Friday 1 October 2010

In awe...



On many occasions throughout the (nearly) four years I have been running I have found myself in awe of people in this field. They may be runners, coaches or 'famous' athletes. Few however, have I been able to get in close proximity of.

I do admire many people and quite recently have been privileged to speak to and feel the benefits of those in the know. Firstly through being given the opportunity to take a Leadership in Running Fitness course and the multitude of people I have come into contact with through our club being in the Airedale Athletics Partnership. Most recently the Speed work for endurance runners course I signed up for. Despite my inability to take part due to injury I have turned up each Thursday for the sessions in the hope of gleaning information from the experts. I have not been disappointed. I can liken some of the things I have listened to as 'light bulb' moments. To quote athletics coach Brian Scobie from this weeks session, 'the human body is lazy' - Brian went on to explain how it is necessary to train the body to do more (in our case push ourselves when running). Our bodies will not voluntarily work harder, we have to physically train our bodies to do more. Which makes sense. Continually running at a pace which is comfortable for us will not help us to sustain running at a higher pace - hence speed work, intervals, fartleks etc all help us to train our bodies to do more. He raised chuckles from the group as he mimicked the body speaking - 'I'm not going any faster, bugger that' - he reminds me of a tamer Billy Connolly with his Scottish accent - minus the obscenities so often heard from the comedian! It makes you consider your own training, plodding along doing the same things week in week out for years until presented with opportunities such as taking part in topic specific courses, gives you a 'wake up call'.

I'm still hopeful of being able to join in the course before it ends but if I'm not able then I shall just try and store the valuable information in the hope of using it in the future and of course, passing it on ***frantically making notes from last night's training session***

2 comments:

  1. Joolz, I am in awe of you and how you have still kept on going, albeit in a different capacity to running and racing, throughout your injury...

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  2. Thanks Soph!
    It's my friends who keep me going.....

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