Track Training

This week’s blog is another one inspired by multi-world record breaker Lee Riley. Actually it’s a bit of a tenuous link but the fact is that over the last week I’ve been training with Lee at Cumberland Sports Ground in Crewe. I mentioned in last week’s blog that on Monday I paced Lee to a World Record equalling 5:35 (for running the mile with a 40lb pack, him not me). Following that attempt, for which I’m still awaiting Lee to publish the video so that I can share it with you, Lee asked me to train with him for a couple of week’s to help him crack his next attempt, which takes place on November 12 at Cumberland Sports Ground, at 09:00. The first session was on Thursday and my intention was to crack the 80 second barrier for 400m, so that Lee would find that comfortable on record day. We ran 5 reps, but not over 400m, I decided to try to break the mental challenge of those extra metres at the start of the mile race so we ran 5 x 409m. It was a tough session and Lee was battling all the way but knocked out 5 good ones, all under 80 seconds. My intention was to do 10 but it was clear that it was a tough ask so I switched the session to do a further 5 x 209m, which Lee completed in under 38, finishing with a 34. I should point out here that Lee was wearing his pack for all of these reps.

Despite having broken the world record over the half and full marathon distance, Lee always feels more comfortable at the shorter distances and it was then that he suggested we do a 100m race. Now anyone who knows me as a runner will know that I’m no sprinter, in fact with a best 100m of 13.1 seconds, set some 21 years ago I never was one. Admittedly I used to go on the ‘g’ of the bang instead of the ‘b’, but I’m also a slow twitch man, built for endurance not speed and power, so I wasn’t particularly keen to run a race over such a short distance. But I figured it was the least I could do, if it meant giving Lee a confidence boosting finale to the session and Lee did offer to keep his 40lb pack on. So we went for it. I managed to hold the lead for about 30m but then I had to give in as the formidable 220+lbs of Lee and pack came whooshing past me. Lee finished in 15 seconds, with me lagging behind in 16, not bad I suppose, considering I’m old enough to be his dad.

For today’s session I wanted to concentrate on running further at a slightly slower pace, the aim being to get Lee comfortable at 80-82 second laps. The aim was to run 4 x 809m with the pack, but knowing how difficult it is to run fast with the pack I would have been happy for 2 reps, and then we’d see how things were before we decided what else to do. We started well, Lee felt comfortable on the first rep, which we completed in 2:40. Lee struggled a little towards the last 300m of the next rep, completed in 2:45 (still on target pace) and then really struggled on the 3^rd one and had to sprint hard for a 2:49. All good stuff and I’m sure it’s help enormously on the day but I decided to call it a day for the pack at this point. Next I decided to do 809m without the pack but still try to cover it in 2:40-2:45, but Lee clearly hadn’t recovered and I stopped him at 409m as he ran 87 sec. Next it was a further 3 409m reps. By now Lee was recovering and smashed them out under 80, with the final one in 71 seconds. By now I was trailing behind Lee so we called it a day, coach’s prerogative.

The next session will be 1000m and 1200m with the pack and then we’ll decide if we should do 1400m.

Lee’s learning a lot over these sessions, there are some simple improvements we’ve made that I hope will make the difference on the day, namely to try to keep relaxed, don’t panic, stand tall and, most importantly, to run through the line. Lee’s managed to secure some pacing help, so hopefully that’ll also help. I’m sure the two pacers will feel great being involved in helping Lee to achieve his goal, plus they’ll be on TV. Having taken part in Lee’s record equalling attempt I already feel somewhat special, it’s just unfortunate I can’t actually make it on the day, but then I’d need to get my hair cut for the TV.

This week has been the first time I’ve set foot on a track since early in the summer, when I did a session with VRAC at Winsford. The track at Winsford is of the old style, cinder, and it was pretty rutted, which didn’t do my recovering knee problem any favours. However I decided I was going to continue training there, but I was going to join a younger group of 800/1500m men to try to put some speed back into my legs. As it turned out I suddenly took on regular clients during weekday nights so that put paid to that idea. Before that session it was almost a year since I had set foot on a track, at the European Masters T&F Champs. In fact, since I tore my hamstring at Wimbledon Park, trying a set of 200m reps (now Lee you can see my reluctance to do the 100m), in 2005, I probably haven’t done more than 20 sessions on a track.

It’s possible that not training on the track is detrimental to my speed, in the days when I was running my fastest times I trained on the track once a week and it certainly did my confidence no harm to know I could do some pretty good sessions. In those days I was running 1 mile reps in sub 4:50, 1k reps in sub 2:45 and 400m reps in the low 60s and it was that consistency of pace that gave me the confidence to run fast times in races. However, I’ve also run fast times after a prolonged time away from the track, I managed a 31:04 10k from training on a German forest trail but it was probably the self belief I already had from having run fast times in the past and my endurance fitness that helped.

In my early years I loved the track, I loved racing on the track and I loved training there, but as I’ve become older, and slower, I find it quite tedious. I really don’t like racing on the track anymore, probably because if you’re having a bad one you’re more exposed to the watching public, plus it’s much easier to see the opposition pull away. Training on the track I find it really hard to accept the times I’m running which are a lot slower than I used to run, it makes me feel talentless, which is why I choose to train away from the track. Having said all that I’ve really enjoyed training on the track with Lee, it probably helps that I was aiming at times that he needs to run for his world record attempt rather than the times I used to run.

In my opinion track training is a great confidence booster if you’re running well and it does have the tendency to make you run faster, but when you’re not running so well it can really sap your confidence. As running well is all about confidence (ok you need to be fit too) you should train in ways that continuously boost your confidence. And that’s justification enough for the way I train.

So good luck to Lee on 12 November, here’s to another World Record.

Just to finish off I should just point out that Ray smashed his 5k pb, by 34 seconds, at the parkrun in Norwich, on Saturday, running 21:32 and another of my clients, Matthew, began his Killer Mile training in earnest by covering the course in 16:49 – lots of improvement to come before race day but a good starting point. Incidentally, I would recommend the Killer Mile race to anyone who loves running and loves a challenge. Not only is it a great, tough race over a classic distance but it has the atmosphere of a major championship event.

Fitting Fitness Around your Life

Some might be more interested in fitting your life around your fitness and there is a valid point to that because we should all keep fit, no matter how busy our lives are. Then again when does a fit lifestyle become an obsession. I like to think I’m fairly balanced, but I know people who think I’m obsessed, probably because, when I’m training, I train hard and I generally train twice a day. Even Carole thought I was a bit obsessed in the early days of our relationship, until she saw me win a race and realised that you have to put in the work if you want success. And that’s true in any aspect of life, if you want success you have to put in a certain amount of work in order to achieve that, and it may well be that some people have to put in a lot more work to gain the same level of success as somebody putting in less work. That’s certainly true in my case, I know I’m not a natural sportsman and I’ve been tested to prove it, but despite that I’ve achieved success through hard work. Admittedly it’s been at a cost, I’ve given up heavy drinking, late nights, other sports and friends who no longer understand me.

But getting back to the real point of this blog, how do you fit exercise around busy lives? Of course everybody is different, some people have families, some very large families, some have demanding jobs with long hours, some people have to travel a lot, some people work unsociable hours and I’m sure there are many other scenarios that get in the way of keeping fit. But keeping fit is all about prioritising and planning your time and effort. The key question you have to ask yourself is do I really want to keep fit, and if the answer is yes then you can find the time. And in real terms you don’t actually have to find a great deal of time just to keep reasonably fit but it helps if you have an understanding with your family/work colleagues that you are going to do something and be explicit as to what is your time. Of course it’s not just about time, it’s about finding the energy too, which is why it’s important to enjoy your fitness regime rather than finding it a chore. Think about what you enjoy and do it well and long enough to retain that enjoyment.

There are various different ideas about how much time you need to spend each day in order to keep fit or how many days you need to work out, but this is always dependent on what level of fitness you want to achieve. It is possible to retain a good level of fitness with less than an hour’s activity a day. As an active athlete I’ve obviously spent a good deal of my time exercising but this has varied depending on what races I’m training for and what’s going on in my life at the time. Not having children has enabled me to be fairly single-minded about my training but being in a relationship can eat away at that single-mindedness. Work has never been a problem, I’ve always been able to broker an arrangement whereby my training fits around my work pattern and my flexibility enables me to train at any time of the day, or night, to fit in with that. But children don’t have to be an excuse for skipping exercise, when I talk to clients who have children I always advise them to spend time playing games with their children; running races, chasing frisbees, catching balls or just going for a cycle. It’s a fun and relaxing way to maintain fitness and also helps towards the development of your children. Plus you’ll have the added bonus that when they grow up they won’t be moaning about how their parents were always too busy to spend any time with them.

Work is a completely different matter, after all, if you don’t work, you don’t earn and then that messes up the everything else. I do understand the stresses that work puts on your life, I’ve worked in extremely stressful situations, I’ve worked in very reasonable places too, I’ve worked long shifts, I’ve worked nights, I’ve been an employee, contractor and self employed and I’ve worked away from home (on two occasions abroad). Plus I’ve also had to cope with London commuting, which can be pretty dire. Having said all that, although I may have missed the odd session due to work commitments, I have never allowed work to get too much in the way of my training. The key is to make it clear to your boss at the start of the relationship, I’m a runner and I train twice a day, if the facilities are available I’d like to use them at lunchtime. Of course work will always come first if there is something pressing but if not I’d appreciate being allowed the time to get out there and run. After all running clears the mind ready for the afternoon’s challenges. Obviously there have been days when I’ve known I would be too busy to take a lunch break so I’ve gone for a run before work. On most occasions I’ve had good bosses who have allowed me the flexibility of working in my run around work and this becomes a two way flexibility. On the odd occasions where this flexibility is not possible I’ve worked around it, when I first started working shifts in Edinburgh there was no way I could take a break during my 12 hour shift so I just worked solid for 12 hours, went home, did my run and then went to bed for a few hours before my next shift. It wasn’t ideal, in fact it was pretty tough but I got through it until things settled down and I was able to go running at some point during the shift, which was still pretty tough during the early hours of the morning. The point however is that it was important for me to train almost everyday, so I compromised in order to achieve my goal.

Being in a relationship can have it’s own issues. I’ve been exercising, properly, for 22 years and in that time I’ve had three serious relationships, each with a different level of understanding of exercise and what it means to me. When I first started running in 1989 I’d been in a relationship for almost 3 years, we’d been living together for 2, and in the early days nothing much changed, I was only training twice a week and that was local so we still spent a lot of time together and our weekends were always spent doing what she wanted to do. So there were no arguments, well none about my running anyway. But as time went on I started realising the benefits of training more and started spending time training at the weekends. By 1992 I was almost up to full training, I no longer enjoyed staying out until the early hours, particularly if I was going for a 10 miler on Sunday morning, I was spending most weekends training or racing and I was excited about the progress I was making. But I made a number of sacrifices to keep that relationship working, in particular, much to my regret at the time, I didn’t do the National 12 Stage because it fell on my partner’s birthday weekend. In 1992 I was asked to make my British League debut for Belgrave, in Edinburgh. For those who don’t know what that means, it’s like the athletics equivalent of being asked to play for a top 5 Premiership Football team, without the big cars, salary and chance to sleep with your best friend’s WAG. Who in their right mind would turn that down? Of course this meant spending the weekend away from the partner, which didn’t go down well and was probably the start of the rot. The rot really set in when Helen joined our training group and we hit it off immediately, I don’t think my partner appreciated my Friday night training sessions with Helen and eventually the relationship came to an end.

Oh well we move on and two weeks later I’d found my next partner. Helen was a runner which meant that training was much more acceptable to her, in fact she was a pretty good runner (36 min for 10k and would do a sub 3 hour marathon) and we often trained together. During our 12 years together I had some of my greatest success and I put this down to being comfortable in my training, i.e. having the full support of my partner. If I hadn’t had that support, particularly during two long periods of injury, I would probably have given up running a long time ago and certainly would never have had the time to devote to marathon training.

When that relationship came to an end all I was left with was my running (thank goodness I wasn’t injured). Ok I had my job but I’d made the mistake of acting on the rebound and took a job that wasn’t suitable for me, and it meant moving away from my friends. For a while I was able to concentrate on me and I achieved a fair amount of success in Scotland. I met Carole by chance in a coffee queue, working the shifts I did allowed no level of regularity so although I knew of Carole I’d never spoken to her before and I was generally too busy to go for coffee, it just so happened that on this one occasion I really needed a coffee at the same time as she needed a tea. I remember turning round in the queue and seeing her there, I made a comment (as one does to someone who is two levels higher up the hierarchy but you don’t appreciate that, how was I to know, I don’t do office politics) and we got chatting. Other than her clear intelligence, interesting conversation, enthusiasm and easy going nature it was probably the fact that she told me she’d just started running that interested me and, to cut a long story short, within a couple of months we were an item.

It probably helped that I was injured at the time we started our relationship, so it meant our first run together happened when we’d established the relationship a little, if I hadn’t been injured I’m not sure we’d have lasted a week. When we did go for our first run together it was an easy 6 mile route around the Braids, well it was easy for me, unfortunately I was used to running with female athletes who could race 10k in under 40 minutes. Thankfully, when the abuse and swearing did start, I was able to up the pace a little and get my ears out of range. We survived that little episode, and a few others, I don’t think Carole appreciated how dedicated I was with my training until she saw my success at races. That success helped her to appreciate my dedication and once we’d established what training we could and couldn’t do together things settled down.

However the point behind all that relationship twaddle is that you just need to communicate your needs with each other and there needs to be a comfortable compromise for both, or all, of you, if it’s not comfortable it’s not a compromise, it’s the start of the end. My current compromises are; I don’t generally do my long run at the weekends and sometimes I’ll skip the run completely in favour of a walk in the hills, If I’m not 100% fit I generally enter races for the benefit of Carole (although I do sometimes benefit too), I reduce my training load on holidays, but not specific warm weather training weeks, Carole gets free PT sessions whenever she wants. You don’t need to train all hours to keep fit but if you have a specific goal in mind get your partner’s buy-in, get them involved too, they may enjoy it.

This last week has been pretty tough training wise, everybody around me seemed to have a cold and I was conscious that it was only a matter of time until I got it. I don’t think I’ve got all the symptoms but there are things telling me that I’m not 100%, the back of my head aches, I’m getting aches in muscles that don’t normally ache, the nose runs on occasions and I’m finding my breathing a bit laboured. Still I managed another hard training week last week and finished the last session with Rich with a flourish, as intended it was the hardest of the 4 sessions and I believe it has set him up to go forward. There is a difference in telling people how to train and actively showing them and I know both Rich and Ray have benefited from running with me. On Saturday Ray and I went along to Pennington Flash for another parkrun. I’m not entirely sure why we decided to go but there was no reason not too. It was a cool and breezy morning but on the start line there was no hint of the strong winds that were awaiting us over the hill. We set off, I’d decided on a steady start this time but I was surprised to hear the patter of feet as someone decided to sit on me. After about 300m I upped the pace a little, then attacked the first hill, still I could hear footsteps with me. Perhaps, I thought, I’d met my match, again. Going downhill we hit the full force of the wind, no problem I train in this all the time, down the Northwich bypass, so I pushed on. Up the next hill there is a tight turn and I decided to take a peek to see who had come with me, unfortunately I didn’t have my glasses on and he’d dropped back somewhat by then so I couldn’t quite see. Surprisingly, going back along the top bit I had the wind in my face again, boy this was a tough one. I’m still having trouble on the grass downhill, I think it’s the uneven surface and the tight turn, Jeff Whittington took a photo of me, published here, and you can see by the lack of grace, how much difficulty I’m having slowing down for the tight turn.

not the most attractive runner at Pennington Flash, and I forgot to wash my hair

Despite hitting the wind twice on each of the 3 laps I kept pushing on and surprised myself with one of my fastest times around the course, it’s such a tough course mentally and physically I’m always thinking I’m going to run slower than 18 minutes but so far I’ve managed to keep the right side of that, 2 minutes and 17 seconds later came the 2^nd placed runner, I’m not sure if he was the one who went with me for the first 500m. There’s a fine line between ambition and over-cooking it but if you don’t try you’ll never succeed, I used to do the same thing when I started and failed on numerous occasions, but eventually I started to win and never looked back, so whoever he was, expect to see him beating me at some time in the future (maybe!).

On Sunday, I compromised, Carole and I went for a long walk in the peak district, in fact we found a really nice one to do so will be taking others on that one. Sadly, before we set off I was watching sport, while eating my breakfast. It was a big day with the final of the Rugby World Cup, but I plumped to video that and watch the Moto GP. It looked like being a good race as so many riders were packed closely together, there was a good tussle taking place between Bautista and Simoncelli, and then all of a sudden it was over, Simoncelli veered into the path of Edwards and Rossi and the next shot showed him lying there without his helmet. That’s when you know it’s bad and a little later Simoncelli succumbed to his injuries. It was a sad day, I’ve been excited by Simoncelli’s riding style, true he’s had a few accidents when he’s over-cooked it but then so did Stoner when he first started and look at what he’s achieved. I feel he was sure to progress but unfortunately it was not his destiny. On a more positive note, it was great to see the All Blacks winning the Rugby and what an exciting match.  

Yesterday, Monday, I ran with Lee Riley. It was an attempt at pace judgement before Lee’s attempt at the Mile World Record on 12 November. However, Lee wasn’t taking any chances, he’d got cameras, video, measuring equipment, various scales and 3 timekeepers. We’d agreed on attempting 5:20, the current record stands at 5:35, but the winds were strong, stronger than at Pennington Flash. Still success is always sweeter when it’s hard fought and we stuck to plan. I was pacing Lee with the hope that I’d also act as a windshield, but I’m not that chunky so I’m not sure how effective a windshield I was. I was checking times every 100m and we were right on target all the way around the first, elongated, lap, 200m into the second lap and we’d slipped a little but still well inside 5:35 pace. Coming onto the home straight we got caught by a big gust of wind and we had to dig deep, it cost us 2 seconds on that 100m. We were slipping but still on target. With 400m to go we were still on target but couldn’t afford to give away any more, I encouraged Lee to pick up the pace slightly and he did, down the back straight he was suffering and I had to back off to try to pick him up again, into the last 100m and I tried to get Lee to sprint for it. I expected Lee to fly past me but he was really hurting, he mustered everything he had and crossed the line, collapsing soon after. All 3 watches confirmed the same time, he hadn’t broken the World Record, but he had equalled it, 5:35. This was 4 seconds quicker than Lee’s previous attempt, so hopefully, without the wind, he should soar under 5:35 on 12^th November. I’ll try to get a link to the video, if you’re interested.     

Finally I’d like to wish good luck to a friend of mine, Dave Gough, who tackles the Snowdon marathon this weekend. As you know I’m not the sort of person to run marathons but it was inevitable I’d do one at one stage in my running life. I was undecided as to go for a time in London or do one of the uphill marathons, taking a more fun related approach. Snowdon was always an option until I decided it was more important for me to set down a decent time, so I plumped for London. But I wonder, if I ever got tempted back into marathon running, would it be London or Snowdon next time. We’ll probably never know, now if they were to do a marathon around Pennington Flash…..

English National 6 Stage

This weekend was English National 6 Stage Road Relay weekend. Anyone who is a regular reader of my blogs will know that I’m a lover of road and cross country relays. Over the years I’ve taken part in many, being part of a successful team on numerous occasions, as well as some unsuccessful ones, and I see them as the ultimate team event. I have many happy memories from the local, county, regional and national relays, however there is one relay that I, unfortunately, have nothing good to say, with regards to my participation in, and that is the English National 6 Stage Road Relay. It’s not that there is anything wrong with that particular relay, in fact it can be a very exciting relay to watch, possibly more so than the 12 stage as it’s less than half of the time to watch and generally a lot closer finish than the 12 stage. It’s just that this is one of the relays that I haven’t had much opportunity to run and on the one occasion I did run I produced my worst ever run.

When I was running my best times there didn’t seem to be much interest at Belgrave for National Road Relays, or even Southern Road Relays, though I was always keen. Following success at the Southern 12 Stage in 1990 interest from the top Belgrave runners seemed to wane and we moved down the positions, still holding onto a top ten spot but nevertheless failing to challenge for the medals. Then when the event moved to Thurrock we failed to deliver any decent results and in 1995 we finished as low as 31st, Belgrave’s worst ever position in the event (I shall not remain blameless in that result, I chose to attend my cousin’s wedding in Derby rather than sample the delights of running though the estates of Thurrock, but it was the only Southern 12 Stage I missed between 1993 and 2004). Thankfully in 1999 the event was moved to Milton Keynes and Belgrave struck silver again, finishing 2^nd in the event and starting the upwards mobility of the team which would eventually turn into National gold.

As for the Southern 6 Stage, somehow I managed to find myself in the Belgrave ‘A’ team in 1991. This was two years before I started running well but somehow we managed to turn in a decent performance to finish 17^th. Despite this, decent result, it was to be 5 years before we entered a team for that relay again, on this occasion I was the fastest man in the Belgrave ‘A’ team and was still in the team when we eventually won the championship in 2002.

Throughout this period Belgrave, though generally qualifying, didn’t always enter teams for the National 12 Stage, though thankfully I did get my chances to compete on the National Stage and even led the race for most of my stage in 1994. It was 2001 when I next led the race, on our way to losing to Tipton by 6 seconds, after more than 4 hours of racing. But it was the 6 Stage that disappointed, we never seemed to enter a team, how could it be that we could get 12 men to the line in April but not even get 6 in October. So throughout my best years I was unable to compete in this event. In fact it wasn’t until 1999 that Belgrave eventually entered a team at the event and actually finished a creditable 4^th, behind Cardiff. I was travelling reserve on this occasion and my mate, Alaster Stewart, was running for Redhill.

I was never to go up to the 6 stage again with Belgrave, I was probably good enough to make the team in 2000, when they finished 6^th, but, unfortunately, I chose to get married and was touring Australia on honeymoon at the time of the event. After that, the influx of young talented runners meant that I started to drift down the team list as Belgrave went on to win the event 5 years in a row from 2001-2005 and again in 2007 and 2008. I did finally get my chance to run the race in 2010, at age 45. I’d been having a good year but had lost some early season form with a knee problem in August. Still I’d been selected for the England squad in the forthcoming International Cross Country race and I wanted to prove I was back on track so was looking for a race around this time. Luckily for me there was a place going in the Herne Hill team and I took it, unfortunately for me I came down with one of those 24 hour bugs. I woke up ill and spent a good deal of time in the bathroom before we set off. I wasn’t feeling great but thought I couldn’t get any worse and started my rehydration plan. On arrival at Sutton Park I headed straight for the loos and probably spent the majority of the afternoon there, in fact I was still in there 10 minutes after our leg 1 runner had set off (I was on leg 2). I got to the start area drained but thinking I would be ok, it was here I met Jon James who would be my room mate for the forthcoming International. Jon had a good run, I did not. I felt ok up the first hill but then my guts started jumping all over the place. I was forced to slow down, but even going slow was hard work. I was in a situation I’d never experienced before, being overtaken by almost the complete field and had to dig deep at the end to find some reserves to ensure I didn’t hand over in last place, as it is I’ll always feel bad about handing over 2^nd last. I’ll admit to being devastated, I was out to prove my form was coming back and I had a reputation as a good relay runner, it all went out the window in one race and I have a permanent statistic to show what a bad run it was. The team were very supportive but they must have felt bad about being left so far behind and only managed to recover to 60th position. Thankfully it was only a momentary blip and I was back running reasonably well within a couple of days.

I was hoping to make up for last year, in this year’s race. I haven’t been in the form of last year but I’m just starting to string together some good training and feel like I’m on the way back towards that form. And it seemed I would have my chance at redemption as Geoff informed me I was highly likely to make the team, unfortunately the team couldn’t make itself as we were short of runners so didn’t make it to the race. It’s not good, we have some very good runners and they should be looking to make an impact in these National competitions, I know what it’s like to miss out on these races because others can’t be bothered and I also know that a little commitment can turn an ok team into winners so that’s the direction Herne Hill should be looking to take. Herne Hill probably won’t win next year, but if they don’t turn up it won’t happen at all.

So what’s the point to this blog. I don’t have many regrets but one regret is that I didn’t always get the opportunity to race against the best in Britain when I was at my best. Ok that’s not strictly the case as I did race in a number of National Championships during my best years and I acquitted myself well, however there were times when I wanted to run but I wasn’t able to. Now there are two ways of looking at that, there were times when I was at my best but simply not good enough to make the team I was in, which is fair enough and you can be sure I went away and looked at what I could improve to make the team on another occasion, but the other times I was denied the opportunity because other members of the team or the management couldn’t be bothered to enter and on these occasions I went away disappointed at a missed opportunity. So if you’re wanting to run at your best, look for your opportunities and get your team and team management excited, after all, I’d rather my team finished 60^th in a National Championship and I got my opportunity to shine than stay at home and have a good training session that, in the ultimate scheme of things, is meaningless. Of course another way of looking at it is that by not turning up you are not only denying yourself the opportunity to compete against the best but you’re also denying your team mates that opportunity and the opposition the opportunity to compete against you. Well enough said on that, we all have our own priorities.

So what else has my week had in store for me? This week it’s been a really hard week of training. I was planning on training hard anyway but easing back a bit at the end of the week, if I was needed for 6 stage duty. When I found out I wasn’t going to compete I obviously didn’t ease back. Come Saturday morning I was pretty tired but still managed to get the legs to deliver one more tough hill session before I relaxed on Sunday, readying myself for another tough week of training. I’m feeling good off it and think I’m running well, I just need a race to prove it. I had my weekly run with Rich (not to be confused with my training groups which go under the guise of Run with Rog) and decided it was time to push his mental barriers as well as his physical ones by getting him to run hard for 5 minute reps. It was a good session and Rich came through well, he’s still got a lot of work to do to get him fit for running the Edinburgh Marathon next year but the purpose of these four weeks has been to up his training level to get him 10k race fit. We have our final session this week, it’s a shame because I’m really enjoying having to run hard to produce the best session I can for Rich, but at least it will end in the knowledge that Rich will have a good background in running to enable him to continue to train effectively. As one door closes another two open and Rich has asked me to consider doing some group training from his own gym plus he may well benefit from some additional training nearer the marathon and consider using my schedules. And the other door….well I’ve been talking with Lee Riley, who you’ll know is attempting to break the World Mile Record, carrying a 40lb pack, on 12 November, and he has asked me to work with him to get his pacing right, so that begins next week and I’m looking forward to getting involved with another World Record attempt. The not so good, but not unexpected news, is that I haven’t been selected to represent England in this year’s International. To be honest I didn’t think I had much chance as I really haven’t raced enough against my peers and whilst I feel I will be good enough by November, that’s just a personal view. Well, good luck to the guys who did make the team, I’ll be looking at what I can do to gain selection next year.

Weight Loss

As a Personal Trainer many of the people I talk to, and a lot of my clients in particular, are interested in weight loss. But what are they really talking about? It’s often the case that trimming the body, getting rid of the overhanging belly or toning the bum are associated with weight loss. Numerous times I’ve been accosted by people telling me that they’ve been doing this and that and haven’t lost an ounce of weight. And why is that? Well read on, you may find out.

Firstly, we shouldn’t be talking about weight loss but a reduction in % body fat. It’s inevitable that when you start a new exercise regime your muscles are going to tone and there is going to be some increase in the size of your muscles. Don’t panic, you’re not going to turn into the incredible Hulk, unless of course you want to, but muscles that haven’t been worked before are going to grow in size with exercise (to further allay your fears, take a look at the picture of me in the blog about my gym, I think you’ll agree I look more like the incredible Sulk). As muscle weighs more than fat you could be losing body fat but gaining muscle, leaving you with no overall change in weight.

When starting out on an exercise regime you should look at the big picture, I always measure arms, chest, waist, hips and legs. You should also consider taking a before picture, to remind you what you used to look like whenever you think you’ve plateaued. At regular times you should get re-measured and take another snap. Naturally there is no problem with weighing yourself but take the other things into consideration too. In fact you can also get scales that can calculate a fat % too.

So how do you go about losing fat. Well, different people will swear by different diets, or long and slow exercise regimes or even using big weights to increase your metabolism and burn the calories. All of these methods can help but I prefer a more balanced approach, after all I’m a pretty balanced kind of guy.

The first thing I do when I meet a new client, as I’m measuring them up, is talk to them about their lifestyle. That includes things like, how often they exercise, what type of exercise they do, how often they eat, how much they eat, when they eat, what they eat, the same with respects to what they drink, what their work entails, what they do when they get home from work and how many hours sleep they get. That’s a lot of information to take in and the client may not always know all the answers, because they’ve not given it any thought. This enables me to build a picture of the client’s lifestyle and what needs to change. I discuss their motivation for making the change and what they’re prepared to do to achieve their goal.

From that information I’ll recommend certain changes and begin planning their exercise regime. I’ll motivate the client to achieve their goal but I’m not going to force them against their will, if I push them too far they won’t enjoy working out and it could put them off exercise for life, which isn’t going to achieve anything for anyone.

In my exercise routines I try to combine a number of principles; endurance, speed, strength, encouragement and nutrition. I like to mix my sessions around too, that way the client won’t get bored, though they do have to listen to my stories. I can pack a lot into an hour, as my clients would tell you, I even have one client who has a weekly 90 minute session, so imagine how much more I can pack into that. Obviously what I pack into sessions depends very much on the experience of the client. A number of my clients have been new to exercise so require more coaching and showing and this takes up some of the time of a session, which is probably a good thing as it gives them more rest between exercises. As they become fitter and more familiar with the exercises we can do more and therefore burn more calories. Naturally I’m constantly looking out for new exercises and will still throw in the odd newbie exercise, or combine exercises together to make things a little more interesting. Afterall variety not only keeps the client happy it makes me happy as I’m able to stretch the client’s boundaries. I also give advice about nutrition, which to my mind is not about cutting out food you love, it’s about cutting back on the things that are less healthy and portion size and the timings of when you eat. That’s why I recommend my own meal planning programme, it selects meals that you will like, in correct portion sizes and takes into account how long you have to prepare each meal (to find out more go to www.rogeralsop.co.uk/nutrition).

But when all is said and done there will be clients who are not completely happy with their weight reduction, they hear about the huge weight losses reported on programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing (not surprising as the celebrities are being paid to spend hours in a studio dancing and not eating too much, don’t get me wrong I’d happily spend 8 hours a day with a client, keeping them active and watching their diet and it would work and I’d be healthily paid, but it’s not really practical for my clients) or reading about these fantastic diets that help you to lose weight quickly (inevitably lots of people on those diets tend to put weight on quickly again after they’ve got bored of it). To me it’s about striking a balance between exercise and nutrition, which ultimately needs to fit into your lifestyle, and it will believe me, it does. Why might you fail to achieve your goal? Going completely against the meal plan and eating things that are not good for you, drinking too much alcohol, not exercising enough or effectively enough – but I’d soon know once we discuss your progress.

Now what’s been going on with me this week. Last week I told you I’d been to Edinburgh to pick up my previous life, which consisted of lots of boxes full of mine and Carole’s past as well as a couple of exercise machines and my bike. This week I’ve spent a lot of time moving stuff out of boxes and trying to find somewhere to put it in the house, but ultimately I think it’s time to declutter.

Having my Healthrider and rowing machine in my gym has changed my exercise regime a little and I now incorporate a 20 minute session on those machines. I brought my first Healthrider back in the mid 90’s and loved it for it’s overall muscle toning benefits and cardiovascular exercise, back then I used to do a 40 minute session every night and managed to break two machines within 9 months, for which the company replaced them, this ones much better, it’s still my 3^rd machine and it’s taken a battering off me for about 14 years and it’s still going strong (2 years of inactivity in an Edinburgh garage seem to have done it no harm and I’m already feeling the benefits of using it again). I used them every day Monday to Thursday and felt great afterwards, I felt so good I intended to use them on Friday too but following another session with Rich (in which we increased the quality element somewhat) on Thursday my legs were feeling a little tired on Friday so I just did a 4 mile run.

I was feeling so good I thought I’d look for a race, one that I could test myself against my peers. Ideally I would have like to have headed down to another part of my past and run for Herne Hill Harriers in the Surrey League Cross Country on Wimbledon Common, but I was conscious of trying to clear as many of the boxes as possible before Carole returned from San Francisco so decided against that (thankfully my team mates didn’t need me as they ran fantastically to record a huge winning margin). I looked at the Sandbach 10k taking place this coming weekend, but it was full, and the Congleton Half Marathon on Sunday but that was also full. Then Ray suggested the Parkrun, so that’s what I did.

It had been a wet and windy week and I knew it would be muddy at Pennington Flash but I wasn’t bothered about the time, I wanted to push myself and, to be quite frank, if you want a hard Parkrun I think you’ll be hard pushed to find many harder than Pennington Flash. Hard as it is it’s actually a really nice course and it’s a really friendly crowd who turn up, but I’ve said all that before so no point to keep reiterating it. It was so muddy they adjusted the course slightly, taking us away from the grass, which required a small jump over part of a gate (I haven’t run steeplechase since 1991, and that was a disaster, so that was a daunting prospect). I set off with intent and was soon away from the crowd, it wasn’t as windy or as muddy as I was expecting but I still managed to slip a couple of times and had a bit of bother slowing down for a tight downhill corner, though my jumps were good, all in all I had a good run finishing in 17:31, almost 3 minutes clear of 2^nd place. So I was happy with that, though having recorded my 5^th win at the venue I was starting to feel a bit greedy and thought I ought to give someone else a chance but then there have been 31 races so that makes 26 other chances. In fact Ray, who was watching with his son, Jake, Sharon, his wife, who was running, and I were discussing trying a few different Parkruns in the region, so we may well do that, though we’ve built up a relationship with Pennington Flash and Bill, the Event and Race Director, so we’ll always go back.

On Sunday it was the Chester Marathon, not only was Ray making his marathon debut but another of my Pennington Flash pals, Jeff Whittington, was also running. Ray finished in 3:49:35 (I go off gun times not chip times), a little off his goal of sub 3:30 but you just never know with the marathon. Jeff was also a little down on his best with 3:29:40 and there were others, I know, that were also slower than anticipated. Maybe it was the heat, it’s been a cold week so I went out for my 9 mile run in long sleeves and lycras and was sweating heavily within a couple of minutes, as the temperature had risen about 8 degrees C within a day. There will be other chances, in fact we start Ray’s recovery session and future planning this week.

Marathon The Final Tune-up

Many Marathon conversations have been going on lately, many of my running friends have voiced their own opinions over facebook. Most significantly, for British people anyway, is the decision of the IAAF to remove Paula Radcliffe’s World Record of 2:15.25, set at the London Marathon in 2003, because she was paced by male runners. Of course she’ll still be the World Record holder with her time achieved, in an all female race, of 2:17.42, her London time being stated as a World Best. Paula is keen to run the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics, but she has struggled with injury over the last two years. In a bid to show she deserves a place she entered this year’s Berlin Marathon and finished 3^rd in 2:23.46, well inside the 2:31 qualifying time. So it looks like Paula is on the way back and what a fitting finale it would be, to a great career, if she could win the gold at London, should she decide that it was then time to concentrate on other business interests.

At the same Berlin Marathon the world record was again broken, as Patrick Makau reduced it to 2:03.38. Getting ever closer to the 2 hour barrier that Michael Crawford attempted in the 70’s, in the film The Games – worth a watch on a wet afternoon with no real sport on.

At the end of this week the Chester Marathon takes place, this is now my local marathon, but more significantly, for me, it marks the marathon debut of my client, Ray Tran. You’ll have heard about Ray before, I’ve mentioned him in a few of my blogs, he’s also my Pennington Flash Parkrun buddy. Throughout the time that Ray has been training with me he has had a number of goals and one of these has been to run this marathon. Ray has been training hard for the marathon and is being realistic in his time goal (sub 3:30). You’ll recall I’ve previously mentioned the Yasso session we did, which indicated he was in 3:23 shape. Well this week it’s wind down time, which started on Sunday (after a final burn up session).

When I did my own marathon, in 2003, in fact the same one that Paula broke the World Record in, I had lots of knowledge about training for the marathon, gained from the many people I knew who had taken part in numerous marathons, I also had a great marathon coach in David Lucas, who had a reputation of coaching ladies to sub 3 hour marathons and also coached Junior Galley and Jim Estell to AAA Marathon Championship honours. However I also carried out some separate research and discussed my ideas with Dave, which Dave didn’t disagree with. One of the things I found out was that many top runners considered a 10k race, a week before the marathon, to be ideal preparation for the marathon. It also appeared that this fitted in nicely with the various regional 12 stage relays, held in Britain, which tended to be about a week before the marathon and had legs of 3 and 6 miles (approx). Of course, when I came to do the marathon, the Southern 12 Stage relay was being held in Milton Keynes and the long leg was nearer 5 miles. This didn’t phase me and, as I’ve always been a team man, I decided to do the relay rather than try to find a 10k. I requested a long leg from team manager, Alan Mead, which I got. Alan, being the sensitive type, gave me leg 1 so I could do some extra miles after the run. It was a typical long leg around the lake from the Open University grounds, typical being windy, I don’t think I’ve ever run there when there hasn’t been a strong wind out by the lake, those doing short legs have it so much easier. I hadn’t been doing any short distance speed work all winter, just lots of long hills and 1 mile reps so I settled into a steady pace around mid pack. However, as we hit the wind everyone around me seemed to slow down, well I felt strong so I pushed through and soon I found myself in the top 10. Once we joined the short stage path to home there was no stopping me, I just pushed all the way to the finish, coming in 7^th and running 24:50 for the close on 5 mile leg, I even got the better of local rival and now team mate, Dave Robinson, who I hadn’t beaten for some years, always a nice feather in your cap.    

But returning to Ray’s marathon, based on my own approach and the fact that Ray doesn’t have a lot of running years in his background, I decided to do my final pre-marathon session with Ray this Sunday and I decided I was going to pace him to an 8k at his predictor 8k pace, this turned out to be 4:45min/k pace. Session time was set for 16:00 and I’d worked out a fairly safe and flatish (or so I’d thought) run along the bypass towards Gadbrook Park, turning down towards town and back via the cemetery to the bypass, I was going to then turn back towards Leftwich but as it turned out the traffic junction at London Road was clear so we crossed it and carried on up the bypass. The finish was just before Hartford Hall, meaning that the last k would contain the steep hill, but it was the end of a race and I’d make Ray fight for it up that hill.

We started off with a 1k warm-up in 5:18 and then kicked off. As has often been the case in my racing career the first k was too fast, 4:25, but not so fast that we couldn’t correct and also I’m a great believer in going how you feel – of course on some occasions this has lead to me suffering mid-race, but on others I’ve smashed pbs. We edged back the pace but still only to 4:31 for the next k, but hey, Ray was still chatting away so I wasn’t panicking. Two further ks, each in 4:39, and this was looking good, we were half way and well within schedule. The next 2k had a long drag of a hill in it, I could sense Ray was struggling a bit, conversation was more one-way and it felt like we’d slackened the pace. I urged Ray on but we went over the 4:45 goal with 2 4:48s, but that was only a 6 second deficit and we only had 2k to go. We were reaching territory we regularly did reps on and Ray lifted his pace a touch with a 4:45 penultimate k and then it was the hill at Hartford towards the end of the final k. It is a tough hill to run up at the best of times but at 7.5k into an 8k hard run it’s a bit irritating, still I wasn’t about to let a hill ruin Ray’s run, I’ve already embraced this hill and made it my friend and at this point it was time for Ray to shake it’s hand, and he did so climbing to a crescendo finish with a final k of 4:43. All this gave us a final 8k time of 37:26, averaging 4:39, which, as Ray reminded me, would have been a pb at 10k if we’d carried on (particularly as the next 2k would have been flat), but there’s time for that in the future, now it’s time for Ray to ease back and smash that Chester marathon. We discussed the final week’s training and went home.

With the marathon in his legs it’ll be a few weeks before Ray and I train together but on the plus side I’ve just started running with the 38 minute 10k man, who shall be forever known as Rich (Ray, Rich, Rog, make sure you don’t get confused, I need a Julian or Henry for a bit of variety), we had our first run last Thursday and it was fast and furious. Rich is young and strong so over the next four weeks I’ll be expecting him to take me to pieces, but within that time he’ll gain an appreciation of my style of training (which has been proven to get you pbs and even world records) and I’ll also be passing on many tips for his marathon, he’s entered Edinburgh 2012.    

It was a Sunday session for Ray, that’s quite unusual for me, I decided a long time ago that it’s important to have a separation between work and play and that meant not working for the two days at the weekend, or even the extended weekend. I know this means that there are some lucrative opportunities I’m going to miss out on but life’s not all about making money. Anyway this weekend I found myself alone and I also wanted to do this final session with Ray, to ensure I gave him the best service I could prior to his marathon. Of course I’ll not always turn down weekend work, but it would need to be something of great interest to me, to tempt me away from spending it with Carole. I wasn’t supposed to be alone this weekend, it’s Carole’s birthday and we were planning to go somewhere exciting, such as Blackpool, but then Carole was given the opportunity to go to a conference in San Francisco and those who know Carole well know how driven she is when it comes to work. So Carole jetted off early on Saturday to the States. Poor Carole had to wake up on Sunday to take part in an organised wine tasting tour of the Napa Valley wineries. Over the next week she’ll be in networking mode for the benefit of her company and she’ll even have to take in a concert one night, featuring some singers from the past, Sting and Tom Petty. I feel for her, she could have been here being taken through her paces by me.

With Carole away it gives me the opportunity to do some things I wouldn’t normally do, like stay up a little later, watch non weepy movies and switch off the TV when Coronation Street and Emmerdale are on. It also gave me the opportunity to pay a brief visit to Edinburgh over the weekend. It was time to pick up the remnants of my previous life and move it to Northwich. Unfortunately I’d forgotten how many remnants I’d left in my garage and now they’ve filled up our house, a box of medals alone weighs about 6kg, I’d forgotten how successful I used to be, considering I haven’t won anything this year, mind you I haven’t entered much. The best thing is I now have my rowing machine installed in my gym and I believe it will help me add an edge to my training, it did before.

Whilst in Edinburgh it also gave me a chance to catch up with some people, I was only there a few hours so I didn’t make an effort to contact everybody but I had been invited to the engagement party of Richard Meade and Gail. Richard was in the group I helped to coach with Alex McEwen so I was keen to catch up with him and many other members of that group and other runners I’d met in my time in Edinburgh. Unfortunately I had to leave early as I was making an early start back to Northwich the next day. Before the party I had a bite to eat with fellow PT, Jim Buick, who’s working on his new website www.jimsgym.org

Finally while I was shopping in Chester, during the week, I came across the 2012 version of the Guinness book of World Records. I couldn’t resist having a quick peek and there in the Marathon records was a picture of Lee Riley. Incidentally Lee tells me that he’s managed to get Ann Packer along to support his mile world record attempt, for those too young to know she was Olympic champion over 800m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.