MONTHLY COACHING ADVICE FROM BRUCE JONES Wesley is very fortunate to have Bruce Jones as our club coach. He has walked the talk and so you can now benefit from Bruce's knowledge and experience. Bruce is happy to help athletes of all levels. Here is a summary of Bruce's running achievements; AUSTRALIA * Represented Australian Universities on the 1971 Track Tour of New Zealand and the 1972 Cross Country Tour of New Zealand (2nd to Euan Robertson in the Test match). * Selected for the World University Games in 1970. * Won two Australian National Cross Country Championships in 1973 and 1975. * Third in the Australian 1500m Track Championship in 1973. NEW ZEALAND * Represented New Zealand at two World Cross Country Championships in 1977 and 1979. * First in the New Zealand 5000m Track Championship in 1976. * Third in the New Zealand Cross Country Championship in 1978 * Third in the New Zealand Road Championship in 1979. BEST TIMES 800: 1:54 1500: 3:43 5000: 13:40 10000: 28:50 3. A TRAINING PROGRAMME IS BASED ON KEY CONCEPTS You have now set your running goals and established that is going to take time to reach them. You are not going to let running rule your life but you are also determined to make sure you give yourself every chance by eating well, resting and getting plenty of sleep! So where to now? A training programme is pretty essential otherwise just going out the door and doing what you feel like is highly unlikely to allow you to reach your goals. So some sort of structure is required but is it running every day? running for an hour each day? heading to the track and doing some intervals? do I run hard out every day? and what about hill work? how often should I race? how do I peak for important races? do I need rest days? Lots of questions and the role of a coach is to help sort it out and explain. We cannot cover it all in this edition but let us start from the beginning with a key concept - CONSISTENCY. If you are serious about your running development then you must be consistent with your training and racing. Training for 2 weeks then voluntarily taking a week off is not going to help. If you are running 5 days per week then you should be running 5 days each and every week until the end of the season. Running every single day is not necessary to improve. Remember running is developmental and for secondary school runners it is wise to have a rest day or two. For a serious mature senior runner running every day is recommended (or no more than one rest day). Consistency requires discipline and organisation of your private life to allow you to train on a regular basis. Another key concept is building an AEROBIC base through long running/endurance running. Aerobic running is where you are running well within your capacity and a fit athlete can maintain this sort of running for many minutes if not hours. The aerobic base is built up with long running of different distances eg some runs will be 10 km and others will be long runs of 20km or more. Of course 'long' is a relative term and for a secondary school athlete a long run maybe 60 - 90 minutes but for a mature senior athlete a long run could be 2 to 2.5 hours. What is critical to understand is that building an aerobic base is the most important factor for getting the best results. It is as simple as that!! Everything in distance running should be based on building this endurance platform. You simply cannot perform at a high level without it. Every week of the year you should include on 'long' run (usually on a Sunday). Never miss this long run as it is the most important days training in the week. However as stated above building an aerobic base is much more than one long run per week. Most other runs in the week (all year round) should also be endurance running of different length/time. Moreover aerobic running is not just for the winter season or for building up to the summer season. It is very easy to lose the aerobic base and it needs constant maintenance. In the summer track season your endurance running is equally as important although the efforts may be less intense when you are track racing. However the endurance running should still be done. Any questions email coach@wesley.org.nz Next Coaching Advice: Other key concepts such as the pace of your endurance running and recovery. 2. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF A TRAINING PROGRAMME (a) Goal Setting. This principle was covered in my first article on Coaching Advice. (b) Moderation and Balance. In life and in athletics it certainly helps to have things in balance. A well adjusted and organised athlete is far more likely to succeed than an athlete who is extreme in their daily training routine (see (c) below) or who compromises their (balanced) training with erratic behaviour in relation to sleep, rest and diet. This may be an obvious principle but many athletes under-achieve in the long term due to being obsessive with their training or showing a lack of discipline. It does not mean you have to be a boring person and not have fun - you just need to know where to draw the line. One late night per week will not hurt you but two or three will certainly curtail your potential. Also it helps if you have interests other than athletics as this will allow you to more easily put things in perspective and take the pressure off an all or nothing approach. (c) Distance Training is Developmental. If you wander out to the Mt Smart track in summer or follow the Auckland Cross Country season you cannot help but notice there are good size fields in the Under 19 and below age groups and in the Masters races but very little offering at Senior level. Why is this? There are many reasons but one significant reason is that I believe many young athletes are training too hard and getting carried away with the rapid success and improvement that such training will bring to a young athlete. It is not too difficult to pump full on 7 days a week training into a 12 - 16 year old however such training will not DEVELOP an athlete into a senior champion in a big pool. It will perhaps bring instant success in a very small fish pond simply because they train harder than their peers. The sport is littered with athletes who stand out at schoolboy/schoolgirl level but stand down when they turn 18 - 19 and enter senior ranks. Athletes should take a building block approach to training and as they grow older and mature their training schedules should reflect this. (d) Learn From Your Body. This principle is related very closely to (b) and (c) above. Only the wise train according to their age and their capacity to run. Tiredness sets in from training/racing and athletes must respond by making sure they manage this tiredness by rest, recovery runs, plenty of sleep and eating and drinking sensibly. Gold medals and World Records do not come overnight - they come from years and years of DEVELOPMENTAL work. They do not come from pounding the body year in and year out from an early age. Any questions please email coach@wesley.org.nz Next Coaching Advice: A Training System is Based on Key Concepts 1. TRAINING TO REACH YOUR GOALS At Wesley there are a wide range of athletes with different athletic ambitions. The under age group athlete through to the Veteran/Masters athlete all run because I expect they enjoy the camaradarie which a vibrant club like Wesley offers. They also run because many have individual goals that they aspire to whilst I expect some run with no particular goal in mind. Before we start I should tell you a little about myself as it may prove useful in giving some background to what I will outline with respect to training and racing. The advice I give on this website will be general and as a coach at the Wesley Club I am more than happy to give individual advice to members. I currently have a small squad of Wesley athletes and if you are a secondary school age or older then please feel free to contact me at bruce.jones@aut.ac.nz The basis of any coaching advice I offer comes from years of experience as an athlete in which I have won two Australian Cross Country Championships as well as placing in Australian and New Zealand Track Championships from 1500m to 5000m. I have represented New Zealand in two World Cross Country Championships. In addition I acknowledge my advice also stems from being coached in New Zealand by the legendary Arch Jelley. Arch's training programmes were based on the conditioning and training systems of Arthur Lydiard. Before I came to live in New Zealand I was coached in Australia by multi-world record holder Ron Clarke. In 1980/81 I taught at Xavier College in Melbourne with good friend Pat Clohessy (the coach of Rob DeCastella) and to work with Pat in helping coach the Xavier Athletics team gave me invaluable insight in how to coach young aspiring athletes. Finally a big influence has been my friend in Australia Chris Wardlaw. I first started running at 14 years with Chris when we were at Melbourne High School. Through school and university we competed hard against each other and discussed and devised training methods which form a good part of what this column will say about training and racing. Chris went on to become a dual Olympian in the 10,000m and marathon as well as being the Head Coach of the Australian Track and Field Team for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. He is best known as the coach of Steve Moneghetti who ranked Number 1 in the world in 1994 over the marathon in 2.08.13 and is currently the coach of Craig Mottram. Even today Chris and I regularly talk about training methods and the association with athletic performance. As a coach I obviously believe in goal setting as it helps to motivate runners and striving for an objective brings satisfaction when it has been achieved. The goal set by athletes will not be the same for each individual - some aim to be the very best whilst others have the goal to just enjoy themselves and have fun. Moreover many will have goals that fall in between these two. Whatever your goal may be this section may prove helpful to you. I encourage all athletes to set goals and if you have not thought about this then now is a good time to do so for running will become mentally a lot more enjoyable if you go out the door for a run knowing it is going to lead you to achieving a personal goal. A good place to start is to set a Short Term goal which might be something as simple as running 3 times a week for the next 6 weeks or it might be to break 2 minutes 50 seconds for 800m before the end of March. A Medium Term Goal might be to place in the top 30 runners for your age group in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships in June of this year. A Long Term Goal could be to run a marathon in under 3 hours by the end of 2011 or it might be to make the New Zealand Olympic team for the 2016 games. Whatever type of athlete you may be and whatever your aspirations are you will gain more from your sport if you take a few minutes to sit down and make some realistic goals. Mentally you will gain an immediate impact and the next time you set out for a run you will have this mental focus to complement your physical training effort. Next Month: Fundamental Principles of a Training Programme.