My New Bestie
The headline of this blog post is a joke. Jax might not be grateful, but I found it funny. Which is normally how my jokes go down in our relationship. A new person has stepped into my life; he goes by the name Claude.
How does this relate to PB and coaching? Well, I’m hoping my new mate might be able to help me with some improvements to the platform. But don’t worry, he will certainly never be going anywhere near the feedback section. He’s a bit too much of a polite people pleaser for that, telling us what we want to hear, rather than the blunt honest truth, which is often needed in the coaching game.
For the time being my friend Claude is helping me set up a new idea I’ve had. An idea which I’m hopeful might really improve the racing community. The main concept being to give everyone a fair chance, and celebrate participation. We’re all a little fed up, right, of the same people winning all the time? I’m not looking to change that, the best runners deserve the credit, but I do want to add to it.
I’ve been instrumental in the Hastings Runners handicap race over the years. The Improver’s Award, which is such a great addition to our race calendar, my idea. Now I want to roll these concepts out to a much wider audience and give far more runners the applause they deserve. Just because some of us never cross that finish line first, it doesn’t mean we don’t train as hard or put in the same amount of effort — you could argue more, given we are out there longer.
Anyhow, watch this space. I’ve used my free time the past few weeks, normally spent coaching the kids on the trails, to build this concept in a very short amount of time.
Back to what we should really be discussing. PB Runner. Team Orange. The Pier to Pier. What a day.
It’s the one race I never seem to sleep well for. 3:30am I was awake, I may have drifted off a few times after that, but I definitely didn’t sleep beyond 4:30am, I hadn’t set my alarm until 6:15.
The coach journey over is always unique. When we arrived a fair amount of us needed to use the public toilet; we are crossing our fingers the toilet CCTV was out of action as we worked together to avoid the £1 fee. Should we really have to pay for public toilets, when it’s a basic need? They were pretty good to be fair.
Race organisation was in the safe hands of Lou and Craig. We had a few other Team Orange members out there volunteering, including Sarah, Heidi, and Chrissie with her giant Lego. Thank you as always. I personally found that run tougher than expected as my legs were not happy, even as early as the first shingle section in Eastbourne Harbour, so the support was really appreciated and gave me a big lift.
Eastbourne to Hastings. In a car, fine. On foot, it’s a bloody long way. Yes, we had the wind behind, but at times that was almost detrimental as the humidity was stifling.
There were some brilliant performances by the front runners, a new course record for Louis, which I feel I should mention. Not many of us can relate to running 3:30 per km for that entire distance though. I mean seriously, that is ridiculous, respect.
Whilst the fast prizes were swept up by the speed merchants, we had a clean sweep in the other trophies up for grabs. Victoria and Conal both exceeded my expectations, producing brilliant performances to take home the MV50 and FV50 prizes. Even more impressive when you consider Conal is now 65 (sorry, Conal), but what a time.
The above-mentioned Improver’s Award also went the way of a Team Orange member. Two, in fact. Xiulan and Patrick both knocked over 28 minutes off their time from last year, and given they were only separated by 19 seconds, it seemed only right to give them both an award. A good decision that.
They have both been training hard in recent months and are regulars to the Tuesday evening session, as well as running some impressive long runs too. So they got the reward their hard work deserved.
To have that reassurance as a coach that the plans work and your runners are performing means so much. Thank you for your kind words as well. That means a lot too.
What’s next? Keep an eye out for my new running website, honest feedback appreciated. I hope to have it ready to give the Team some target times and pace splits for the Barry Richards 10K next week. Always a popular event.
Continue to train smart, work hard in those key training sessions, and make me look good when you do race. Appreciated. Thanks for reading, until next time.
