With the BUCS Outdoor Championships on the first weekend of May, the University Easter break is a cause of much frustration for me. It is 5 weeks long and runs right up until the competition, meaning I have very little control over athletes’ training in a key block of training. Athletes have been set sessions, and I know that many of them are disciplined enough to train. However, there are numerous opportunities for the quality of training to drop:

1. Many athletes will not try as hard when they are training on their own. Even simple things like a warmup are approached with less purpose and energy.
2. Some athletes will return to their home clubs and coaches, and there will be discontinuity in their training. This is particularly the case if other coaches have different training methodologies and are building towards different events. Athletes are at a heightened risk of injury if their training dramatically changes.
3. Some athletes may not have access to track facilities, which is increasingly important the closer we get to competitions.

Luckily, the majority of the athletes I coach have a good attitude and will try their best to continue training.

On the subject of facility availability, my saga of trying to find suitable training venues in Exeter is almost reaching its denouement. I was both pleased and annoyed to find out recently that a touch rugby club, that books out the only athletics track in Exeter on Friday evenings, will be moving off the track on Fridays during the summer, meaning my Exeter Speed training group is able to train on the track twice per week. I then visited this club’s Facebook page to discover that they were unable to use the grass infield at the track 50% of the time from October through to April, so we could have been using the track 50% of the time had we known! Regardless, we are, from this week, in a position to train twice per week on a full track, and once per week on a 40m jump straight and grass track at a local secondary school. I really like the idea of training once on grass during the summer to reduce impact on athlete’s legs, but it might take a while for grass tracks to dry out, and for us to find a grass track that it is well maintained. Nonetheless, great progress!