First experience of ‘Coaching Night’

The idea of having a ‘proper’ coaching session has been around for some time, and indeed we did try this a year ago but as the focus was more on stretching than running, the general feeling was that it wasn’t really what people wanted and we should try again. After some casting around for ideas, the obvious answer was to look close to home at other running clubs for inspiration, and Steyning AC run several coaching sessions weekly. After a chat with Mark, Lisa Beaney agreed to come over and run a ‘trial’ session to see if it was what we were looking for. Lisa is a qualified ‘Run Group Leader’ after undertaking Run England’s ‘Leadership in Running Fitness Course’ (You can see more about Lisa here).

So last Wednesday at the weekly Club night, Lisa ran a full coaching session for the 15 or so people who were our ‘guinea pigs’. This group covered a wide range of ages and abilities, from Hugh and Terry of the 100+ Marathons Group, to three people who’d come along that night as prospective members! A pretty broad group! So what did we do? Well firstly after a short briefing inside, we went out and did some initial warm up exercises, then we gently jogged to a nearby cul de sac that Lisa had already spotted, and we did speed work. Familiar to many but equally new to others, we sprinted to a succession of lamp posts, increasingly further away, walking back one stage, and jogging the rest of the way back to do it again. Once we had sprinted to the furthest post, we gradually reduced the distance until we were back where we had started. Sound easy? Well it certainly tested everyone – the great thing is that this works for all types of runners as essentially you’re only ‘sprinting’ to what you can do. Lisa also introduced us to the concept of anaerobic running (think Usain Bolt – then immediately forget I said that!) and the way our bodies react.

After that outside session we returned to HLC where Lisa led us through a comprehensive set of stretches – just see the faces to know we were being put through our paces. And that was that – all told an hour or thereabouts.

The reaction to all this was unanimously positive,  (though any Comments would be welcomed – just add them to this post) on the back of which we agreed with Lisa to run a monthly session, on the LAST Wednesday of each month. Lisa will endeavour make each session different, and of course is open to individual questions and advice. Further down the line she could also run sessions on nutrition, so the possibilities are broad.

That makes the next Session Wednesday 26th March. See you there!