Competition went today as well as yesterday. My first ever 200 m on a 200 m track. Despite the lane two my time was 23,97. Acceleration in the curve was not optimal and while I got my running well together on the straight, the second curve spoiled the final straight since pelvis stayed low. Getting excited to do more competitions. Also my athletes are showing progress so there are plenty of reasons to be happy after the first round of competitions.
I got inspired by last weekend’s excellent high jump result and tried long jump yesterday in Liikuntamylly. Even though I liked long jump when I did decathlon I had not done it at all after 2009 (have not wanted to dirty my pants). A month ago or so I got a sudden notion to take long jump spikes to a training session where my athlete did long jump. And so I did jump with some 8 strides and it felt pretty good. After that I did jump two times with sneakers so I cannot say that I was fully unprepared for this competition but close. I had a must target to exceed 6 m. I was really surprised how easy it felt to jump with full pace after a so long pause. My series improved steadily with 625, 628, 631, 637, 648 and finally a failed jump. In the first jumps I had some difficulties in pushing till the board but that got better till the end. Also pushed a bit too eagerly with my upper body which backfired in the last attempt. Truly enjoyed the competition. Now 110 m hurdles and shot put remain the only decathlon events I have not done after I quit. No intention to change that.
Took advantage of being in Lahti and went skiing while my athletes did warm-up. I finally got to ski with my new skies. I must say that there is a big difference between good and not-so-good skies. Actually I should have made another round of skiing during the day as there were some long pauses between the starts. I am pretty satisfied with the times my two athletes run today. They both run first 60 m hurdles and then twice 60 m. The other run now twice exactly the same time as she run yesterday. I guess we know her current level
We had the first of its kind match between the two local clubs in Espoo. Espoon Tapiot won clearly. I did my share in fighting back by winning men’s high jump. My result was surpringly as good as 184 (video below). Likely also 187 would have been cleared with that jump. My high jump training has limited to couple of jumps on sneakers every now and then; usually when my athletes are putting their high jump spikes on. Actually I have not jumped much better outside of combined event competitions. After high jump I run 60 m at 7,60. I was hoping to go below 7,60 but with my lousy start I must be happy with the result. Also my athletes did pretty good. Next competition tomorrow in Lahti; but, just for the athletes.
As they say, there is a first time for everything. This morning, despite the slight rain, I went, at last, skiing for the first time this winter. That felt really good even though I did not yet use my new skies. Today was also the first time all my current athletes were training at the same time. It took ‘only’ two months for the four athletes to get to the same place at the same time. Finally, I did pole vaulting for the first time in almost two years. Felt pretty good. In the video below, my second attempt with a relatively soft pole (450cm/160lbs).
It must have been a busy year since I did not have time to compete that many times myself. I also trained less than in 2010. Based on the 100 m (11,79) I run in May in France the basis to build on was still there. If only I would have had more time to train and compete I believe I would have done similar results as in 2010. A memorable moment was naturally the race walking relay at the Finnish championships. Pneumonia caused a full stop in September. Two months without any sports. After getting back it took around one month to feel normal and two months to get to a decent shape.
On the coaching front it was an okay year. Got to follow the combined events European Cup where my athlete almost did great. The whole year was a bit like that for her; could have done better but still did solid performances and improved her heptathlon PB over 100 points. Staying healthy and continuing the steady improvement of the heptathlon PB are the goals for the next summer. My other athlete did a bit better. She is still relatively young so I cannot take too much credit for her results. Just trying to avoid big mistakes and teaching the basics.
What comes to my own sports, I do not yet know what the year 2012 will bring along. After race walking I still have one event left that I have not yet done. Maybe it is time for that one. For a coach it will be an interesting year as the European Championships and Olympics will shuffle the calendar quite a lot. For me there will be more action since two new athletes joined my group. They will be 15 this year, so with them there is certainly no rush anywhere.
I stopped doing passive stretching the day I did my last decathlon. Throughout my career I did the traditional jogging warm-up and passive stretching after it. I have abandoned them both and now prefer active warm-up (deserves a separate post) and stretching. I usually do not do stretching at all. Instead I do some movements to warm up specific groups of muscles, which will be used in the training session. There are some fascia stretching I do. I have got some help from a physiotherapist coach I have known for years (also helped me during my career). He visits our training sessions every now and then and has usually some interesting moves and stretches to get athletes perform better.
In case there is tightness that prevents doing the needed movement for the event then also passive stretching would be needed. In that case I would prefer to do that in its own session so that body has enough of time to recover from it. However, most of the athletics events do not need that much of movement. As said, I dropped passive stretching myself over two years ago and have not noticed any drawbacks. Likely it would not have worked out without also changing the way I perform the warm-ups.
Had the traditional hiking trip only in late October this year. We headed to Pohjanmaa for Hirvaan Kierros, which is a 59 km long circle trail. There should not be many, if any, circle trails left in Finland that we have not hiked. No other hikers were seen during the two days. Weather was warm enough but unfortunately cloudy. As the day is already pretty short we had to wake up early to finish within two days. So, we saved some time by sleeping outdoors without a tent on the night before the first day. The second night we spent in a big wilderness hut, which had even a sauna, which we naturally heated. After the hiking we rented a hut in the national park and enjoyed another great sauna by a lake. Hiking was once again the perfect way to start a new training season, especially now after the pneumonia. Hirvaan Kierros flickr photo set.
According to the doctor I have fully recovered from the pneumonia. So I started doing sports this week and I must say I have never felt to be in this bad shape. Cannot really get enough of air and thus cannot get any power out of the body. Two months is the longest period, after I learned walking, that I have not done any sports. Still it is amazing that it feels like starting from zero. Like all the training I have done throughout the years would have vanished in the air. Let’s see how quickly I get back to some sort of shape.
As starters, I decided to go to the SFI 7-tusan camp in Kuortane to follow the action and do some training myself. Volley ball is the game we tend to play every evening. Must say it is lots of fun. I wish I just had time to start a hobby like it.
Went to a wedding in Mexico. Pneumonia antibiotics ended the day before taking the plane. Walking up the stairs to the top of the pyramids felt like a real exercise. Walking will be the hardest thing I am allowed to do still for couple of weeks more.
