How to get lucky

This weekend was the Lauberhorn round of the Ski World Cup in Wengen, Switzerland and while the main event was snowed off on Saturday the big news was made by little known Niels Hintermann who won the Combined event on Friday.

Its a story worth telling because it illustrates beautifully the power of focusing on the things that you can control and not wasting energy on the rest.

The Alpine Combined is a two race event. A downhill followed by a slalom with the second race having the top 30 starting in reverse order i.e. the slow downhillers (who tend to be the faster slalomers) going first and setting a time for the faster downhillers to chase. It's fun as the pressure mounts and the fast downhill guys who are not great through the slalom gates progressively crack under pressure.

Its Friday morning, the snow is falling and the organisers decide to run the slalom first and hope for better Downhill conditions later. Niels Hintermann has start number 51. This is like being told 'you are here to make up the numbers - be grateful'. With 50 skiers already down the course the corners are a bit of a mess and the snow is still falling with a nasty wind to boot. Oh yes, and Hintermann is a 21 year old downhill guy - from the flat part of Switzerland. Not an auspicious start. He does a final mental run through of the course, takes in the atmosphere and launches himself down the slalom course. 50 seconds later and he has navigated all the gates as well as he can and his reward is 23rd place in the slalom. Nothing earth shattering but he is still in the race.

Afternoon and the conditions have improved and the downhill is on. Its not the full 2min 30 of Lauberhorn hell that makes up the full downhill but it is enough to sort the men from the boys in the combined. The first seven skiers make their way down the course. A mix of slalom guys, who had a bad first run and their day gets even worse on the jumps and turns, and downhillers who qualified through the slalom and start posting some decent target times. Hintermann stands in the start gate. This is what he has dreamed of since being a kid. He is Swiss and this is the Lauberhorn. He knows what it takes. He launches himself out of the gate and striking the perfect balance between control and attack he aces the course. As soon as he crosses the line he knows that he has skied as well as he can. He doesn't need any scoreboard to tell him that. He punches the air in delight, his face paints a picture of deep satisfaction. Looking up at the scoreboard it tells him that for now he is the fastest, top dog, No1. The Swiss fans go mad. His 5 mins of fame before some of the remaining 22 skiers beat his time and push him off the podium.

Hintermann takes his place at the finish line in the spot reserved for the current leader, the TV cameras on his face after every competitor completes his run. The next skiers come down and can't beat his time. Light snow starts to fall and he is guaranteed a top 20 finish, his best ever.

Then more snow falls, this is terrible for racers as it slows the skis. Some of the skiers are beaten before they start, their negative body language in the start house betraying that they have thrown in the towel. More racers fail to beat Hintermann's time and before he knows it he is guaranteed a top 10 and then a podium. Hintermann is in the moment, just enjoying the drama of every attempt to beat his leading time. As the last racer starts the penny start to drop. And the impossible happens. The guy with start number 51, who is there to make up the numbers and 'gain experience', wins on the Lauberhorn.

What's the take out?

Hintermann focused on two things. His slalom run and his downhill run. He didn't worry about what the organisers thought about him (his start number), his competitors, the weather, doing enough to score a point/secure some sponsorship. He just did his stuff - skied as best he could, twice. Meanwhile some of his competitors were complaining about the weather, making stupid mistakes and taking their foot off the gas. Yes he got lucky with when the snow fell but he put himself in a perfect position to take advantage of the situation.

Whether it is in sport or business the take out is clear. Focus on the things that are in your control and execute your skills to your absolute best. Everything else is out of your control so for sure one day you will get lucky - make sure that you do you are in position to make the most of it.

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Strength or weakness focus?

When you are planning your training or doing a performance review for a colleague or deciding which meal to cook for visitors at the weekend what do you focus on?

Do you start with weaknesses, focusing on putting in place actions to make those weaknesses less weak?

Or do you start with strengths, finding ways to stretch and challenge and make those strengths even stronger?

Its easy to fall in to some lazy patterns of behaviour. Focusing on the strengths that we enjoy because, hey they are strengths and as a result not really stretching ourselves to make them out of this world strengths. Or picking on a whole list of weaknesses, beating ourselves/colleagues up about them and spending huge amounts of time to make them less of a problem but without ever being able to really use them as an asset.

Many of us have witnessed work environments where the whole people development ethos was to get everybody up to an acceptable level of mediocrity but with no glaring weaknesses. How much more inspiring when the focus is on developing knockout excellence in a few areas and taking care of any potential de-railers.

How about committing to a different approach this year in your sport and workplace?

Be as creative as possible to take your strengths to an out of this world level - that's a challenging process in its own right and at the same time highly rewarding.

Then with weaknesses, be really clear about which which weaknesses are going to be limiting if not fixed and put some effort into those.

Finally spend time on both on a regular basis. Remember that returning to a strength tends to give confidence, especially when you know that it is getting even better.

Stick at it and surprise yourself

How long does it take to get good at something? To get as good as you possibly can?

Well it depends on lots of factors but what never ceases to surprise me is how many people underestimate the scope they have to improve at something that is important to them. 

I ran my first cross country race in October 1980 and my fastest 10,000m in June 2008. Thats quite a time gap and lots of improvement, much of which I wouldn't have said was possible if you asked me at the time.

My first coaching was in the early the early 1990's (I didn't know I was coaching, I was just observing some of my team mates train when I was injured and offered them some feedback on their session and ideas for improvement). 25 years later and I still make plenty of coaching mistakes and get better as a result.

If after 3 or 4 years you think you are maxed out on your development think again. With acquiring new skills we often hit a plateau. Whether its in running, speaking a foreign language, managing people or drawing cartoons. Thats when its easy to think we have got as good as we can and further effort is only going to produce minimal reward. Its also the time to challenge ourselves to look for some new inspiration to push our skill level forward again.

Look at the people around you who have got as good as they can be. What have they done to keep improving when they have hit a plateau? Often its as simple as being consistent and patient. Breakthroughs in sport often come as big leaps forward after several years of consistent training.

Stick at, keep an open mind about just how good you can become and always be open to new ideas.

Embrace the different

As the festive break gets underway, for many of us this means a period of a week or more that looks very different to how we normally live. Different people, different places, different time schedules, different food. You get the picture. That can be incredibly stressful, especially if we are trying to fit in 'what and how' we normally live around the different.

There is an alternative. Embrace the different for all its worth.

This goes for our sport as well at this time of year. Train at different times of the day and embrace the different temperatures and light. Substitute in a long family hike (and add a backpack for some extra strength training). Run with different people or inspire the less active to hop on a bike and accompany you. Try out some different routes (and implement a RunNudge™ such as 'leave the watch at home').

Enjoy a wonderful festive period and all the difference it brings!

Maintain your biggest assets

Does the driver service their car regularly or wait for it to breakdown - then face an urgent and expensive repair at the moment when they need their car the most?

Does the chef sharpen his knife daily or wait for it to become blunted - causing him to cut himself when prepping the most important meal of the week (have you noticed that it's always the blunt knives that make the nasty cuts)?

Does the athlete make sure that their body is properly aligned with all the muscles working optimally or do they wait until they get injured - invariably in the lead up to the big race that they have prepared for passionately?

Whatever our work or hobby, if we are passionate and committed then maintaining our biggest asset is a non-negotiable.

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Never let a crisis go to waste

Imagine, its 3 months before the Olympics and you suffer serious ankle ligament injuries requiring surgery and 6 weeks in a protective boot. What's worse is that your sport is weight bearing and requires a huge amount of force to be put through your ankles. What do you do? Curse your bad luck and accept that you won't be fit enough to challenge for medals or do you focus on what you can do and get creative?

This was the scenario facing Swiss cross country skier Dario Cologna before Sochi. Unable to ski Cologna and his coached asked themselves the question 'what could we do that will contribute to our goal of winning in Sochi'. The answer came in the shape of a sledge.

Dario Colonia focusing on what can be done

By doing a block of training on a sledge using just his upper body for propulsion he was able to just about maintain his aerobic fitness and also develop his upper body strength to a level that he would not normally have achieved when doing plenty of ski training with his legs.

Come race day, Cologna had just enough aerobic fitness to hang in there with his competitors and then on the final hill, where upper body strength can make the difference, he pulled away to take the gold medal.

We might not be facing setbacks 100 days before the Olympics but there there are always things that we would like to be able to do and for various reasons can't, in sport and our work. We want to run up long hills to prepare for that trail race but we live on the flat, we wish we could heavily promote our new product but only have a tiny marketing budget. Focusing on the reasons for 'not being able to' just sap our mental energy and get us nowhere. There is a better way.

Focus on the resources that you do have available, the time at your disposal and the scary, exciting, goal that you are shooting for. Then get creative to challenge your body and mind to learn and develop. Amaze yourself with what you can achieve.

3 good things - using gratitude to raise performance

Its very easy to focus on the things that have gone badly. You may recognise the following sort of dialogue in your mind at the end of the day: "this morning's train was late, what a waste of time the marketing meeting was, I felt tired on my training run, I didn't spend enough time with the kids. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same...." And on it goes. Not very helpful is it?

Research is now starting to back up what we intuitively know about showing gratitude for the good things in life. It makes us feel happier, more fulfilled and relaxed when appreciate what is good in our lives. The impact can also be felt by others when you share your gratitude.

For a while now I have been finishing each day with a simple little activity. I notice 3 good things in my life that day. You can write them down or share them out loud. I share them with Karin as I get a deeper connection to the experience when I force myself to vocalise it to others. 

Its a remarkably powerful tool and I am amazed at the number of times I surprise myself with what has made me grateful that day. We even surprise each other, so its also a great tool for knowing significant people in your life even better. It also guarantees that my mind is in a restful state ready for sleep.

You can adapt this approach to work as well. I once worked in a team that had a brief stand up meeting every Friday afternoon to share what had gone well that week and appreciate the contribution of colleagues.

What can you do to appreciate more the good things in your life?

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Lone wolf or part of a pack?

How much of your running do you do alone as opposed to with other people? How much training do you do with one of your biggest competitors?

This was a hot topic on our recent 'Run like a Kenyan' Masterclass and it prompted me to re-read an article I wrote over a decade ago on training with the Kenyans (as opposed to just running in Kenya). You can get the article at the bottom of this piece.

The discussion got me thinking about what is an optimal balance, especially for an athlete who wants to improve. Whether its the Kenyans, US College teams, Lydiard's Kiwis or the club runs of 1980's Britain then training in groups has been a significant factor of the dominant running cultures.

The benefits are multiple and to pick on just a few.

Different runners have different strengths - in the late 90's I trained with guys like Alex Rosen and Will Davies as part of a group in London. They were 800m runners and hanging on to them while running 300m reps improved my speed in a way that I could never have achieved solo. Equally, following me for 15km of long endurance efforts on winter Saturday mornings gave them an endurance base that would otherwise have been out of reach.

Good day/bad day - if i'm having a bad day then following rather than setting the pace gives me some respite. This was part of the genius of the Kenyan groups I ran with. There were always some fresh legs to take the lead and the tired ones could focus on running relaxed.

Sense of team - when i've got an appointment with the pack I don't want to let them down and so I make sure that I get there. Its all too easy for things to get in the way of our running and commitments to other runners help hold us accountable. After all, its consistent training that leads to improved performance.

When you think about it this makes total sense. The principles are no different from working together on a business project or being part of a family system. The different skills of the team make innovation and progress possible, the mutual support helps us through the hard times and colleagues hold each toes to the fire to ensure that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (at least in a high performing team anyway, but thats a topic for another day). 

As for training with your competitors, thats more of a psychological stretch. Why would you help the person who is trying to beat you to get fitter? Look at it like this. In a race there may be dozens or thousands of competitors trying to beat you. If you can work with one (or some) of them in training to take you both to a higher level then the total number of serious competitors has just gone down. Mo Farah and Galen Rupp worked like this before the London Olympics and hey presto, Gold and Silver.

Now its time to ask yourself: What is the right amount of time to spending training with my pack and what can I contribute to make it stronger?

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This is the article from the British Runner magazine mentioned above. 

New York, New York

I just love the New York Marathon and as an athlete it was one my big regrets that I never got to toe the start line. Yes, the crowds and the vibes of the different borough's no doubt make it a special experience for many of the runners but what has always grabbed my attention has been the challenge of the course and the absence of pacemakers in the elite races.

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Prepare well and run a smart race and New York will reward you. Treat it as just another flatish marathon and race accordingly and it could all end in tears. While Boston may have Heartbreak Hill and the rolling section of the Newton Hills to strike fear and respect into competitors, New York has just a series of seemingly innocuous undulations and the bridges of Verrazano Narrows and Queensboro. And it is precisely that variation, especially the downhills which can catch out the unprepared and leave the final section through Central Park feeling like torture.

At the sharp end of the race the absence of pacemakers makes for compelling racing as athletes duel to the end, racing as it should be. Remember Tergat v Ramaala in 2005? If you want a recap of one of the most exciting finishes in marathon history take a look at Youtube. Every time I watch it I wonder who is going to come out on top!

In the end what makes New York such a great test is that it you against the course, your competitors and yourself in the knowledge that you are unlikely to be rewarded with a personal best time, only the satisfaction of performing at your best when it matters.

What type of racing do you go in for?

End of season break

This is an updated version of a piece I wrote a few years ago and still remains a massively important topic for runners of all abilities. If you are unsure about whether to take an end of season break, here is the article in full.

Hands up if you take a proper end of season break ? And I don't mean a couple of days of cross training before launching into a slightly shorter long run. But more of a proper kenyan style 2 months back at the shamba catching up with friends and fattening up the animals as well as yourself ? Ok, so that's probably a bit extreme as well in the age of the professional runner who needs to race regularly to make a living but it does illustrate the point about when is a break a break.

Watching Mo Farah being interviewed on the BBC a couple of years ago was a good reminder about just how important this is. Asked about what he had been doing recently he said a couple of weeks holiday with his family, eating stuff he doesn't normally eat and adding 3 kgs. The interviewer looked a bit surprised at this and asked if he had been doing any running - No, none was the reply.

October is the time of year when people are coming back from their end of season breaks (or not) and watching how they are running is fascinating from a coaching pointing view. It tells you a lot about how they have recovered from their last period of training and more importantly their prospects for the season ahead.

You've got the ones who didn't bother with a break because hey, rest is for whimps. They are still running OK and over the coming months will start to struggle with a plateau in performance then illness and injury before being forced to take the break which they should have had earlier. Inevitably the break will be longer and at just the wrong moment in their build up for a really important race. This will be put down to ''bad luck" and guess what, the pattern will repeat itself in future as the lessons fail to get learned.

Then you've got those who took a break but perhaps only a short one to recharge the batteries before launching into a fairly hard block of training. They are either running really well already as they add some extra endurance onto a summer base of speed or they got hurt almost straight away as they increased their training load again. The ones who navigated the transition and stayed healthy could well be flying by November and keep this going into the New Year. I did this in 1998 - PBs on the track in the summer, short break then spent the autumn/winter doing twice weekly Frank sessions at Battersea and racing brilliantly before running out of steam in Feb and breaking down completely in March. Some early season glory but I came up short when it mattered and missed out making the World Cross Team when I had my best chance. Then I wasn't around at all in the summer of '99 when I should have been taking more chunks off my PBs.

And then there are a third group of runners who've taken a proper end of season break of 2-3 weeks, possibly added a little bit of weight (but still stayed in shape) and totally recharged themselves mentally as well as physically. Their return to training is a bit sluggish and laboured and they will often wonder how on earth they could be so far away from top fitness (in reality they aren't, it just feels like it). When they start up again the training is crucial. Remember the principles of training/de-training. One of the things that reverses fastest when you stop is the neuro-muscular co-ordination. So this means that those wonderful smooth/efficient/powerful movement patterns that you have spent time developing need re-programming before you increase your training load too much - otherwise you risk using muscles incorrectly and injury will follow. So it requires patience, perhaps a 4-6 week block where you focus on re-establishing great movement patterns and gradually building the training load (volume/intensity) before you really get down to the winters hard work.

So what gets in the way of taking the third approach ? Often its a simple anxiety along the lines of "if im not training hard then i'm losing fitness" which prevents people taking a proper break and then starting up again gradually. You need to think a bit longer term. Its like climbing a mountain. Climb up, establish a base camp, then climb to the next level before briefly dropping back to base. Climb again, return to Camp 1 etc, etc. A small step back in the short term enables you to go much higher in future.

Another barrier I see is pressure to race - which generally means clubs, schools, parents, friends telling people to race 'or you will be letting the team down.' And of course if you want to race you want to be fit don't you ? This is really difficult to deal with because in the absence of a support network that really understands long term development the athlete needs to be really strong of character to say no and do what is best for them. For school age children one way around this is to schedule their break at the start of the summer holidays after English Schools Track is over and then use August and September as a 'return to training' month before competion starts again.

So whether you are racing an autumn marathon, peaked for English Schools Track or have just enjoyed a summer of road racing, taking a proper break followed by a well thought through return to training is absolutely critical to continued long term progression.

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Sub 30 minute 10k training

This post about my training in the spring of 2008 and how it impacted my race performance in the Olympic 10,000m trial at Watford in July was one the most popular on my old blog.

Last weeks 29:47 came at the end of a disrupted winter. After a good recovery from Toronto in September I was able to put together a good couple of months up to xmas culminating in a good run at Clevedon on Boxing Day. January was a bit of disaster with the eventful Kenya trip and as a result I wasn't able to do a lot of training. February was disrupted by illness which caused me to pull out of London but I was still able to keep a decent volume but without much quality running. From March I've been able to string together a consistent 3 months with plenty of weeks in the 100-110 range and good aerobic running down to about 5 minute miling plus plenty of strides and hill sprints.

2 days before the Bristol 10k at the beginning of May I did a Gigliotti Test which confirmed that I was aerobically fit and this proved to be so with a controlled 30.26 on the roads of Bristol. The data for the Gigliotti test is below. For me the key information are the lactate readings at slower than threshold pace, so the first 4 stages. This tells me how aerobically fit I am and I tend to do the test on the track every couple of months to monitor progress.

Lap Time (2k) HR La
80 06:40 160 1.3
79.5 06:38 160 1.4
78 06:30 163 2
77 06:24 166 2.7
75.5 06:18 168 4.4

So coming out of Bristol I knew that my aerobic shape was good and leg speed was also good so the task to prepare for the trials was simply to build the specific speed endurance required for the 10,000m. To do this I ran 5 workouts during the month before the trials and they were as follows:

1. 10x90secs grass at about 3k effort
2. 4x5mins grass with 2 at 10k effort and 2 at 5k effort
3. 10x1km track at 2:57 km to simulate target race pace
4. 14x400m track with 200m easy starting at 68 and finishing at 64
5. 4 x (1km in 2:57 / 200 easy / 400 in 67/68) one week before the race to practice faster laps mixed with race pace

And for specific work that was it. I still kept the strides/hill sprints and a weekly tempo run while cutting the volume back to about 70 miles a week in the last 10 days to make sure I was able to freshen up. One of the things I have learnt over the years is that when I am fit it only takes a few weeks of anaerobic running to come into top shape.

Going into the race I knew that even if I had a bad day I was going to break 30 for the first time and I think this was key. By preparing to run 29:30 the mental doubts of will I / won't I around the 30 min barrier never really existed. Indeed during the 2 best sessions (no 3 &4) I was even visualising 29:22 and with some improvements to my build up this was achievable ...

So if I was going to look to improve on this build up I would have included one or two track races during May and probably done 1 more 10k pace session with longer reps at 29:30 pace. That said, the 10,000m trials were a secondary priority for me this season behind running a faster marathon in the autumn so a more focused 10k preparation may have compromised by main goal.

Overall, mission accomplished. 10,000m PB, good aerobic fitness, plenty of leg speed and great place to be starting a marathon build up from.

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Life begins at 40 →

I get plenty of questions from older athletes who are worried whether it is too late for them to improve or even start on a training plan. The good news is that it's never too late as I explain in this article written for the Western Gazette.