2011 South of England Cross Country Championship Results

Another fun day at Parliament Hill and my first race for 3 months (left: photos Ken Hoye). All in all it was pretty hard work but an enjoyable one in the Saucony South of England Championships.

Up front Neilson Hall defended his title from last year in a much quicker time if my memory serves me correctly. The course seemed to be the driest I can remember, not that I was any good in the little mud there was ! Runner up was my Wells City Harriers club mate Ben Tickner and third was Jon Pepper with Parliament Hill specialist Chris Smith a close 4th.

A couple of minutes back I finished 29th which constitutes a personal worst for the southern but not unexpected given the lack of consistent training recently. You can only run on former glories (and mileage) for so long ! The lack of miles really told in the mud and up the hills though encouragingly I was able to work up a good head of steam on the flat, dry sections so the engine is in pretty good order. Just need to get some strength back in the leg muscles.

Today was pretty cold and I can't imagine it was much fun for the marshalls who had a long day battling dog walkers and their stray hounds. As has become the norm here the finish system works brilliantly with chip timing allowing results to be available on course a few minutes after the race is over. And this year I was far enough behind the leaders to hear the presentation starting to take place as I crossed the line !

No doubt much discussion will take place about the race starting with what seemed like several hundred people still trying to get through the chip inspection tent. The race started on time but there was a big bottle neck again to get to the start. It would be good to hear the SEAA perspective before passing judgement. On the one hand people knew what the start time was and on the other it did take a long time to get through the tent.

Whatever the rights and wrong of why it happened having a championship race get underway without many competitors on the start line has got to set alarm bells ringing and its something that needs to be fixed for 2012.

Results
Senior Men
1 48:23 Neilson Hall Bedford & County AC
2 48:40 Ben Tickner Wells City Harriers
3 49:00 Jon Pepper Enfield & Haringey AC
4 49:06 Chris Smith Thames Valley Harriers
5 49:06 Gary Thornton Kent AC
6 49:21 Glen Watts Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers
7 49:24 Dean Lacy Cambridge Harriers
8 49:27 Kevin Heywood Bideford AAC
9 49:34 Darren Deed Bedford & County AC
10 49:47 John Gilbert Kent AC
...
29 51.55 Adrian Marriott Wells City Harriers

Full results here

UK Marathon selection policy for London 2012

UKA (the governing body for athletics in UK) has published its initial approach to selecting the marathon team for the 2012 Olympics.

What jumps out is the absence of a trial race and an intention to select athletes before the end of 2011 if they are considered a top 8 shot and in possession of an A standard. Top up selections will take place after the 2012 London Marathon.

The 'A' and 'B' standards for men are 2:12:00 and 2:16:00 and for women are 2:31:00 and 2:35:00.

Yet again UKA has gone for tougher standards than the IAAF use and while it would be great to half a dozen lads running 2.10 we don't so I would think that there is a strong possibility of having less than a full mens team on the start line which is disappointing.

Interestingly a top 20 finish in Daegu counts as an 'A' standard so could be the best hope of getting an A standard (especially for the men). So a viable strategy may be sub 2.17 in London 2011, Top 20 in Daegu and then hope that only 2 others do the time. A bit perverse but there you go.

And for all the A and/or B standard questioners if athletes with an A standard are selected (up to 3 of them) then the B standard becomes redundant.

All the details are at http://uka.org.uk/media/news/january-2011/19-01-2011-olympic-selection-policies/

Dry needling for sports injuries

In recent months i've increasingly become a big fan of dry needling to release some of the chronically tight spots in my legs and back. I've had occassional needling for years as part of physiotherapy treatment from both Mark Buckingham and Claire Wheller. Last year after months of trouble with psoas, adductor magnus and the erector spinae I had a long session with Jona based, Swiss physiotherapist Philip Rist (left). Bizarrely we first met in 2003 in Eldoret when he was training there with Christian Belz and Viktor Rothlin and then reconnected several years later at the Zurich Silvesterlauf. Running really is a small world.

Anyway, Philip did some work with dry needles and spent some time manipulating them once they in the trigger point which was different from more traditional accupuncture. The adductor treatment was particularly uncomfortable but the impact was huge and within 48 hours I was noticeably looser and able to fully stride out for the first time in ages.

Contacts:
Physiotherapie Philip Rist (Rapperswil-Jona)
Neuhuesli-Park 22
8645 Jona
piporist@gmx.ch

Claire Wheller website
Running Bath, 18 High Street
01225 446450

Pre-london half marathon comes to Yeovil in March

The first Yeovil Half Marathon will take place on Sunday 27th March 2011. Starting and finishing at the Yeovil Town Football Club the course will take in the town centre, ninesprings country park and the village of Odcombe (below).

With the Bath Half Marathon sold out and other pre-London or Brighton options thin on the ground unless you want to travel to Wilmslow, Hastings or Fleet this should prove a popular fixture on the calendar and entries are already flooding in.

Placed 3 weeks before London this is the perfect weekend for a final hard workout before starting to taper. And if the marathon is a step to far for you in 2011 then a half could be a great target to aim for.

From a personal point of view I've run these roads thousands of times over the years and know them well. The layout will be sure to keep runners interested and there are some good spectating spots so bring some supporters along !

Online Entries HERE

Glutes and Quads - exercises and stretches

Here are a few exercises and stretches that I demonstrated to the folks at Yeovil Town Road Running Club at a recent track training evening they did.

Weak/tight glutes are the cause of countless problems for runners and some simple exercises and stretches can make a big difference in a short space of time.

A good place to start is with a simple diagnostic test. Stand on one leg and check that the knee is over the middle toe of the foot. Then do some knee bends and have a partner observe. If the knee is moving in when you bend this is sign of weak glutes and probably and over active TFL (the small muscle in the hip which has the IT Band as its tendon.



The 'clam' is a simple exercises to work the glutes and you can progress to exercises like 'wall press'.

Lie on you side with feet, knees and hips on top of each other. Put a hand on your backside to feel the muscle then squeeze gently o lift the top leg (keeping the feet together). Hold at the top and lower back down while keeping the muscle squeezed (often the most difficult part)


A great all round exercise is the lunge. Keep the upper body vertical, the front shin parallel to the ground and the rear thigh parallel to the ground. From standing lower yourself slowly and notice the glutes and quad muscles working hard to lower you. Only go as far as you can with control. Then push yourself back up using the samee muscles. Difficult !

Once the basic lunge is mastered you can move to a more dynamic lunge in a forward direction. Variations including a backward lunge and lunge with twist and explained and demonstrated very well by Jay Johnson on You tube.


Stretching tight quads can help take some of the stress of the front of the legs which can frequently contribute to patellar tendinitis and problems in the pelvis. Doing this stretch lying down is a big improvement on the standing up quad stretch that we often see performed. Why ? When standing your stability is not great (see weak glutes above !) and there is a tendency to tilt the pelvis which creates an illusion of stretching the quad.

Lie on the side with the bottom leg at 90 degrees to lock the pelvis. Grasp the top leg at the ankle and bring the foot towards the buttock until you feel the stretch.


To stretch the glutes lie on you back with the ankle of the leg to be stretched resting across the opposite knee. A gentle push against the knee will produce a stretch in the glute (right glute in the picture here). To deepen the stretch you can lift the left foot of the ground.

Friday Track Training in Yeovil

I've been quiet on the blog front for a couple of months now. Training this year has been pretty disjointed and there hasn't been a huge amount to write about on that front recently unless you like reading about psoas stretches and glute activation exercises !

That said i've managed to get the running back up to six days a week of running singles. The resulting 60-70miles feels ridiculously easy after years of higher mileage marathon training. My body is moving well enough to do some faster training again and I'm looking forward to some good cross country races in the New Year.

One thing I have been experimenting with is weight training. Its completely new for me so like anything new I had to start cautiously and quickly notice big improvements. I've got some things to write about now so this will be the topic for a future article...

Back to now and this evening (friday) I will be at the track in Yeovil helping out with Yeovil Town Road Running Club. When they started their friday night workouts there were but a handful of hardy souls and now you can see 40 plus runners stretching their legs in a couple of groups under the watchful eyes of Tim and the two Pete's. I'm looking forward to tonight and it comes hot on the heels of leading a couple of workshops on Road Running at the England Athletics conference at Lee Valley last weekend which was good fun.

UPDATED
Photos of the exercises and stretches last night to follow soon...

Gwent League Bridgend

A fantastic day for the teams from Wells City Harriers at sunday's Gwent League in Bridgend. On a glorious day in south wales the senior celebrated their Div 1 debut by tying for spot. Led home by the clubs most recent international, supervet Jon James in 7th place, the team scored consistently. Eliot Haimes returned from pneumonia to take 13th and I got round one place behind in 14th. While my run was hardly setting the turf alight at least I was able to move fairly freely and enjoyed being in a race again. Behind us captain Gilling produced a storming last hundred meters to hold off several runners in a bunch sprint.

Earlier in the day the U15 girls had packed 3 scorers in the first 10 to dominate their age group. And with English Schools Cross Country Champ to come back into the team they should put up a good showing at this weekends road relays.

Speaking of which, Sutton Park will come a bit too soon for me. While I survived Sunday I have been pretty stiff the last couple of days and I just need to be sensible. On Sunday I was able to run a solid tempo though I still can't fully stride out but that is coming and hopefully I will be ready for the XC relays in a months time.

Full Results