Welcome to the New Running Blog from Momentum Sports.

We'll be post our thoughts about everything running here, with news, tips, and general musings over the coming months and years.

Whether you are a sprinter, a marathon runner, or somewhere in between - or even just a fan of the sport, we aim to keep you entertained and informed.  Part of that is for you to let us know what you are thinking about the posting we make - if it is great, we'd like to know, equally if there is something you don't like, we are quite thick skinned and can take constructive criticism.

Enjoy the blog and, of course, your running.

 

It's here - it hot outside and the track season is on.

The first hot weekend of the year saw track leagues up and down the country taking place and the British University Championships as well.  There were some top level performances at the BUSA Champs this year, with a lot of athletes kicking off their seasons in fine style - if it hadn't been for a pretty constant headwind in the home straight some of the sprint times would have been sensational.

As a coach I am always quite nervous before the first races of the year, to know how everyone is going to do - having worked hard for the long dark evenings of winter.

Fortunately, so far so good - there were a whole host of Pbs at the weekend and now I'm excited about what is going to happen next.  It is the county champs this weekend - so bring it on!

 

Here is an article written by Lois Kerrison - one of the athletes we help to coach, about her big Challenge. It is called Challenge 40 and is all about raising money for charity through doing a tough challenge - 40 Half or Full Marathons by the time she is 40. Read the full article to find out more - it is worth a look.   more »

Well, it has finally got a bit warmer (I wish this global warming would get a bit of a shufty on!) and we can at last think about the track season, which has been going to some extend for about a month.

The league match season gets going about this time of year, so frantic team managers will be phoning around their athletes trying to get them out and maybe to take on just that one extra event for the team!  A couple of years back yours truly ended up doing 38 events in 5 matches we were so short at my club - hammer and shot not being my particularly specialities (in fact there was a danger of them dropping on my foot as opposed to the grass....).

Elite athletes are either away warm weather training or have just got back, having sampled the delights of running in warm (or hot) conditions and are hoping the recent warm weather holds so they don't have to step their training back to allow for that.

The BUSA Championships are next weekend as the universities roll into gear to get their top athletes out, in excess of a thousand athletes will descend on Bedford to take part in this event.

Then the second weekend of May is one of the traditional highlights of the season - the County Championships.  All 50odd counties in the country hold their championships on the same weekend with thousands of enthausiastic athletes taking part in them, some counties being extremely strong and other where one person will go home with half a dozen gold medals due to the weaker fields.

So, athletes, coaches, team managers, officials, parents and all the others involved in the sport get out your summer clothes and sun-tan lotion and get ready for a great summer.

As Momentum Sports had 12 athletes running in this years marathon, I thought I would go up and watch.  I took advice of where to go, how to get there, how to spot people and just how much fun it was all going to be.

I left REALLY early and drove up to just south of the river and grabbed the first parking space I found (only to later see at least 100 spaces in various places nearer my destination - doh!).  It was about 3 miles to where I'd agreed to meet some other spectators so off I set at a jog - in all my warmest gear - in the sun!  You guessed it, I started to feel very hot (I'm sure most people wouldn't be dumb enough to run in t-shirt, two sweatshirts, a waterproof top and ski trousers!).  At one point I thought I wouldn't make it and the "Wall" was truly being hit - and then Tower Bridge and a sea of humanity hoved into view.

At this point the London Marathon came alive - I just missed the Elite Women going past, but even those just behind got a huge roar, which must be fantastic as a competitor.  There were banners, flags, whistle and so so many people.  It was great.

I went over the bridge and and turned right along the only part of the course where you can see runners going both ways.  Thousands of people lined the route, but eventually I met my friends and got a good vantage point and watched the top guys go out and back and the top women going back past the 22 mile point.  They are shifting! - and for over 2 hours!!!!!!

And then the mass of humanity started flowing past and just kept flowing.  Picking out the athletes I've been helping was impossible (I saw one of the 12!), but it was still great - even a couple of heavy cloud bursts didn't dampen the spirits.

So - a great day out and one to be thoroughly recommended to all - I had no idea who had won (you need a TV for that), but it was a very different experience to the goggle box and one everyone should try at least one (even if you are not running!)

I am feeling pretty sorry for myself at the moment.  Having been in quite good shape (for an aged fella) a few weeks ago, I have had a minor hamstring tear and now my achilles is sore.

Hummmmphhh

I'm trying not to sulk by keeping myself busy and treating my achilles like the guest of honour at a pampering festival - and it is working - but Oh - so slowly.

Am going to try running a half mile tonight at about 6.30 min/mile pace, so tomorrow I'll either be in a great mood - or stomping off to part with some cash at the physios - and being a total nightmare to live with!

Roll on tomorrow.....

 

Just one week to go to the London marathon now and hopefully all of your training is done and dusted.

You are fit and strong and ready for what is going to be thrown at you on the day.  You have nearly finished tapering off your training now and it might be that you are thinking maybe just do a few more runs as you can't believe you don't need just a few more miles under your belt.

Avoid the temptation - a couple of light runs this week is all that you need.  This isn't much you can do now to change what will happen on the day.  Stuffing a few extra sessions in last minute is worse that cramming for exams - and that never did much good - trust me I tried!  All you can do is leave yourself tired for the big day and do you really want that to catch up with you 20-odd miles into the race.

I have heard of people who rent piles or dvds or have decide to start writing a book just to stop themselves doing the training they know isn't going to help in the last few days.

What lengths have you gone to to avoid overtraining the week of a race?

Good luck to one and all who are running, may you get the times that you want, raise plenty of money for charity and have lots of fun.

Whilst surfing the internet I came across Richard Irvine-Brown who is a BBC journalist.

He is running the marathon this year in London and has been blogging his progress on the BBC website.

It is quite interesting stuff.  He has been doing it as an experiment - trying out different kinds of training on different weeks, with varying degrees of success.

One week he devoted entirely to fartlek training (including taking advice from Momentum Sports in the article), but because he did it every day he found his legs were in pieces by the end.

Have a look, it makes an interesting read.  The page about him is below - go to the bottom for his list of articles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/U7774651

 

It is really tough being a runner.  If you want to perform at your best you need to eat and drink properly, avoid excess alcohol (some would say this is none) and get plenty of sleep.

Obviously, the rewards outweigh the negatives, but how do you know you are going to get it right.

Hopefully, here at Momentum Sports we can help you out a bit.  We are working on a large Sports Nutrition section on the site (at www.momentumsports.co.uk/TtSportsNutrition.asp) which will help you see the proverbial wood from the trees.

This is quite a big subject, there is a lot there already, but we'll be adding to it in the forthcoming weeks as well.

If there is a subject that we have missed, which you feel you'd like to know about please let us know.

So - now he is off to play rugby league for Castleford - or at least he has a trial to play for them.

He held a press conference this morning and seems to be quite excited about the new opportunity he has to make some money with his undoubtedly natural speed (which was for a while enhanced illegally). 

His tone at the conference did suggest that given the opportunity to run at the Olympics he'd grab it and ignore rugby league completely - which is understandable as this was the sport he has chosen to take part in since he was a youngster and the Olympics has been his goal for at least 15 years.

I can't help feeling that he isn't going to be given the opportunity to run though - he has said to much and offended too many - on top of his actually taking the drugs in the first place.

I'm sure the saga will continue, would love to hear what other people think.

Just 2 weeks to go now.

People should be well into their taper and thinking about the big day.

What food should you eat in the last week?  How much should I drink on the way round?  How will I ever make it to the end?

All questions to be thought about between now and crossing the finishing line - we'd love to hear your thoughts on the race.

There were some great performances at the World Indoor Championships and none of the better than the enormous 17.75m leap of Phillips Idowu in the triple jump to claim gold with the 5th longest indoor jump of all time.

This was fantastic.

To be backed up by 4 silver medals in a global championship by Britain is equally a great performance from the team.  Kelly Sotherton, Dwain Chambers, Jeanette Kwakye and Chris Tomlinson all got silver medals in their events. 

For me Jeanette Kwakye, coached by Michael Afilaka, was the star of the track for Britain, with a new British 60m record, eclipsing Bev Kinch's 20 year old record.  Well done Jeanette.

Much of the talk has been about Dwain Chambers, and for all the wrong reasons - so I guess we should talk about it here.  First of all, on a positive note, it was a great competitive performance to break you PB, under all that pressure in the final of a World Championships.  Mentally, he has been very strong and seems to have been able to use all the adversity to his benefit to motivate him over the last month or two.  He should be congratulated for this.

Next, the drug issue.

He took drugs - and no-one can condone that.

However, he has served the penalty stipulated for doing so and, I believe, should be given a chance to make amends and be a positive contributor to the world of athletics, as despite his obvious flaws, talents like his don't come along very often.  In my view, (and that of former UK Members Council's vice president, Mike Winch), he should have been brought into the fold to tell youngsters about the mistakes that can be made in the sport - oh, and tested VERY VERY regularly!

If the sport wishes to have stronger rules against those who cheat, then great - 4 years sounds good to me - but everyone deserves a second chance.

In my opinion, he would have been welcomed back a second time, as he was before, if he hadn't done an interview with Inside Sport and stated that to be Olympic Champion you need to take drugs.  Instantly he created hundreds of enemies, many of whom work in the media that he is now trying to woo, by implying that they are all drugs cheats as well (not a smart move!). 

In the long-term if this serves as a wake up call to the sport and drugs are taken even more seriously than before, then this is great - but the safeguards need to be even stronger that individual errors are not made in testing and innocent athletes punished, especially if the penalties become more draconian.

Here is to the athletics and not the drugs making the headlines over the coming months!!!! (I may be a little optomistic to hope this!).

A lot has been said about these Championships in Valencia, not everything for the right reasons, and now it is time for the action to start.

Dwain Chambers is bound to be a huge story, particularly in the British press, but there are a number of other athletes that have been performing well and can bring back medals.  Kelly Sotherton is an obvious candidate and will flourish more than normal in the absence of Carolina Kluft.  The womens middle distances will be strong - headed up by Jenny Meadows and Jemma Simpson in the 800 and 1500 respectively.

On the mens side Richard Buck has been improving race on race and will be at least eyeing a place in the final and in the field Phillips Idowu will hope to show that the Picketts Lock training facility has continued to help him improve his consistency on top of his undoubted talent.

Watch this space....

So, the count down is well and truly under way.  By now you should have done much of your training and be up to near you peak mileage.  You'll have done one or two very long runs, and maybe have another one or two planned (although some will already be starting their taper).

So - how many long runs should you do, how fast should you do them and when.  These are some of the toughest questions you'll have to ask yourself as you prepare for the race, and like much in life it is down to individual taste to an extend.  Certainly, the consensus is that you should do these run slowly, saving your faster "tempo" runs for shorter runs during the week.  This does leave some nervous about how they'll manage the distance on the day having not run fast in training.  There are two things you can do to combat this - firstly, do a race or two over 15-20 miles to practice not only the pace, but also the feeling of running a race, the preparation and the crowds etc.  Secondly, trust in the experience of millions of others that doing fast long runs weekly (as many would like) will leave you too tired to rack up the overall mileage you'll need to run well.

We'd suggest two races in the period from 8 to 4 week before the race.  Remember, you'll need a couple of easy days training after each to recover properly.  For your long runs you should make the peak distance occur just before your taper starts - this is one of those things that are down to taste - some start 6 week before, others just 2, a sensible mid-point would be 3-4 weeks.

After that you'll come  to your taper - we'll come back to that soon.

Enjoy your running.

These are some of my favourite running quotes. 

It is great to hear what the good and the great of our sport (oh and Victoria Wood) think about the sport.

I've always felt that long, slow distance produces long, slow runners. Sebastian Coe

We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves. The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable." Roger Bannister

If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didn’t run hard enough Steve Jones

Jogging is for people who aren't intelligent enough to watch television. Victoria Wood

Check out more Running Quotes on the main website