Lee Riley Does It Again

Back in the olden days there was a lot of talk about a runner from Staffordshire club, Cannock and Stafford, who had a pretty good range of times from the marathon to the mile. His name was Paul Davies-Hale and he went on to represent Britain at two Olympics, Los Angeles and Barcelona. Well let me re-introduce you to someone from Cheshire who now holds world records from a range of distances from the marathon to the 400m. His name is Lee Riley, only time will tell what his greatest achievement will be.

For those who haven’t read any of my previous blogs, mentioning Lee, let me recap. I first met Lee almost two years to the day, it was at the Mow Cop Killer Mile in 2010. I’m not actually sure why Lee was there because he wasn’t a runner, perhaps it was the challenge that came along with the name. Lee had heard of me through one of my clients and he introduced himself to me. We chatted, I beat him up Mow Cop, we chatted some more and after that Lee occasionally turned up at some of my Run With Rog and Fun With Rog sessions. It was at one of these sessions that Lee first told me of his plans to run the marathon carrying a 40lb pack, not just to run it but to break the current world record doing so.

Naturally I thought Lee was overly enthusiastically mad and I went home to think nothing more about it. Until Lee called me just over 6 months before the 2011 London Marathon. He told me he’d got a place in the marathon and wanted me to train him for it. I asked him what running he had been up to and he replied, very little. So from a starting point of no base running fitness to breaking a world record for the marathon carrying a 40lb pack, shouldn’t be too difficult.

To cut a long story short, at the London Marathon Lee smashed the World record, having already taken the Half Marathon record during the build up. He was chuffed, I was chuffed, and we went about our business.

Then a few months later Lee rang me up again and said he wanted to break the Mile world record with a 40lb pack and would I help him again. This time I only had about 5 weeks, but I was confident we could do it. After all I knew Lee well now, I knew how he operated and my methods of training seemed to work well with his ideas on training. The other thing in Lee’s favour is that he is prepared to push himself as hard as it takes to reach his goals. Now I’ve trained a few people in my time, some have gone on to achieve some pretty impressive results, there has to be an element of hard training involved, but nobody I know trains as hard as Lee. I’ve pushed him hard, we’ve touched his limits, but he comes back for more and he’s very complementary about my training, usually.

Now there has been some discussion, amongst serious runners, about how valid it is to run slow times carrying a 40lb pack and call it a world record. Well believe me Lee would like to run faster times, but carrying the pack is a challenge in it’s own right. For the sake of argument let’s look at Lee’s marathon, he went into that having only trained seriously for 6 months, hardly any previous proper running and this was his debut marathon. On the same day another runner was also going for the record with a 40lb pack, this chap had been running for years and had previous marathons of well below 3 hours, good club running standard. Lee beat him by about 30 minutes. I’m not going to say anymore on this, apart from we should look at the challenge and be proud of what Lee is achieving, just because we choose not to do it doesn’t make it any less of a performance. Should anyone like to understand what it is like to carry 40lb on your back whilst running, I’m sure Lee would oblige, I’ve walked 200m with it and believe me it’s not easy.

So back to the story, 6 weeks ago I received another phone call from Lee, telling me he had his sights set on the 400m world record, with the pack, this would take place in 5 weeks time. Could I help? I thought about it, I’m an endurance athlete and coach so what do I know about sprinting? Well I had run a 55 second 400m relay leg in my day and all I had to do was implement my principles of training to this event, alongside a little bit of research and pondering. Admittedly Lee had been down at Stoke AC, training with the sprinters for a few weeks, he’s naturally fast and wanted to see what sprinting was all about.

Unfortunately, at the time of the call I was suffering from my knee and then back injury so I could only help Lee by working out schedules. But once I was healed enough I joined Lee down at the track. Boy was that a shock to the system, I hadn’t touched the track since we trained for the mile world record and I’d probably get outsprinted by the 100year old age record holder. We did some sprint type stuff, for which I tried my best to keep up with Lee and we worked on his start. Lee was given a bespoke backpack by Lowe Alpine and we did some extra stuff to get him used to it. Time was ticking away and I wasn’t sure that we were yet there, even though I’d been refining the training on a daily basis. We did a trial run, it was windy, but Lee ran 400m, with the pack, in 60.5.

I knew we needed to get Lee’s legs into some serious lactic inducing training so I came up with a session around Queens Park, it was so hard even I started to feel fit again. But Lee was carrying his pack, it was far harder for him, then we moved onto the grass, this was far harder, by now we’d dispensed with the pack, it was tough enough. I even got told off for by two ladies for mistreating my son, but they were soon converted into the Lee Riley fan club.

Back on the track we did another trial run, this time we tried to get everything like it would be on the day, we weighed the pack, it was a little over 41lb, we even rented a small crowd. The most notable thing was that there was no wind. It was a solo run and Lee looked good at 200m, clocked at 28 seconds, into the final 100m Lee was clearly feeling it and it was touch and go if he would make it. The clock stopped at 59.48, Lee’s goal of sub 60 had been achieved, but it wasn’t official.   

Now we were all set for the official run, during the Stoke AC Open Meeting on 21 April, almost a year since Lee had set the Marathon world record. We tapered accordingly and waited.

I’ve not yet been to see any of Lee’s previous world record attempts, I always seem to be somewhere else, but this time I promised I’d be there to offer support. So Carole and I went to Stoke. It was a pretty grey day, it wasn’t raining, but the wind was blustery, in fact it seemed stronger than the day we’d clocked 60.5. As the race got ready there was a hold up as athletes were making their way to the track, not good at any time but when you’re preparing with 40lb extra weight on your back, quite tough. Now I sound like I’m making excuses, I’m not I’m just preparing the way. Lee ran a good solid race but only managed a time of 60.95. Are we disappointed, yes, both of us feel like Lee has a sub 60 in him and the three clocked times we have show that he is there or there abouts, so it will happen. But whilst Lee’s goal was to break 60 seconds, the fact is, he has set another world record, so that’s 4 now.

While I’ve been training with Lee, and it’s been full on for two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of short distance flat out reps, well they felt flat out to me even if I still looked like I was jogging. I never could sprint so I’m damned if I’m going to start now. Even so at granddad pace my legs were taking a hammering, though a completely different type of hammering to what they normally get. Because of the lack of longer distance training my intended return to racing was going to be a 1500m in the same open meeting as Lee ran in, unfortunately I missed the closing date. Oh well, all this did was persuade me to run the parkrun at Pennington Flash instead. So that’s where I was last Saturday morning, with Ray and Sharon Tran.

It’s been a while since I raced, due to my trip down under and the various injuries I’ve suffered since I got back, in fact the last time I raced was 5^th Feb. So I was a bit tentative about this race, especially as I’ve built a bit of a reputation for being first or second in this event. I grew even more tentative as I waited for Ray and Sharon to pick me up and it suddenly started to downpour. It’s been so long since I ran this event that I had too much breakfast and my guts were churning a bit as well. As we drove towards Pennington Flash, the skies brightened up and we even got an appearance from the sun. Still knowing how muddy it gets at Pennington Flash I was resigned to having a slow race, perhaps my first one over 18 minutes. I got out of the car and immediately felt a pain pang across my right knee. A little unnerving considering it’s been my left knee that’s been troubling me for the last three years. I could hardly walk let alone run, still I decided to try to jog it out. Thankfully it went by the time I’d made it the half mile to the start. It was great to see so many familiar faces and have chats with the friendly participants and marshalls, also great to see so many new faces, when I started going, a year earlier, we averaged about 40 runners, now it seems to be attracting close to 100. I’m sure this is down to the fabulous views around the course, it’s challenging nature, Bill’s organisation and the friendliness of the people who take part.

   

Feeling a bit nervous about my own form I decided to take an easy start, in fact I think I was 3^rd after 10 metres. But I felt it was a little too slow so I put my foot down a little. I’ve pushed much harder but for some reason I was really out of breath by the top of the first hill, I had a lead so I wasn’t going to slow down. Failing to regain my breath by the top of the 2^nd hill I decided to take a peek to see where my opposition was, Stephen Makin, a 5 times winner of the event, was the closest too me, not far behind but far enough with the hill to take into consideration. It was then I made the decision to do something I‘ve never consciously done at Pennington Flash before, slow down. I felt I could sustain the gap if I just eased back. Still out of breath at the top of the 2^nd hill on the 2^nd lap I’d pulled out a little more of a gap. I decided I needed to push a little harder on the 3^rd lap so I could coast in. At the top of the hill on the 3^rd lap I couldn’t see Stephen so I knew I had another victory, but as I was fairly close to the finish I decided to keep pushing. I took a quick peek at my watch and it told me that if I pushed I should just break 18 minutes, well I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth and I gave it everything down that finishing straight, hoping my legs had learnt something from trying to catch Lee. I finished in 17:36, to my own amazement, it was actually 12 seconds quicker than the last time I ran there.

I went for my customary jog back around the course to cheer on the other runners, and thank the marshals, but I didn’t have much voice I was coughing my guts up. I felt like I did the first time I attempted an 800m, if you’ve ever done one flat out you’ll know what I mean by that. The next day I felt a little rough, Ray was worse he was suffering flu type symptoms, unfortunately that’s meant he has had to pull out of the Manchester marathon.

It’s not just been sprint work with Lee, I’ve also been training with Katy, putting the finishing touches to her Marathon training, she is doing the Manchester marathon this weekend. Katy has been going well, she knocked about 2.5 minutes off her Newcastle 7 mile time, two weeks ago, and last week she was 3^rd F35 at the Bolton 10k, running 45:16 over the tough 10k course. Hopefully Katy will have a strong marathon.   

Talking of marathons, last weekend it was the London marathon, I was so busy I couldn’t watch it all but I’ve seen some great results from many of my friends who took part and even an open mic from Richard Meade, who’s enthusiasm for all things running got him into trouble with Lovely Rita Meter Maid.

But to finish off this tale we go back to the beginning, where I first met Lee at the Mow Cop Killer Mile. I didn’t run the event last year as I was travelling up to Edinburgh on the night it took place. This year it was on last night, so I could take part. I was still a bit chesty so I wasn’t sure about going, but I decided I could always start and if I was feeling bad I’d just stop. Just as two years ago it was tipping down with rain, it was cold, wet and the registration and toilets were in a muddy field, just as well I didn’t bring my latest pair of racing flats.

I lined up for the race, I knew quite a few people on the line and it was good humoured banter, and there amongst us was Lee and his 40lb pack. Of we went, last time I went off hard and paid for it on the steep top section, finishing 4^th in 7:54. This time I was more tentative, conscious of my chest but also a little scared of that hill, I have embraced it but we’re not yet friends. I was having trouble keeping pace with the leaders but as we got higher they stopped getting away and I seemed to find the steepest section the easiest bit, I can’t fathom that out so don’t bother trying. The good news was that my chest wasn’t giving me any trouble at all so I really pushed the last flatter climb and even managed to overtake one of the youngsters ahead of me.

I crossed the line in 8 minutes, by my watch, will have to wait for the official time. 6 seconds down on 2 years ago, quite pleasing really considering I was in 32 minute 10k shape at that point. Once again it lived up to it’s name, but I guarantee the majority of people who took part will be back next time. Oh and just for fun I went back down and ran it again filming Lee, this time without his pack. Lee didn’t have a watch on the first time so I can’t tell you his pack time but having run a mile downhill and then straight back up his second time was 9:30ish.

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

Back To The Track

I used to love training and racing on the track. In my heyday I ignored the lure of cash prizes in road races, preferring to make myself stand out as a successful track athlete. At my best I used to sit in with the front group, try to hang on and pull off a victory with a well timed sprint. Of course it didn’t always work but I won my fair share of races and I set some pretty good times by getting involved at the sharp end. During the period 1992-1997 I improved year on year and my track training felt easy, I used to float around mile reps in the low to mid 4:40s and 1k reps would be under 2:50, sometimes well under.

But then in 1998 it all started to become a lot harder. I had a back problem in the summer, which led to a five month lay-off. Understandably, when I did make my comeback, I wasn’t floating on anything. I did get fit again but training on the track always seemed harder, mind you I was doing most of my training on my own and it’s so much easier when you’re with a group of athletes of similar ability.

By the end of 1999 I went over to Germany to work at the Adidas headquarters, in Herzogenaurach. There is a track in Herzogenaurach but I was in my winter training mode so I did all my training in the forest. Come the spring of 2000 I did try to do some reps on the track but I struggled, on my own, to match the pace I used to run in the early 90’s, despite having recently run my second fastest 10k, ever. So I went back to the forest, and was doing pretty well, until I tore my calf during the Surrey 5000m championship.

Back in England, the following year, I returned to the Dave Lucas training group, which were now training at Wimbledon Park, a stone’s throw from where I was now living. I had clearly lost some of my previous track craft but I persevered with the training, and enjoyed the evenings, due to the great atmosphere we had in the group.

It was on this track that I tore my hamstring in 2005, having just turned 40 I’d treated myself to a trip to Australia. On my return I decided it was time to tackle the 1500m again, but my body wasn’t used to the shorter, faster reps, and my hamstring gave in. On it’s repair I returned to the track, but lacked fitness for the summer. Then I moved to Edinburgh.

In Edinburgh I was working shifts, which made regular training difficult. I managed to do enough to retain a good level of fitness but I wasn’t able to gel with a group. A brief phase of day shift work allowed me to join up with Alex McEwen’s group at Edinburgh Athletic Club, but it was all too brief and I returned to shift work and lonely training. A couple of years later I was back for another try, inspired by some superb training from Craig McBurney, who I couldn’t keep up with, and a great bunch of EAC’s finest future medallists. I enjoyed being part of a group again, but, as I approached 45, it was becoming hard to keep the youngsters behind me.

Back to England, with a new career, I didn’t have time to find another group to train with so dedicated myself to more lonely training, which kept me away from a track. It seemed to work, for a while, I produced my fastest times for six years and picked up a European bronze medal. But then more injury problems and another enforced break meant I lost pace, if not enthusiasm.

Last year, now settled into Northwich, I did some training with a group of Vale Royal athletes and went down to the track with them. Unfortunately, after one session, I became busy with clients in the evening – though financially this was obviously fortunate. So it was back to training alone, though the training I was doing with Ray was a lot of fun, and didn’t do me any harm in my pursuit of more excellence.

This year I decided I was going to try the track again, to try to get more pace into my legs, something I feel I’ve neglected, to my cost. I was about to head to the Vale Royal track again, but this time to try to hang onto their youngsters. I felt I needed to train with faster people if I was going to have nay chance to regain my form of two years ago, just like my clients benefit from hanging onto me. However, just as I was about to start I put my back out, then, as my back recovered, I picked up more evening work.

So it looked like I’d be training alone again, but then I got a call for help. A client wanted to train for a short track race and wanted me to train them. Initially I could only direct him, because of my back, but last week I was able to join him down at the track to help as best I could. Lack of fitness and my inability to run fast meant I found it hard work to match his out and out pace, so I had to give myself head starts on the first session. The following day I did a hill session with Katy, it felt great, I was back in my comfort zone. Knowing I needed some more pace in my legs, in order to better help this client, I decided to hit the treadmill, at Cottons, the following day. Two years ago, when I was in good form, I was regularly running reps on the treadmill at 20kph pace, with recoveries at 14kph, so that was my aim. Shouldn’t be that hard, I thought, after all 20kph is only 3 minute ks and I was only going to run reps for a fraction of that time. The session was going to be 1 minute at 20kph, 1 minute at 14kph, 30 seconds at 20kph, 30 seconds at 14kph x 10. When I started I struggled to get up to pace, considering I’d run 16kph for 28 minutes a few weeks previously, but holidays and injury have taken some of my sharpness away. Still I managed to get up to 14kph for my traditional 6 minutes warm up, then it was off to the races. I got the machine up to 18kph but it felt too fast, I was struggling to keep pace with it so didn’t try to go any faster. Annoyed I switched my recovery to 15kph, much more comfortable. In the end I did all the reps with recoveries at 15kph and the 1 minutes at 18kph, managing to get the 30 seconds to 18.5. Very frustrating and to make matters worse my legs were sore and stiff for the next two days. Luckily we were away in Wales, so I could take a break without feeling guilty.

Back on the treadmill on the Tuesday I decided to do 8 x 400m with 400m recovery. I was determined to do better than the previous Thursday, and did. All the 400m reps were at 20kph (72 second laps) with the recoveries at 15kph, progress at last. Then off to the track to coach my client, luckily I wasn’t running this time. The following day, client and I, did a session of short fast reps on the road and grass, by now I was feeling much more comfortable with the pace and even managed to hang onto him for a while. Could I be on the way back, only time will tell, I need to marry my new found speed to my endurance.

Funnily enough it’s my endurance that has suffered recently, the break due to my back injury didn’t help but I’ve got so busy with clients that I’ve had to stop training twice a day. Hopefully I’ll get myself organised next week and resume the sort of training I’m used to. The speed work is having a very positive effect on my mindset and I’m keen to do a race, just need to find the right race, at the right time.

   

Before I go just a quick word about an app that somebody sent me. One of the developers asked me for some input to their design so I threw some pointers their way. They’ve developed the app and it can be found at http://www.slimkicker.com/ I’ve had a quick look and signed up to try it out, but I’ve just been so busy I haven’t had time. No doubt I’m bottom of the table. So I can’t pass comment on it at the moment, but if you want to take a look.

Oh and I should just mention I'm starting a beginners running group in Northwich, next week, so if you're interested get in touch. 

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

Back To The Gym

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve previously stated that I’m not a big fan of gyms. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with the concept of a gym, it’s just that my own experiences within a public gym have not been that great and I prefer to train my clients and myself away from a public gym.

My early gym experience was pretty poor, business trips would mean overnight stays in hotels, hotel gyms are not always the best equipped and even when they were there was never anyone to show me what to do. Let’s make it pretty clear, with a background of running and no experience of weights, I really had little idea what to do in a gym. People used to talk about swiss balls and I thought they were Milka’s version of Maltesers. So whenever I was in a situation where I felt I should use the hotel gym I would go in and just use any piece of kit that was available, but in reality this meant the cardio machines, I would never go near the free weights or even the weight machines and the swiss balls were just scary.

This changed when I trained to be a Personal Trainer, I always knew I’d need to get in tune with gym stuff if I was to make a go of it. I started off by training to be a Fitness Instructor, this meant I would learn all about the gym, which would then give me enough knowledge to decide if I really did want to go up to the next stage or just leave it at that, with enough knowledge to use a gym effectively next time I was in one. When I started the course I was in with people who already used gyms and they had a pretty good understanding of what to do and when to do it. My saving grace was that I knew about endurance training and specifically how to train people to run effectively. The course wasn’t long and I passed first time and, although by no means an expert, I had gained enough knowledge to know that I was going down the right path in my chosen career.

So then I started the Personal Trainer course. This was much more intense, went into much greater detail and again I felt like the baby of the group with my lack of knowledge of gym specific exercises. But time changes everything and by the time I’d finished my course, qualifying as a Personal Trainer, I knew enough to create workouts for clients.

Admittedly I was still fairly clean behind the ears, when I started, but consistent reading, watching and trying things out have brought my knowledge base up significantly and I’ve developed my own style of workout, which has a certain Roguniqueness about it. I’ll admit I don’t know everything but continued study will fill any gaps.

My first exposure of working in a gym was not particularly warming, it was a large gym with many clients, most of whom thought they knew what they were doing and had little time for a Personal Trainer. There were people I communicated with but I probably lacked a little confidence, through lack of exposure to clients, and really didn’t enjoy my experience. I also felt that some of the other Personal Trainers reminded me too much of working for RBS, they were just waiting for you to turn around so they could stab you in the back. I like competitiveness but there’s a certain attitude of win at all costs that I can’t abide and I found that both at that gym and in RBS, where some people were renowned for exposing every little error made by others in order to make themselves look better. However I managed to get started with a few clients and this helped me to build up my workouts.

I then moved onto another gym, which I found a little too quiet, plus there was a smaller but, still present, back stabbing element. By now I’d started getting a few enquiries through my running group and this was spreading into outdoor gym work and working with clients in their own homes. At last I was starting to enjoy myself, I wasn’t restricted to a gym and I worked alone so no personality clashes. Then I started working with Paul Mason at Cheshire Personal Training. Paul would send me to clients who had signed up for his service and he would pay me a proportion of the fee.

That worked brilliantly for me, helping to stretch my clientele into South Manchester as well as Cheshire. I’ve worked well with Paul, it brings me extra work but allows me autonomy. Occasionally I’d help out Paul with a client at Cottons Gym, in Knutsford, but always preferred the mobile gym scenario. I like being in control, knowing what I’m going to do with a client and having the tools readily available, not that I can’t adapt it’s just that I choose carefully what I want to do based upon specific requirements for each session. It’s the same for me, if I’m to do a session I know exactly what I want to do and how long I have to do it, I don’t want to have to re-order my session or miss a time slot because somebody else is using a particular piece of equipment, that’s why I prefer to work out in my own gym, once I’m in there my session runs like clockwork, no dithering thinking about what I can use next it’s all worked out perfectly for what I want from that session.

Having said all that I’ve found myself recently doing more work for Paul at Cottons, and I do my own workouts in-between clients. I now have a few regular clients at Cottons and I actually feel very chilled in the environment. The staff who work there are all very polite and helpful, the other Personal Trainers are really good at what they do, professional and friendly, no hints of jealousy or trying to put one over on the other Personal Trainers, it feels like a team which is what a successful gym should be like. I’m also getting to know some of the regular clients, a number of whom seem to be pretty clued up with their training, I sometimes take a peek at what others are doing and I like what I see. My disdain for gyms is being cured by my association with this particular gym, long may our relationship continue.

The back injury is now all but gone, still the odd tweak which hinders my abs workouts, but the kettlebell workouts have really helped. I’ve got back to running again and am back in solid, rather than full training. I’m grateful for that as I’ve got a few clients wanting me to run with them over the next few weeks. However because I’ve lost some of my base running fitness I’m going to revisit my plans for races this year, perhaps it’s time to make a return to the track.


Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/