Steve Cram at Bristol Half Marathon Workshop

I can hardly believe that a whole week has gone by without me writing a post about the brilliant talk/Q & A workshop given for theBristol Half Marathon. It has been a busy week; my book Go Faster Food has become available for pre-order, I’ve been getting ready for theStockholm marathon on Saturday, my eldest daughter has started her GCSEs and the kid’s half-term has crept up on me rather too quickly. 

It is not often that us mere mortals get to meet, run with and receive sound wisdom directy from top sports people, and the Bristol 1/2 organisers have really got it together this year, with talks from eminent Olympians and top coaches such as Liz Yelling, Steve Cram, Bud Baldaro, Nick Rose etc.

Last week’s session, hosted by top coach Bud Buldaro, was given by Steve Cram, along with Full Potential’s Nick Anderson (who, by the way, coached the top three finishers in last year’s 1/2 marathon) and Clare Callaghan, from Bristol University’s Sports Medicine Cinic. For my part, the most interesting comment fromSteve Cram was that he had really never enjoyed training, it was the winning that made it worth it!  Tops points to go home with were:

• Build up a good aerobic foundation before you start training hard
• Train at least three times a week, with one long run, one speed session and one steady run.
• Alternate your interval/speed sessions to make it more fun (fartlek, tempo runs, 1 min fast, 2 mins slow etc)
• Warm up and warm down properly, think about stretching during and after runs (but not before the run) and stretching late at night before you go to bed
• Listen to your body, don’t overtrain or start doing too much too soon, as this will normally lead to injury 
• Refresh targets, be realistic with your ambitions

Run Bristol have one more training camp before the Half Marathon on September 6th 2009 and it sounds like it will be absolutely brilliant - 18/19th July - you get advice from top athletes and you get to run with them, it only costs £10 per day and the lunch is always fabulous.

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