Festive Break

The track at St Peter the Apostle is closed for Christmas and New Year.
The next training session will be on Tuesday 8th January 2013.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Festive Break

The track at St Peter the Apostle is closed for Christmas and New Year.
The next training session will be on Tuesday 10th January.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 

A Look Ahead

The group running with John Hanratty on a Tuesday night just gets better and better. It woudl seem that a night on the track a weel was the ingredient missing from their training. Every week they look stronger, faster and more confident. There seems to be a good group coming together. Where do they go in the winter is the (maybe premature) question.
Well a suggestion for John and Paul is - how about proper pack runs? When I joined the club a major ingredient in the training was the weekly pack run. The captain in those days would decide the trail and post it up on the door in the headquarters on the Tuesday night. It would be anything from 7.5 and 10 miles. There would be three packs - a slow pack which left the Baths first an appropriate time in fornt of the medium pack; the medium pack would leave maybe five or ten minutes later and the fast pack would go five minutes after that. The slow pack would include the same runners every week (Eric McMahon, Allan Sharp, etc) plus anyone recovering from injury who wasn't ready for the fast pack. The medium pack would be for runners who were not among the slowest but not yet ready for the fast pack and the fast pack was for the sharks! All groups would work to their ability and all would (theoretically) finish at the same time.
All clubs worked to that kind of system - Vicky Park, Shettleston, Dumbarton, etc all had pack runs. It's an excellent way of getting race hardened. Many of the best racing clubs still use that system. So, Paul and John, what do you think of it for September this year?

Training Sessions

Due to poor ground conditions, the first training session of 2011 will be on Tuesday 11th January.

Hutchie Grammar

I note from the unofficial sal website (http://z3.invisionfree.com/unofficial_sal ) that there is a new track at Hutcheson's Grammar School in Glasgow and there is some correspondence about whether it is available to the public. The suggestion is that there will be no pay-as-you-g- but that is available for club bookings. What about the St Peter's track? What do we know of it? Is it available yet? I know of a couple of club seniors who would use it.
Note that it would be a superb recruiting facility and goodness knows we need more members! It's easy for a teacher to ask pupils to come up to the school and look for Mr Mcleod or whoever but not so easy to ask them to go to Lusset Park (where's that?) and ask for someone they do not know!
How about even booking it for a training afternoon on a Saturday and inviting a couple of Scottish jumps and sprints coaches to come along and do a one off session?
Do we know yet when it is available?

Running in Snow and Ice

Following my last two posts, I was reminded that when I went for the papers (one third of a mile down the road) the last two years, it was very icy. Didn't used to stop me from running though - if I miss a day, the opposition won't! Some comments -

1. Don't do a fast run in very cold weather - you breathe in freezing air and you end up with stomach cramps. Dougie Gray of ESH once ended up on the grass curled in a ball with stomach cramp after breathing cold air in too deeply;

2. Do not run on roads that are not well used - the foot traffic of pedestrians and the warm air from vehicles will take away most of the ice.

3. Or keep off the roads altogether and run on the country or on Land Rover tracks: drive to the start of a country run or public park (like Colquhoun Park or the Recreation Ground at Dalmuir) and run there;

4. Wear gloves and if you find you don't need them always drop them at a spot easy to find when the run is over!

Cyril once said to me that in winter you are out and the roads are slushy, women are poking umbrellas in your eyes, buses are spraying you with snow, prams are bashing into your shins and you're thinking "it's great to be out of the house getting peace and quiet for five minutes!"

The Four Seasons

I was looking up an assortment of books, notes from lectures and stuff picked up from other coaches the other night and was struck by the number who said that some sessions, even in winter, should be fast with long recoveries. It brought to mind the definitions of the four seasons in Scotland:

Spring: Lasts for about 6 weeks, rains a lot and can be windy;
Summer: Lasts for about 4 weeks, rains a lot and can be windy;
Autumn; Lasts for about 4 weeks, rains a lot and will be windy;
Winter: Lasts for about 41 weeks, snows a lot, rains a lot, will be very cold and icy, may have 1 or 2 days of sunshine and will be very windy.

I used to coach a guy who came to me the week after the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay (last week in November) and said "Brian, I don't know why I'm doin' this, y'know." My reply was always the same - "If you don't do it in December and January, you'll regret it in February and for the rest of the year."

If you want long recoveries in Scotland in winter, use the Kelvin Hall or Scotstoun indoors .... or forget the idea! We need to get the work done even if the weather is bad. Explosive hill reps or specific indoor circuits will do what you want or need in winter - get them in and you can forget the long recoveries when the temperature is at -4 degrees.
Check that it is working by doing some warm weather training in early April in Portugal or Lanzarote: if it's not working there is time to tweak the training before the summer, if it is then you gain reassurance. And have a nice holiday devoted entirely to athletics.

How's this for even pace???

Looking through my training diaries for the 1970's in a search for information about another runner's races, I came across these splits for the Scottish Marathon in 1974 (they're my own splits). 5 Miles: 28:56; 10 Miles: 60:02 (31:06); 15 Miles: 1:30:02 (30:00); 20 Miles 2:00:06 (30:04); 25 Miles: 2:31:52 (31:46); Finish: 2:40:02 (8:10). These were official times - slowed at the end because I was certainly sagging a bit and because of the drag up from Portobello to the 25 mile point and the rise at Jock's Lodge just before entering the Stadium. The time that year for the Helensburgh (16.25 Miles) was also pretty even for 90 minutes and a couple of seconds.
A big part of the cause for what were quite good runs were the training packs I was in. At the club it was Ian Donald, the Shields brothers and others who kept us all on pace, if you dropped then nobody waited for you. It was keep up or else. And at home in Lenzie it was a pack with Alistair McFarlane, Doug Gunstone and Bill Ramage plus anyone else who cared to join. Pack running helps. The great Aberdeen teams of the 70's and 80's had their brutal Sunday run where the guys had to keep up. The Vicky Park runners were told by Ian Binnie, "If you can't keep uo, don't come out!" It was the same in most clubs at their best - and runners came in and kept up for as long as they could, gradually holding in for longer as they got fitter. And as the rest raised their game, the top men found that they had to get quicker just to keep their place.
Where's the Clydesdale pack these days?

Recruitment

The availability of the new track at St Peter's must be near - it was after 13th September, then the last thing was after the October week. This offers great opportunities for recruitment and forming an association with the school. We have a school whose principal teacher of PE has a good track record in sending athletes to the Club - Mr McMurray has sent us athletes like Natalie Quinn, Sean and Sinead Griffin, Ryan Kenny, Hayley, Natalie and all of that crew and so on. There is the track on the premises - what a combination! We have lost many young athletes because the response to the query, 'Where do we come to?' has been something like 'Come to Scotstoun and ask for Clydesdale Harriers' or 'Come to Colquhoun Park and wait near the Pavilion'. We were asking them to go somewhere they were not familiar with to look for people they did not know.
If their PE teacher says that they should come to the school on a Wednesday night and ask for Mr Halpin, Mr Dolan, Mr Hanratty or whoever, nothing could be simpler for the pupils. A couple of posters given to the school to display, a visit in advance from a coach or senior committee member and we are in business.
There are many benefits for training as well but I'll do a separate post for that. An easily accessible venue, a school on the premises that can direct children to us and the club's younger age groups could really benefit from an influx of numbers and talent.
If as the Committee promised a few years ago, the Seniors would come down from the Antonine it would have the whole Club at one venue again with all the benefits that that can bring and were the night a Thursday - the night the joggers run from the school - then there are possibilities of recruitment there as well: one thing's for sure, the Antonine has not been a great source of recruitment over the years! Anyway, it's up to us to maximise the facilities when it comes on stream!

St Peter's Track

With less than a week to go to the date when we were told that the track at St Peter's would be available for club lets, I'm a bit concerned that we have heard nothing from the committee about it. Either it will be available to us from next week or it will not be. It might not be available for let at the promised date, in which case we should be told, or it will be and we should know by now if the club is heading in that direction on the 14th September. In either case, the committee should inform us all about it.

Peter's Training

Peter Halpin has emailed to say that his weekend training session will be a road session from Scotstoun on Saturday at 11:00 am. He is also starting weekday sessions on Monday 16th August at 7:00 pm and Wednesday, 17th at 7:00 pm. I would suggest that any athlete currently doing twice a week with Phil and thinking about these should discuss it with Phil first.

Track Training

On Tuesday this week I went with my grandson to Central AAC (he lives twelve or fourteen miles from Sirling University where they do their training) where he has been going for the past 11 or 12 weeks. While he was doing his thing, I watched the huge group that Derek Easton was working with. There were 41 (forty one) adults of all standards there when they got into action at about 7:15. They went on to the infield and lined up along the touchline. Then they jogged in a long line the length of the pitch then skipped back then jogged the length doing some arm swinging and then ......................This went on for over twenty minutes and the group's standard ranged from Alistair Hay (Scottish Senior Cross Country Champion) and John Newsom at the top end down to men and women who were just getting fit and doing the odd 10K. Catriona Buchanan the Hill Runner takes part, I am told, and I saw and spoke to Karen Montador as was (a former Scottish age group international who disappeared for many years) who said that she had just had her third baby several months ago and was getting back into running again. After the warm up, one group went out on to the roads, another group did long reps round the grass and the rest did track reos (5 laps, 4 laps, 3 laps, 2 laps and 1 lap).
It was very sociable and very purposeful and it was possible to imagine some moving up a group as they got fitter and as the notion took them. Given a similar set up in Clydebank, there is no reason why all club members should not get into the same or similar sessions for part of the evening. It all looked like good fun with folk mixing and chatting away until they split into their groups.

Peter's Saturday Sessions

I have just been asked by Peter Halpin to say that next weekend his Sataurday morning training session will be held on Sunday because of the Open Meeting at Linwood and he is now going to run in the Devil of the Highlands. The session has been moved to Sunday. If you have any problems of queries just send them to Peter and he'll get back to you almost immediately.

Club Efforts

I was recently writing about the Jogle - the relay from John O'Groats to Lands End - and as far as I am aware there are only two clubs who have done it the Scottish one being Aberdeen AAC who ran it three times and broke the record each time. It is quite an undertaking - they had a whole series of SAAA Marathon champions in the team - Alastair Wood, Colin Youngson, Don Ritchie, George Reynolds, Graham Laing, Fraser Clyne and Peter Wilson - plus very good endurance runners like Mike Murray. A wonderful club feat involving lots of planning over a long period. It was described as very good for club spirit.
Then I thought that when we did the Glasgow to Fort William Relay the club gained a lot from it. The relay was invented by Dumbarton AAC with Mike Lidwell one of the guiding lights. It started in George Square in Glasgow at 6:30 am and progressed via Maryhill Road and Milngavie on to what is now the West Highland Way. It6 followed the current route to Dumgoyne and then went via Killearn and the Queen Elisabeth Forest, Stronachlachar and Glen Gyle to Crianlarich and then followed what is now the WHW to Fort William. It is a longer and more testing route than the WHW is now. After DAAC pioneered the route we took it on and broke their record and then Lochaber AAC and Westerlands also ran it. We are the current holders of the record.
The rules were a bit convoluted: teams were of eight runners in teams of four. The A team did all the hill sections and the B team did all the road sections. There were thirty two stages (too many in the view of most participants) and each runner ran four times. Kinda complicated but the route was superb and much more scenic than the present Milngavie to the Fort route.
To prepare groups of runners went out - usually in Pat Younger's minibus - and ran the various stages in twos. eg two guys would run the Dumgoyne to Ballat stretch and then two others would take over and do Ballat to Drymen and the two guys would do the Drymen to Conic Hill stretch and so on. Over three or four weeks every runner ran every stage. Then came the run and the watches were on and the prayers were for good weather. One year I ran over Rannoch Moor in the snow!
It was very good for club spirit, it was good for morale and at the present time when the club is split as far as venues are concerned a team including Paul Carroll, Ian Robertson, Peter Bowman, Gerry Montgomery and others would be wonderful. And why not a mixed team?
If you want a real challenge why not the Glasgow to Fort William and then straight on to the Great Glen Way??? Glasgow to Inverness??? Why not a mixed team? Come on, we still have the record as far as the Fort, why does not someone start to drive a team effort: pick a date, pick the runners, arrange the training runs and then go for it!

Grass Training

Many athletes and other sportsmen like training on grass and there are lots of stories on the subject. For instance, there is the one about Peter Shilton, England's Number One Goalkeeper at the times telling Brian Clough on a European trip that there was no grass pitches to train on. Clugh said "I haave just the place for you to train on, young man. Come with me." And he led him to alarge road junction which had a big grass covered roundabout - and the English goalkeeper trained on the roundabout, ptactising shot stopping with jackets for goal posts. I remember Chris Robison - Scottish, English and Great Britain cross country internationalist and international 10000 metres runner - saying that if he could get a good grass track he would never train anywhere else.
At one time when I was asking around about training with an Achilles injury I was told by an Empire Games silver medallist from VPAAC to run on grass because it was kinder to the knees and ankles; a very famous marathon runner from Aberdeen said that you should train on good road surfaces because they would not twist and tug at the ankle when I was running. So I hedged my bets and trained on the Boule where the grass was good and soft and flat without being tussocky at all!
What's the thing about grass? Probably because there is a bit if give in it, probably because it is a more natural surface to run on and also, I suspect, that it is usually away from traffic with the associated noise and fumes.

Just Go To The Pictures

Colin Youngson (Forres) has the story of the teenager who approached distance running legend Alastair Wood and said that he wanted to give up football and take up running, did he have any advice for him? Alastair who was known for being direct said "Son, running is harder than football - do yourself a favour - go to the pictures!" That running is harder than football is not in doubt. A local example is that of Gary Higgins who had been a professional football player before taking up running after a series of injuries. Within two years he was running 1:53 for 800 and 3:56 for 1500 and could do a good 4 x 4 relay leg as well as run cross country. He then just gave it up in favour of playing Junior football. When asked why, he said that to be even mediocre in athletics you had to train at least 6 times a week but you could do two nights of 'noddy' training (his words)and get your place in a team. You could of course do two nights of noddy training and try to be a runner as well but you wouldn't get very far. If all you want to do is keep fit then do your two nights, go for the occasional walk and eat properly and you'll be fine BUT...
if you want to be a good runner, it IS harder than football and you DO have to do at least six sessions a week. When Peter Fleming was at Langside College and just starting out as a senior athlete, he normally ran to College (two and a half miles) and back (two and a half miles) with a run at lunchtime as well and on one day a week he did four runs in the day. And of course there was the race or hard run on Saturday and the long run on Sunday. Donald MacNab Robertson of Maryhill who won the first ever SAAA Marathon Championship in 1946 and then again in 1947 is said to have done four 20 mile runs in the week and a 25 miler on Sunday. I could list the people who have done well in road and distance running and they all did some things that were their own but the one thing they had in common was that they 'got the miles in'. And strength builds speed - all the top runners said so and all the top coaches say so.
We are fortunate that we have in the club just now a couple of runners who also believe in that work ethic. Paul Carroll is running in the Tom Scott 10 this weekend and should do well - he has the strength for it and has run well in the Six Stage Relays being well inside his pb from last year and picking up four bodies on the way round. He then goes on to the London Marathon where given reasonable weather and, although you can never tell with the big one, the right pace early on he is capable of another pb. Gerry has had a good winter but does not have as many races under his belt as Paul but he should do well in London too. I don't know who else is competing at either race but I was impresed with the whole team at Livingston with Kevin's time jumping right off the page at me! The c;lub seems to be on the right track for some good distance running results and with the return to active service of Mark Rudzinski, the future's bright, the future has a big C on it!!!

Athletics Terminology

I was looking at Cliff Temple's book on 'Athletics Through the Looking Glass' last night: it's a whimsical look at athletics and has a chapter on terminology - eg: Back Straight - where you cough and spit during the race, Home Straight - where you pose a bit and try to look good for the folk in the stand. There are a lot of others and he uses his fictional creation Emily Lustbody as an example of how women should behave in athletics. The whole thing got me thinking about terminology in athletics. At one time, early on in my career as a coach (maybe the mid 60's) I gave the girls a sheet with what they meant. It was a nuisance having to explain stuff like fartlek and so on every time!
Easy ones first. Interval training has nothing to do with the speed, number or distance being run, it refers to the interval between the faster runs. An interval session is one where the training is broken up into bits. The faster runs are the repetitions or reps and a rep session is one where the training consists of fast runs. So if you ask what the reps are you should get a time and a distance; if you ask what the intervals are you should get a time or a distance to jog. Then there is stretching. Any exercises during a warm up are usuallywrongly called stretching. Stretching refers to the muscles and there is a perennial debate as to whether they should be done before or after training - there is a general agreement that they should be done after trainming whether or not they are done before. Steve Cram told Grant Graham and myself that he started stretching after the Moscow Olympics where he shared a room with Allan Wells who did 15 minutes of stretching every night before bed. There are more young girls sent away from Ballet in the west of Scotland because of tight hamstrings - it's a west of Scotland thing apparently. So stretch your hamstrings. Mobility or flexibility is for the joints and it matters because range of movement is important. I'd recomment some mobility work for everyone before the session. Finally there is the warm up and cool down. The warm up is necessary because it would be stupid to go straight into a fast session when the muscles are cold and the joints have not been loosened. So the warm up goes from slow to fast to faster. A very slow jog is followed by some mobility and maybe stretching, that is followed by some faster drills and then there are the strides which get you up to the condition where you are able to do your best with only minimal fear of injury. Then at the end of the session is the warm down which seems to have disappeared from many sessions - maybe it's because for parents who have seen the children train just want to get home so it's straight into the car and off! It's maybe senior men and women who want to get home quickly to see'The Bill' before it ends for good. But it's not a good habit not to do a cool down of some sort.

An Evening with Steve Jones

On Wednesday I was at Scotstoun to hear Steve Jones talk about endurance running in general and marathon running in particular. He was vey good but very quiet and could hardly be heard at the back of the room. Fortunately Peter McGregor grabbed me and had me sit at the front with him so I heard almost everything. I'll return to what he said before I go on holiday on Saturday but I'll pick up on two kind of controversial things he said in the hope of getting a response! First off: he was asked about the state of British marathon running and what could we do about it. The reply was as expected that the figures and times sepak for themselves. He reckoned that one reason for the poor state of affairs was the number of fun runners and charity runners. You can't criticise charity runners for running slowly and their numbers are growing while those of quality are decreasing. That trend will have to be reversed. He went further and said that last year in the States something like $55,000,000 was raised in charity races and none of it went back into the sport. He thought that that was wrong - the money raised by runners for charity was earned specifically for the charity but surely some of the profits earned by the organisers should go back to the sport? Any comments? Not to me, on the blog!
The second thing was when he was asked why the British Women do so well in the marathon and road racing generally when the men are not producing the goods at all. His comment was that the Africans had appeared on the men's scene but not on the women's racing circuit in anything like the same numbers. The men's ranking lists are totally dominated by Africans and it has had a demoralising effect on the men. It used to be that if a guy was ten seconds ahead of you in a race you would have a go at changing that the next week but now the men don't do that. The scene might be changing in the States because there are several projects working that might see the Americans doing it. The women do better because they still have the carrot of Olympic medals and big race prizes.
These were a tiny part of a whole evening's presentation (I have eight pages of notes and these two took up half a page between them) but have a think about them! I'll be back with some of his comments on training and racing.

Corrections and Apologies

Maybe it was RSI of the typing finger but the first paragraph of the bit below was dire - I'll do it again! Here goes.
"With the long (and getting longer) delays about the track in Clydebank, the summer is not too far away and thought will have to be given to facilities for our young athletes to train at. It was noticeable that ...." now read on!

There is also of course the matter of club championships. The arguments for having them in April are that it gives the athletes a chance to get some competition before the Leagues start, it lets the coaches see what cover there is for the field events and encourages the young athletes into competition early on. The arguments against the end of the season are that the athletes are tired after a long summer, that many are on holiday and that the schools are back in again! Some clubs have their championships in September, and the other DALAP cluubs give their championship based on only four events included in the DALAP Championships which seems kind of unfair to me! When are we having our championships is the third big item that needs to be looked at before summer the others being coaching numbers and training venues

Facilities

Withe the long and getting longer delays about the track in Clydebank, the summer is nto far away and thought will have to be given to facilities for our young athletes to train at. It was noticeable that at some of the indoor meetings this year our young athletes did very well in all running events and the shot putt but they were not so good at even attempting the high jump or in some cases the long jump. The field events in particular need attention. Scotstoun and Kelvin Hall are available but on most evenings the field events facilities are booked by existing coaches and groups by 6:00 pm. Even if the coach can't get to the HJ at KH in time, then some of his/her athletes arrive at about 5:00 pm and take over until the coach arrives. To use these facilities you would have to be there at a good time such as Friday at 5:00 when pretty well all field events are free. Mid afternoon is usually OK at Kelvin Hall - on Tuesday this week there were only Johnathan Farrell, Cameron McLeod and Ross Cannon training on the track, Lorna Willliamson on the circuit area and a wee boy and his Daddy doing long jumps in long trousers and brogues! Most folk can't make these sort of times though and anything nearer home would be valuable. For field events a school Games Hall or Large Gym would be OK if we had access to the equipment. We used to use the Clydebank HS Games Hall on a Saturday for HJ and Hurdles (you could get three hurdles set out along the one wall with the HJ taking uop the rest of the area). Could the club negotiate with the two local schools for such access? Weekday evening or Saturday morning. Or we could do a deal with West Dunbarton for longe5r access of an evening - if you are a working person you would find it hard to get to the venue in time to do a session and get the equipment away before 8:00 pm. Either they extend their hours as Bob Burness suggested or get access to the equipment on a night of our own. Both of these would require action by the club Committee rather than an informal arrangement because as we saw last year the WDAAC Committee wantes such an arrangement.
Finally there is the option of a Blitz on field events. In the 80's we had three 'come and Try' Throws days at Clydebank High School - in fact they were not come and try days, they were training days offered free of charge to all local secondary schools and we did a fair bit of recruiting by this means. The key to the success was that the coaches were top Scottish specialists - we invited Hugh Murray (Helensburgh) to teach discus, Norrie Griffiths (East Kilbride) for the javelin and Gerry Taylor (Garscube) for the shot with Eddie Taylor (Shettleston) doing the supervision and working with anyone who wanted to do the Hammer. We could invite some of these people along for the day, pay their expenses and hire the school for the occasion. Our own athletes could go along and develop their own skills. These ar some suggestions but what I am really flagging up is the need for some action on the field events and facilities front in the immediate future - the track season is about a month away and we are in three leagues!!!
And really finally - what's the situation with Clubmark?