Friday 1 October 2010

A commonwealth of young talent

 After a fabulous summer of sport, I was looking forward to the next chapter in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.   OK, not the Olympics, for me THE championships for home country athletes after the "big one".   Particularly with the emergence of the participating African countries and,  of course, the superb standard of the Jamaican sprinters. 
 However, despite having had years to "deliver",  as it is put, clearly preparations have not gone to schedule and many top athletes are pulling out day by day.  I hope these athletes will be replaced and some emerging young athletes will grasp the chance to take part in these Delhi championships and perhaps treat them as a step on the ladder to the London Olympics.   After all living conditions can't be anywhere near as bad as those which many of them would put up with at a 4 day Pop Festival!   Yes, it would have been good to have seen Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Idowu etc. but certainly judging by this shot of the England team we'll be well represented and we can look forward to great competitive races  with
the athletes enjoying 3 star (as opposed to 5 star ) accommodation in between.  

Sale Harriers had 17 athletes in the original selection, 5 of them hammer throwers.  I am particularly looking forward to seeing how 19 year old Niall Brooks fares in the 800 metres and Kate Dennison in the pole vault.



To be honest, my concern would not be so much about the athletes'  village rather than the level of security!

 I was back on the track myself today for this week's session .   Last week,  I managed  5 x 1K averaging 4.27.   The plan and the hope was that by reducing to 600 metres (albeit increasing the number of reps to 8) I could achieve some acceleration.   That at least was the plan.
As it turned out I just couldn't produce the leg cadence .  So, on a dry track with the usual strong cool breeze down the back straight  it was a solid start  without the usual acceleration.
2.39    2.39    2.39    2.40    2.39    2.38    2.39    2.39
Cosistent if nothing else!
The shortest rep session distance I go down to on the track is 300 mts;  and I've only done these 300 sets 4 times this year.  Even then striding them out just prior to a race.   I think these is a case for  looking  to doing the distance more often , with more effort and with generous recovery. might even dig out some old spikes!

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