This Week's Athletics Weekly

It's not often that it arrives on a Thursday - it's a pity that it takes a postal strike to get it here on time! There are some good things in here if you don't mind the combination of Paula Radcliffe and Dwain Chambers on the front. There are several interesting two page interviews: one with Steve Jones, one with Tom MacNab on coaching (he used to be a member of Shettleston Harriers and of Bellahouston Harriers as well), Dwain Chambers and a piece on risk assessment by a chap who believes that it is a good thing. There is another two page section in their 'Performance' series under the heading of 'Seven Ways to Run Quicker' which has good stuff about VO2 max, lactate threshold and so on that are all in an easy to read and easy to understand form. The need to learn stuff is not just confined to coaches but athletes can't afford to be ignorant of the sport either and we used to argue and discuss books, AW articles and TV programmes when I was running regularly.

I also got a couple of books today: 'On A Cold Clear Day' about the American who came to Britain to learn how to be a distance runner in 1961 and Haile Gebreselassie' biography modestly titled 'The Greatest' written by Jim Denison. If anyone has already read these then let's hear about it in the Comments bit below.

"You can't learn faster only by having access to your own experience and knowledge, it's a no brainer. You need access to the experience of everybody." Frank Dick