I remember my squash coach back in the day. He had eyes and ears everywhere. If you played well he knew. If you lost your temper and broke your racket he knew. Always watching. I’m not suggesting you’re about to get an email if you’re not pocket to socketing but watch out, especially if you choose to run by the river.
In all seriousness, many thanks to Coach for sharing his guidance. Here it is.
Maintain and Stay Sane
It’s been a challenging few weeks now for everybody including us keen Postal Harriers, with restrictions on training; cancelled races and the loss of the club wide interactions that makes our club that little bit special.
Despite all of this we have been kept busy by Simons daily endure event. Thank you Middo! and it always brings cheer when you see a fellow Postie out on their run passing (at distance) with a smile and a wave.
I have been giving some thought to training during this period of isolation and restriction and boiled it down to 2 key things:
1. Sustainable Wellbeing. Deanna summed this up really well in her blog recently, commenting that just getting out and enjoying the run is enough. Use the time to clear your head, or plan ahead - you don’t have to hit exhaustion to get benefit from a run. Please note though that you still need to plan runs and give yourself time for recovery and rest so don’t overdo the mileage. (PS ignore this comment if you are in team S2P - we need miles to win the race!).
Also don’t lose this opportunity to mix things up a bit. Try new exercises at home and or with the family. There are a mass of punishing strength, flexibility and conditioning exercise routines you can try. Give them a go! We have been working on our plyometrics over the winter - keep those exercises going to develop the strength and core stability you can call on when we can race again.
2. Maintain your fitness base. It’s tough pushing on without team mates to motivate you and having no race goal to target. So while continuing to mix up your training sessions, dial them back a little. Fewer sets of intervals or dialling down the pace will keep you fresh and maintain all the benefits from the hard miles you have put in over the dark winter months.
You could even try and get the Junior Posties in waiting out from behind their screens and introduce this young pool of potential talent to the joy of running. Remember though it must be fun and don’t do too much too soon.
If anyone would like any specific coaching advise or training plan guidance just give me a call or email. Id be happy to help.
May see you along the river - at a safe distance of course.
Coach.
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