Race Day 27/10/2012

Well I have just completed my 400m Hurdles and i must say I am F******g annoyed with how it went. I prepared as if it was a national final and made sure I was mentally and physically reading. During my warm up the weather was amazing, blue skies and the sun shining down on everyone. Except as the race time approached you could see the clouds starting to roll in, in the background. I knew that the weather would be fine for my race and it would have been if we had been running to schedule. My race was suppose to run at 2.40pm and so i headed out to the track 10mins earlier to get my spikes on and do a few strides before my race. As I arrived on the rack i came to the conclusion that the 800m races were still yet to start, this was not an issue as I knew i could hold my warm up and stay ready by doing strides. As I went to do my first stride out I got stopped by an official and was told that if I was not competing in the 800m I need to leave the competition area, although by this time my race should have already run. As I went to just hide off to the side of the track the same official yelled at me saying that i needed to get behind the fence. So now as I wasn't able complete my strides to keep warm i had to sit through 6 heats of 800m while getting to watch the thunder storm coming rolling in, it was about this time I realised that my perfect conditions to race is were about to change and that i would be running in the rain. Finally once my race was soon to start i was finally allowed back on to the track to try and warm up for my race and as i had antcipated just earlier, the rain truly started to set in the winds had started to pick up. After the final 800m race the 300m hurdlers had completed their race it was finally time to forget about everything that had just happened and get ready to destroy this race. As I got in to my blocks for the start of the race i remember thinking I'm ready. BANG!! The gun went off and so did I, ran 21 strides to the first hurdle and hit it perfectly, 14 strides in to the second hurdle and i was feeling amazing. Next thing i remember thinking is, wait shouldn't their be a hurdle coming up, where is the third hurdle. After having the officials not put out the hurdle I had to keep on running, the damage of this would not be felt until the first hurdle as it threw me off my complete rhythm and caused me to slow in to hurdle 4. This caused me to drop my strides to 15 two hurdles early, what made this worse was the fact that this was right before I was about to run into the headwind. As I was not up to full speed when hit by the head wind, it threw me back and forced me to drop an extra stride of the final bend into the home straight. By this time the race was practically over and i felt like I was just in damage control now and just trying to prevent anything worse happening. My final time was 56.17, 4.17 seconds off what I was hoping to accomplish. Now i knew that this was going to be a tough task going into it but had faith that I should at least get close to it, and after looking at the race I firmly believe had that 3rd hurdle been in place this would be a much different story right now. Also in pure frustration of what had just happened I decided to run the 60m race a little later in the track program. This helps back up that I was running well as I ended up running a 7.27sec into a 1.2mps head wind, which is very good as this was within 0.03secs of my 60m personal best. Any way it's time to move on from this and prepare for the rest of the season, here's hoping it will go much better. Next goal is to continue on training hard and to try and qualify for world university games being held in Russia during June 2013. This should help having my training partner Dan O'Shea racing and hopefully both of us and get our times down under the qualifying mark.

Here is the video of my race.

InBody Test 3

Here are the results from my third and final InBody test.

The results from this test shows that I have put on an extra 3.1kgs, this is not a worry as my muscle mass is up 2.5kgs from last time and my body fat percentage is down 1.9%.

Training for Week 12

Here is training for the final week of my journey. I will be completing my event this Saturday and will attempt to complete my goal of running sub 52 seconds for the 400m Hurdles. This is my final chance to achieve this goal as i will be turning 20 on Monday the 29th of October, making me ineligible for level 4 carding. So here is the final part of the plan to give me the best possible chance to achieve this.

Review of Training Week 11

In Review week 11 was a lighter week. My average RPE for the week was 7.6. This weeks focus was on more specific exercises with my last hard session on the Wednesday being 10 days before my event. This allows a bit of an overshoot to occur and gives the body the time to recover in time for the planned event or in this case the 400m hurdles.

Race Day 20/10/2012

Thankfully the races weren't canceled this week therefore i was able to compete in my first 110m hurdles and 200m of this season. The 110m Hurdles were a little disappointing as after having a good warm up and a couple of amazing runs over the first two hurdles, I managed to smash the first hurdle with my knee in the race. This threw me completely off my race and clipping multiple other hurdles throughout the rest of the race. Although I did manage to recover the final time of 16.85 was much slower than I was anticipating. The other race I ran was the 200m. This race went much better. I decided to go out hard on the bend and in doing so ended up making the stagger on the whole field by the time I had reached the straight. The final time of 22.98secs was misleading as it doesn't show my easing up down the home straight, this however is a good  sign for things to come as being able to go sub 23 in my opener while still easing up is showing a lot of potential for what might be possible of doing in this event this year.

Training for Week 11

Here is week 11's plan for training, this Saturday i plan on running a 200m and a 110m hurdles. Lets hope the competition doesn't get cancelled again.

Review of Week 10

Training this week went really well and was feeling really good for Saturday,then the meet got canceled. Was lucky that i like to go down early before races as I did not know it had been until I arrived and my coach told me. Would have been good to see how I had fared over the 400m hurdles that day due to the fact that I was coming of a heavy week of training but I guess you have to do what you can therefore it was changed to 2x200m and race pace just to get the body going. The average RPE was 8.2 for the week. Mondays session was a killer on the body but was a good confidence builder leading up into the weekend. hurdles went well this week so am just hoping it will carry on into next.

Race Day 13/10/2012

So I was suppose to compete today but due to the snow warning the meet was canceled so this means my first 400m Hurdles for the season will have be done on the day of the event as it is not scheduled on next weeks track program. Due to the meeting being canceled, I ended up just training instead. I completed two 200m at race pace today. They felt smooth and fast so hopefully this can transfer into my racing next week and I can achieve some fast times.

Joined Hill City University

Today I finally joined Hill City University Athletics Club. In doing so i have switched from my old club Kiwi Athletics Club, whom is based in Wellington. This change means that I will no longer be competing under the yellow and black colors of Wellington at nationals, instead trading them in for the blue and yellow of Otago.

Training for Week 10

Here is my plan for week 10. On Saturday I plan on running my first 400m Hurdles of the season, heres hoping it all goes well :) .

Review of Week 9

Week 10 was tough on me as I spent a lot of the first half of the week recovering from competing on Saturday therefore RPEs were higher than they should have been. The average RPE for the week was 8 so it still could have been worse. Apart from feeling sluggish at the start the body started to come to and was able to get some good training in later in the week.

Start of Training for Week 9

As this is the last week of training before I start competing, I am hoping that it will go smoothly without to many problems. Although my knee has been playing up over the last month I plan on keeping up with the foam rolling of adductors to allow me to keep on training.

Training For the Month of October

Here my whole training program for the month of October. As October marks the begin of the Athletics New Zealand Season, I will be aiming to get in a few races before my 400m Hurdles on the 27th of October. The plan is to run two 400m Hurdles in this month the first being on the 13th October and the other being my event. I will also attempt to complete a 110m Hurdles and a 200m race in the weekend separating the two 400m hurdles.

Review of Week 8

In review this week of training was a rather tough week of training. The average RPE was 8.5. This was highly due to me competing in the multi events comp yesterday. Earlier in the week there was a lot of longer reps, but the Sunday was high due to the fact that I was still recovering fro competing in 6 events just the day before. I decided not to do weights on Thursday night as I was wanting to protect my legs for the upcoming competition on Saturday. Thursdays session was disappointing as I could not get it to click for me but thankfully it clicked on Saturday and I was able to get over the full 10 hurdles for the first time at that height since Europe last year. Saturday turned out to be a huge confidence booster and now i just cant wait to get into training for next week, hoping for big things.

Multi Events Competition

Today I competed in my first ever multi events competition. The format was that you had to compete in at least 5 of the 6 events, and your top 5 points were taken for your total. The events us guys had to do was 110m Hurdles, Long Jump, Shot Put, Pole Vault, Javelin and 1km race. We began at 10am as we had to be done by 4pm as their was a soccer game on today as well. It was good to have Sarah Cowley who is a New Zealand Olympian Heptahlete and Angus Ross who is her strength and conditioning coach, come down to support us and offer advice on each event. The first event up for us guys were the 110m Hurdles, as this was my major strength i was hoping for a fast time and a good score to be able to try and hold on for the overall win at the end of the day. To my surprise as I had not hurdled in nearly a month, I was able to to get out well and end up winning with a hand time of 15.8secs which gave me a points score of 755. Next we were off to the Long Jump, now because this is a multi event you only get 3 jumps, I manged to jump 5.95m in my last jump to get 2nd in the long and score 576 points. Shot put was the next event to go and again it is the same as long jump meaning you only have 3 throws, the first throw I threw 8m as a safety throw to get on the board. The 2nd throw however was much better as I was able to get the 7.26kg shot out to 10.04m, the final throw was again longer but this time I was unable to stay in the circle, instead falling out of the front. The next event on the agenda was the pole vault, after a quick lecture for an ex New Zealand champion Paul Gibbons, we were off attempting it ourselves. After struggling to begin with I began to get into a rhythm eventually getting up over 2m and only just missing 2.20m which is not to bad. After everyone had finished we headed over to javelin, when i soon discovered my Achilles heel. Lets just say that my 34.1m throw was not good and needs a lot of work. The final event was finally upon us and after planning on just jogging through this 1km something changed at the start line. As the gun went off I took to the front at a steady pace expecting the others to come with me but after 200m i noticed that if anything i was pulling away from them, I battled through the rest of the race by myself finishing with a time of 2min and 52seconds and in doing so wining by around 70m. This gave me a total score of 2916 and the overall win by 124 points.

Training for Week 8

Here is training for week 8 of the program. This week i have planned to do a fun multi-event competition as i have been wanting to do one for the past couple of years.

Review of Week 7

The average RPE for week 7 is 7.8. The raise in RPE is that we have moved further on in the month and therefore the tempo and intensity increases. Thankfully my knee is starting to come right, well at least enough that I can get through full training's and not fell that i have to hold myself back because of it. Thursday's session was on the grass because of the knee came up after Wednesday's hurdle session. This session was extremely hard and took a lot of energy out of me due to the constant stopping and starting. Was able to complete Saturdays training with no problem with the knee so am assuming that the rest day is what it needed.

Training for Week 7

Here is what I plan to do for week 7

Review of Week 6

Week 6 has been a mission due to my knee constantly playing up and wrecking havoc with my training all week, for that reason my RPE should be down as I haven't been able to put full force through it this whole time. So the average RPE for week 6 is 7. I have just started getting onto the foam roller and rolling out the adductors and itb as a training partner of mine suggested i try it after it helped him when he had the same problems, so it is slowly starting to ease off so fingers cross that it continues to work. with trainign this week again it had a speed focus with a couple of extra longer reps to continue to keep the body ticking over.

Training for Week 6

This is the training plan for week 6.

Review of Training for Week 5

After having a lighter week for testing last week it was back to the work this week. Also with this week being the first week of September, we ave started moving into the next phase of training. The average RPE for week 5 was 7.8. This shows how the training is picking up. The duration of the training's have started to shorten as the lengths of the reps shorten, this is because of the changing of phases and the added emphasis on speed training. Sundays training was tougher than usual as my knee has started to play up again. Its again just a wear and tear issue with my Petellar Tendonitis starting to play up again. All i can do at this stage is ice it after every training and hope that the inflammation in the bursa pocket goes down.

InBody Test 2

Here is the results from the 2nd InBody test done today.

Since the last test the results show that my body fat percentage has increased by 1.7% but my weight has dropped down to 84.8kgs which is a loss of 1.4kgs. This shows that instead of losing body fat i am instead losing muscle mass and will therefore have to modify my die to include a lot more protein and less carbohydrates.

Training for Week 5

Here is the plan for week 5.

Review of Training for Week 4

The average RPE for week 4 was 8.5. Although the RPE is up on last week this week was actually a lighter week, with the main reason of Sunday being up higher due to having testing the day before. Results from testing was good and it was good to get a chance to run some times. Results were 6.73 for the first 60m followed by a 6.68 for the second 60m, this was backed up with a 16.00sec 150m, this puts me on target for an 11.1 at this stage which is very good as it shows I'm already on PB pace.

Training Plan for September

After completing the first month of training it is time to start moving into the next phase of training which will include more speed and specific exercises as I get read to start competing in October.

Training Plan for Week 4

Here is what I plan on dong over the next week.This is week 4 of the journey and the first full week in the new month.

Review of Week 3

The average RPE for week 3 was 8. This shows how the intensity is increasing in the training. Saturdays training is there to prepare my training group for testing that is happening the following week. This weeks training was focused on speed and the specific exercises. Again early on in the week my right plantar fascia was playing up but thankfully it eased off and had completely disappeared by Thursday.

Training for Week 3

After completion of the 2nd week of training, here is what I plan on doing for week 3.

Review of Week 2

The average RPE for this week was 7.5. Throughout the week I was running with a tight planter fascia, this is an injury that I suffer from quite regularly as I managed to tear my right one at the end of 2009 and then tore my left one in Europe last year. Although this is painful during the session with maintenance it is not an issue and does not stop me from training. again training this week is focusing on speed/muscle endurance to help create and hold fitness.  Saturdays session is a speed and power session, with Sunday being a strength session.

Training for Week 2

After completing last weeks training here is what i plan on doing for week 2.

Review of Week One

The average RPE for week one is 7.6. This weeks training was the first week so it is expected to be a bit liter week and here should be a gradual build up. all of this training for the week is working speed/muscle endurance but also still have 1 speed/power session.

Weight Training Program

Here is my proposed weight training program for throughout the whole 12 week journey.

Tuesday is going to my heavy lifting day as this makes sense as its a dedicated day to weights. Here is what it looks like.

Thursdays weights session is going to be a lighter weight day as i will have track training prior to making my way to the gym.

Finally Saturday's weights is going to be focused around Olympic weights and power. This suits training nicely as the track session I will do prior to this will have the same focus on power.

Training Plan for August

Here is the training program for the whole month of August and the first month of training.

The Start

My secondary goal is to get my skinfolds down to under 60mm of subcutaneous fat. In doing this it will mean I will not have to carry around as much weight for the race. At this stage I have 71mm of subcutaneous fat. Although this is not a large amount I am hoping to lose it is still a fair amount. The goal in completion this is to reduce my carbohydrate intake while increasing my protein. This will also mean cutting down on the drinking I have been doing and not eating out as much.

Here is a copy from the original InBody Screening test

Start of week one

It has come time to begin this training, this week i will be attempting to do the training that is listed below. Here's hoping that it will all go well.

Principles of Training Used

When putting my training program together, the principles of training that i used were Body Composition   Speed, Power, Cardio Fitness, Muscular Fitness- Strength, Muscular Fitness - Endurance, Flexibility  Agility,  Balance, Reaction and Coordination.

Body Composition - This is the relative Percentage or amount of body fat, muscle , bone and any other tissue that makes up the body. This is important to me and this challenge as having to carry around excess fat for 400m hurdles is causing me to use more energy getting around the track then say someone who has less. Therefore part of this goal is to also reduce my skinfolds to under 60mm of subcutaneous fat. By dropping weight and increasing muscular power I should be able to be much more efficient around the 400m hurdles.

Speed -  is the ability to perform a movement over a short amount of time. this is especially important as the 400m Hurdles is still regarded as a sprint and the faster your top end speed is the faster you will be able to go over the longer distance. this is due to the fact that if you start at saying running a 12 second 100m then when your running a 400m you would be running about 13-14 second 100m, but if you can increase your speed to say 11 seconds over 100m then your 400m speed is going to increase to 12-13 second 100m while still using the same amount of effort you were using before.

Power - is the ability of the muscles to produce a force rapidly. This is a crucial part of any sprint event as we rely on a higher power to weight ratio. in specific to the 400m hurdles power is crucial to every hurdle as you need to be quick and proficient over each one and also in as you need the power to help get you up to speed as quick as possible.

Cardio Fitness - is the ability to transfer nutrients and oxygen from the heart ,blood and lungs to the muscles, and the ability of the muscles to use this as fuel. Although this is not important in the sprints themselves, as the whole race is performed anaerobically without oxygen, it is a huge factor when training for the event. Due to the demands of training for the longer sprint/hurdles a high cardio fitness is essential in being able to recover in the short rest periods. Therefore is something that is continually need to be maintained.

Muscular Fitness Strength - this is the ability of the muscles to lift a heavy weight.This is important to all sprinters as it helps to create power. Although it is important it is more of a supporting role than anything else.

Muscular Fitness Endurance - this is the ability of the muscles to exert themselves repeatedly over a long time without fatigue. This plays a crucial role in running as we are using our legs repetitively over the course of the race, is especially important in the sprints as this is done at a much faster pace meaning the legs fatigue much quicker. So is a major factor towards the end of the races.

Flexibility -  is the range of motion available at a joint. This plays into all sprint events as you need the flexibility to help extend your body and stay relaxed. its even more crucial in the hurdles as you need the flexibility in the hamstrings, glutes, abductors and adductors, to be able to efficiently lift your leg over the hurdles and not lose rhythm.

Agility- is the ability to change direction of movement rapidly and accurately. This is important as when running a 400m on a track you have to run two bends, and cant afford to be any slower on these than on the straights. This also includes the having to hurdle on a bend and also just being able to hurdle on the straight with out losing time.

Balance - is the ability to maintain equilibrium while stationary or moving. This is important as you have to keep your balance while running as well as keeping your balance coming off each hurdle.

Reaction - is the ability to rapidly respond to a stimulus or signal. This is important in my race as i need to react to the starters gun. In the longer sprints it ain't as important but if 100m it is very. Also just having to react on my stride when hurdling.

Coordination - this is the ability to use your sense of sound and sight with your body parts to complete a a motor skill or movement. This is important as you need to be coordinated to run fast as well as hurdling. If there was a lack of coordination you would not be able to hurdle while running and you will find you will begin losing a lot of time over each hurdle, with the worse case scenario being that you hit one and trip.

Beginning of the Journey

Hey everyone

The purpose of this page is so I can take you along my journey of trying to become a carded athlete again. To do this I am going to have to run a sub 52sec 400m hurdles before I turn 20 on the 29th of October 2012. This is not going to be an easy goal as it requires me to run a PB(personal best) of 2.24secs to achieve under the 52sec mark. Along the way I am sure to have barriers regarding injuries as sadly this is just the nature of the sport. Anyway I hope you enjoy this blog and hope to keep you updated as much as possible.

Stephen