Back training
I am just back into full training this week. This year I tried a different approach to my off-season. After Berlin I decided to keep my season going up to the end of September and maintain a reduced training load and do a few low key races. Other years, I would have finished my season after a major championship race in August and take 3-4 weeks off.
I did a 5km track race in Leeds, availing of the opportunity to do some Biomechanical assssment with Brian Hanley who is conducting a PHD in race walking biomechanics at Leeds Metropolitan University. The race was held on a very stormy Thursday evening, which I won comfortably in 20.09. Not a bad effort considering the conditions as I went through 3km in just under 12 mins, but the effort against the wind took its toll in the last 2km. The next day I spent the whole day in the lab, doing EMG test to analyse the muscle activity at different phases of my gait over force plates. My results showed a slight left-right discrepency but nothing significant. We looked through some video footage of the racs that Brian analysed during the year and in the Dublin GP where I finished 2nd my knee angle was 182 on the right and 179 on the left on initial contact and 182 and 184 during single suport; which satisfy the "Straightened knee" rule in theory at least.
The following day, I went down to Leicester to do a 10km race there. I had been wary of competing in races in the UK with domestic judging, with a high risk of being DQ’d as had happened before, and as it turned out I got DQ’d at 9km leading by 4 minutes and on for a sub 41 min performance. Two of my red cards were from domestic judges and the other from a more experienced Level 2 judge whose only explaination was that I should "stick to 50km as I’m not dynamic enough for shorter races"! That is not a requirement of either the contact rule or the straight knee rule. Others who were there including an international judge who was not judging saw nothing wrong with me. Unless people were just being extremely polite to me, the geneal consensus was that some of these judges don’t get to see really fast races. Lesson learned - I won’t be competing in UK domestic races ever again.
After the two races, I went down to London to visit my brother for a few days. I continued to train away as I had been planning on competing in the IAAF Challenge Final in Russia and had flight booked. However while I was there I had a reoccurance of my migraine problems and this lasted for 5 days. After speaking with my doctor he advised me not to travel to Russia as the long travel (3 hour flight and 12 hour train journey) would be too much stress and I wouldn’t be able to do myself justice in the race. So I decided to support the 5km road race my club were organising and do the race and finish my season. I ended up doing the 5km in 20.11.
At the end of September I went to Crete for a weeks holiday with Clare and took 2 weeks off training. It was great to get away and unwind and get some sun. I came back relaxed and refreshed. At the weekend we had Rob (Heffernan) and Marions wedding in Cork. It was a great weekend with all the athletes enjoying their off-season.
Now it’s back to work again and to prepare for 2010. I will be organising my 2010 schedule over the next few weeks. Will keep you posted.
