Week 5, What are we training for?

What a week it’s been! Of course the pandemic that is Covid-19 has taken over all new stories and the associated Deaths are of a major concern.  Obviously I am no position to offer any political or profound thoughts on that! The world of sport has and still taking a huge knock from this globally, I’ve posted about cancelled events in general and now in the past week the cancellation of Masters Athletics events everywhere, European Championships and the USA Masters Champs have all been cancelled in fear of the effects of this disease being passed.  I woke up this morning to hear that the NCAA has cancelled their athletics/sports programmes for the remaining year leaving so many athletes in limbo especially those on scholarships dependent on those results to secure another years support.

So of course this brings me to my concerns at present, on a personal note Will the WMA Championships in Toronto end of July be cancelled? Should I even take that risk? So what happens if all is cancelled, I expect there to still be localised regional meets (fingers crossed) so…… I’m splitting my targets into 2

  • WMA M35 400m Championships
  • All time PB over 400m (48.6)

I’d take either one of those at this point in my life lol

I wasn’t able to really run last year due to a back Injury sustained in the gym, my 400m time in the final of the 2018 championships was 49.37 (6th race in 7 days). Let’s bring it!

 

Second concern and one that bothers me more is the possible cancellation of summer track events for my Athletes, at varying levels they all have targets, regional championships, national championships and International either the Olympics and the European championships late summer.

Track and Field is a hard sport for retention as it is, we train for 8 maybe 9 months with our competition sometimes, in the hope and target of those events, keeping athletes motivated and even involved is difficult when our competitions are so far away and now of course may even not go ahead at all.

We can take the Olympics and the European championships as examples, of course not all my athletes have these targets/dreams (but let’s even consider the other athletes with other coaches with the same dreams for this year) It’s all they think about, sacrifice for day in and day out, pushing themselves to the brink of physiological and Psychological collapse (#StressIt2AdaptIt) During a periodisation with a limited target and window.  To have that amended can cause so many knock on effects, funding opportunities, Sponsorship’s, winnings etc.  i.e. in the UK the lottery funding for the 2020 calendar is short and will be re-evaluated in November this year, but with the possibility of so few events how will they decide who stays on the programme and who is added or removed.

Amending/delaying/cancelling any events needs to be decided now to that athletes and us Coaches can re-evaluate the training programme to give our athletes the best opportunities we can to be successful.

End of an old but no so old, young but no so young man’s rant!

The week of training that was!

This week was slight down week, removal/reduction of gym work.

  • Sunday, Track +Gym, – This was a replication of last week, as I continue to develop my acceleration capabilities, 8x20m Sleds with half bodyweight, this session was a potentiation session and so was performed as 4×2+1 (2x20m Sled + 1x20m Stick Acceleration)
  • In the gym, again fairly simple. Hank Cleans 5×2 80kg *sets 3-5 with 85kg), Olympic Deadlift 3×5 (130 / 140 / 150)
  • Monday, Gym, – This was a Postural Strength session, involves a lot of standing core strength work with bands (in the vain of Pallof press esque) with some dynamic core and wall hit exercises, finished with some good old six pack work.
  • Tuesday, Track – 2x4x70m Bend runs, competitive.  Oh wow this was hard, running fast (for me) around a bend repeatedly is difficult, but then again, Half of my races are ran around a bend! So work must be put in to adapt to that different required running kinetics and kinematics
  • Wednesday, Off.
  • Thursday, Track – 3x Split 300m (150 1min 150) with 10 minutes between reps, this is a move now to more Specific Endurance but still using a Special split approach. 17.9-18.3 / 17.9-19.3 / 18.8-20.3
  • I was surprised in the linear drop off of the 2nd reps, how strange!?
  • Friday, Track – As always I post this ahead of the session but will update after, this is our Intensive Tempo session, this evening 2x3x300m 4min recover and 10 between sets. I will of course update shortly after completion aroun7pm my time, but big FYI…. I am knackered!! Lol

Update: ouch! A good session but wow tough!  41.4 / 41.1 / 41.4 – 42.0 / 45.3 / XX couldn’t do last rep, glutes crazy locked up from this session, hence the big drop off second set

 

So that was the week that was, we keep pushing and working to achieve our goals.

PS, I already know my rant for next week………. BOOKS!

 

Oops I almost forgot, this week’s weight, down to 77.9kg

Week 4 can be read here

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