St Peter's Again!

Having spoken about recruitment in the last blog on the topic, it should be pointed out that with the Commonwealth Games taking place in october, there will be more children than ever interested in the sport and we should be able to capitalise on their interest. There is a lot to be said for off track training (some clubs such as Central AC do not do track training in winter) and when I was coaching i did a lot of it although it was the normal thing to train once a week on the track in winter. Many senior Scottish athletes went out of their way to come to the sessions and one, from Cambuslang, came along to the Coatbridge group in the 80's - when I asked him why he, an established Scottish athlete, had asked to come along his reply was that he went out to do 6 x 800 the previous week on his own and found it hard on his own in the prevailing weather. What follows are comments from the coaching that I have done over a number of years.
The winter track session is valuable because there is usually a pavilion where the runners can meet prior to the session: I know that meeting at the Kilbowie Road Roundabout on a wet winter's night for the rest to arrive is not fun, lingering at the foot of Thomson Street can be less than enjoyable but if there is a school or other building where we could gather it was a big plus. There also needs to be somewhere where the coach and runners can discuss last week's competition and that's not out in the open.
From the training point of view a track within playing fields canm be used in many ways - the perimeter at Mountblow was excellent and on one occasion Derek held the cross country for Under 11's at Whitecrook. The playing fields have all the benefits of good grass training with the added option of using the track if the grass is mucky, puddle-y or sliddery. Another option is to combine the two - one of the sessions I used to do on a Saturday was for the guys to do a 15 minutes acceleration run and then after a mini-break do 5 x 200 with each one faster than the rest. It is possible on the track to combine different age groups and maturity levels within the one 400 metre area with each doing their own sessions and everyone being supervised by the coach. For instance you can have senior men doing a kind of 5000 metres pace session with the U17's doing a 3000 session where they are running together but the numbers are different and the recoveries are different. Sprinters can also do technique work on a floodlit track that they can not do elsewhere.

The range of events that can be covered at a track is wider. First, if youngsters come along to the club, there is no reason to suppose that they will all be runners: some will be long jumpers, some high jumpers, etc and it would be wrong to squeeze them all into the same session as the runners. Second, if we are taking part in the track league this winter, we do not want youngsters to be thrown into a long jump or whatever if they have not practised it. It is fairly easy to fit in a long jump as part of a training session warm up and to have one night in the week before the track league for the youngsters to practise their field events.

From the safety point of view, the track keeps them away from the roads - we all know how the runners spread out along the road on a long run and prefer to use a lap course - and there is some control of the people that they will come in contact with.

These are just some of the benefits to the club and to the individuals of using a track as the centre of activities for younger members. Seniors next!