Olympian Coaching Training Prep

A Weeks Intensive Running and Swimming to Find My Fitness Before Sunday

So this coming Sunday is a big day for me. I found out last weekend that I had won a days worth of coaching over at Loughborough Performance centre with top Olympians, William Sharman and Tom Pearsons, along with Team GB coaches, physiotherapists and nutritionists, courtesy of UK Athletics. I should probably point out that the competition was a web based one and I didn’t win on the merits of my running – but a prize is still a prize right!?

For a few days after the news I was bouncing off the walls so to speak but towards the end of the weekend It finally hit me that I actually need to be in shape for the session. These Olympians obviously aren’t going to expect the next Usain Bolt, or Mo Farah to turn up on the day, but I still need to actually have the fitness to manage at least one lap around the track and maybe the odd VO2max test (eurgh!)

Seeing as I have just arrived back in the UK from three months worth of binge drinking around Asia (er I mean travelling), I am not exactly on top form at the moment. The hip tendonitis that I have been suffering from for the past eight months is all but gone, but now I am left with the task of trying to regain some vestige of fitness left over from my university athletic club days. Oh dear – this is going to be tough!

At the beginning of this week I set a plan of six targets that hopefully I can achieve by the end of the week. Completing all six will hopefully give me both the fitness and the confidence to go into Sunday’s session with the knowledge that I won’t collapse during the warm up and embarrass myself in front of two of Team GB’s most promising London 2012 medal hopefulls!

Targets:Sunday – 30 min run at sub 4:40 min/km

• Monday – 30minutes of physio exercises
• Tuesday – 2.5km swim in 52minutes
• Wednesday – 30minutes of physio exercises
• Thursday – 30min run sub 4:30min km
• Friday – 2.5km swim in 50minutes
• Saturday – Rest

So far both Monday and Tuesday’s targets have been knocked on the head with no problems which means hopefully Thursdays and Fridays sessions shouldn’t be too much of an extra challenge.

Tuesdays swim was quite eventful (for a swimming session) as when I was halfway through my 100 lengths of the pool a bloke of about 30 started swimming front crawl at a pretty fast pace in my lane. I was hard pushed to keep up with him and eventually after 20 more laps he caught me…only to promptly leave the pool. One of the other swimmers in the next lane told me that the bloke has had to leave because he was worn out and usually swims for half an hour or more! Confidence boost over, I finished my 100 lengths in a time four minutes faster than last week.