham Chesters (who to be fair has been putting severe miles in recently) around the lake, I kept pushing to the end of the course. Crossing the line the encouragement from Rick and Clare who were doing the timing as usual was great. Stopping my watch and seeing 19:00:26 was a great surprise, followed by a sensation to gag from the huge effort on lungs on a cold winter morning.
This busy week was rounded off with and endurance coach conference in Cumbria, Colin attended (even being good enough to drive us) and as he is a physio (www.physio-matters.org) the afternoons Strength and Conditioning demonstrations by Ruidi Farquharson was of great interest. The mornings session was led by David Lowes who gave a great insight into the training requirements for athletes as winter changes to summer.
His vast experience as a top athlete and as coaching editor at Athletics Weekly (The UK's weekly bible for athletics) was great to listen to.
Once home I went out for a quick 2.8 mile dash and I was surprised how fresh my legs felt, but my tea was going out so had to keep the session short..... well man needs to eat don't he!
Next week is going to be focused on the Pennine Bridleway relay race which the GPS puts my leg at 9.6 miles but is actually 10.5 (the big hill skews the data on the watch) My key race of the winter is the Dewsbury 10K the week after so I hope the legs keep good!!!
Catch you later
Mark
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