Having not entered any races for a few years with serious top national level athletes, I thought I would dip my toe in the water again and see how I got on.  I have managed to get myself in the sort of shape that meant I felt I could justify a run out, even though at 36 I knew I would not progress very far.

So - I entered the Southern Counties Championships, traditionally the strongest of the area Champs in the UK and went along last weekend.

Most of the runners in the races had run a lot faster than me this year (or any recent year) and this was borne out by my lane draw right on the inside in lane one. 

It was great to be warming up with athletes who were focussed, determined and with considerable hurdling talent (none of these are the norm in my normal Southern League Div 3 races - many of which don't see any of the other athletes clear a hurdle until the race begins!).  The atmosphere was good and the conditions not at all bad either (although racing at 10.30am has never been my favourite).

As the oldest person there, I was fully expecting the entire field to run away from me and leave me toiling in lane 1, so I was very pleasantly surprised as I was ahead of a couple of people through 200 and even picked another one off in the final straight to finish 5th from 8 in the race.  It wasn't enough to progress to the semi-finals (the top 16 of 30 went through and I was 22nd), but it did drag me to my best time in 5 years of 58.67.

Now I'm excited to try to get into more races like this.....

Last weekend Usain Bolt blew the 100m at the Olympics wide open by both destroying Tyson Gay and the World Record at a Grand Prix meeting in New York.

Having a few weeks earlier run 9.76 in the Caribbean, he topped this with 9.72 to put down a marker as the fastest man in the world when all the attention previously was on the showdown between Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell.  There are now well and truly 3 men in the race for the greatest prize in athletics.

In these days when there is so much doubt over any fantastic performance that is produced by an athlete, I would be very surprised in Usain Bolt is taking drugs, purely based on what an awesome talent he has been from a very early age, so his prospects were always very bright - he ran 20.61 for 200m at 15!!

I hope these 3 all prove to be drug free and can reinstate the creditials of world class sprinting which have taken such a bashing in the press over the last few years.  It is going to be an exciting build up to the big one in Beijing.

 

It looks like Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay are going to go head to head just a couple of weeks before the Olympics at the London Grand Prix.  This is a big prize for the London organisers, and to be honest a bit of a surprise that they would put themselves on the line just a couple of weeks before the big meeting.

If we put aside some of the cynicism that has built up around the 100m sprinters in the last couple of years because of all the drug problems then this is a big clash along the lines of some of the great ones over the years (although Usain Bolt may have something to say about this at the Olympics).

The days of Coe and Ovett spring to mind, and it is great to see that the sprinters aren't ducking out of competing with each other as these two did in the 80s.  Having said that, it was always a great build up to the big races they did have with each other, as you were never quite sure how they were going to react when head to head in competition.

The other clash of the 80s was Jurgen Hingsen against Daley Thompson, a two day titanic struggle between two of the greatest ever exponents of the decathlon.

It all led me to thinking about the clashes, across the ages that I would have liked to have seen.  I'll come to that in the next installment, but it would be good to hear some of yours in the meantime.

 

Heel striking when you run is a common fault for a lot of athletes, particularly those who do longer distances.

It creates a lot of stress on the leg joints in both the ankle and knee and also tends to slow you down if you strike the ground significantly in front of your centre of gravity. 

Here is an idea for a new type of running shoe.  The concept is certainly good, but I think testing is required with significant number of athletes to ensure the problems it cures don't lead to other issues.

Could it be like many of those products that appeared on Tomorrows World, never to be heard of again, or is this truly the breakthrough that many runners have been looking for in their quest to run faster without pain or injury.   

Why not have a look at www.heelless.co.uk and see what you think.  It would be great to hear your comments on these shoes, it is always good to hear what Momentum Sports visitors think.

 

It has been clear for a long time that what we eat affects how we run.

Here at Momentum Sports we like to give athletes as much information as possible to help them perform at the highest level possible, so we have spent the last few months collating many pages of information about sports nutrition to give you a kick start to making sure that you are eating wisely to produce the best possible performances.

www.momentumsports.co.uk/TtSportsNutrition.asp with give you all the areas of sports nutrition that you might need, with, at the very least, a good starting point to finding out how to eat properly.

If there are any subjects you would like to know more about, please just let us know, by leaving a comment on this post.

My only record - the one and only single record that I know of, that I hold anywhere in the world has gone!!!!

After 13 years, someone has come along and beaten my Championship Best Performance for the Surrey 400m Hurdles.  I guess it was going to happen sometime, but now I'm going to go and get all superstitious seeing as someone has done it at the 13th attempt!

Well done Austin Ferns, on running 52.66 - 0.04 quicker than I got all those years ago.  At 36 I may be a touch old to get it back (and a touch decrepid), but it does give a good incentive to train even harder!

I am not bitter, honest.....

On a brighter note, two of the athletes I'm coaching won U17 gold medals - Tom Parry is currently number 4 in the UK at 100m hurdles and won the Surrey Championships comfortably in 13.8.  Richard Smeaton broke his one week old Pb and has now taken well over two seconds off this time of last year to clock 51.69 in winning the 400m.

Well done to them and all the others who produced the goods over the weekend, it was good to see.

So, what is next.  There are more competitions this weekend and the weekend after and then we turn our attention to the regional champs a few weeks hence, where there will be lots of competition for all the athletes.

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.