Still Running (weakly). Issue 60

PAST – inspiration – Having talked about the 1924 Paris Olympics last week, it is only fair to remind you that the first Paris Olympics were held in 1900, as part of the World’s Fair. This created some confusion, with many athletes, some of whom had won events, being unaware that they had in fact competed in the Olympic Games!

The games started on 14th May, finishing some five months later on 28th October! TV coverage must have swamped the channels for months! Some events were contested for the only time in the history of the Games, including angling, motor racing, ballooning, cricket, croquet, a 200-metre swimming obstacle race and underwater swimming! This was also the only Olympic Games to use live animals (pigeons) as targets during the shooting events.

Among other controversies, after the marathon, American competitors protested that the French gold and silver medallists had taken a short-cut, as they were the only ones not splattered with mud!

PRESENT – perspiration – Keely Hodgkinson, Matthew Hudson-Smith and the GB women’s 4x100 metres relay team will have done themselves no harm in the run-up to Paris, by setting British records at the London Diamond League on Saturday.

Have a look at the excellent documentary two-parter on Channel 4 – Path to Paris – which shows Hodgkinson, Josh Kerr, Jake Wightman and Morgan Lake preparing for the games, giving a real insight into the planning, preparation, pressure and pain behind the performance. If your idea of a great Saturday night’s entertainment is watching athletes nearly throwing up in training sessions – as mine is – then this is the series for you!

FUTURE – suggestion – A little change can have a lot of impact. Most runners are capable of going out and running a moderate distance at a moderate pace a moderate number of times a week. That’s great in itself.

But the real improvements will come from doing the sessions that put us – even briefly – out of our comfort zone. Examples include adding 30-seconds sprint/30-seconds jog, repeated 6 times, towards the end of a run – done strictly so that you are not recovering completely. You could also emphasise the hills on your undulating route so that you sprint up them for anything between 15 and 45 seconds at a time. Or perhaps extend your longest run by a mile each week –making sure that the last third of that run is a bit faster than the rest.

Not huge changes; not ones that will keep you awake the night before; but all doable. And all or some of them will see you running faster, longer and easier in a few weeks’ time. It doesn’t take a lot to have a significant impact.