We’ve completed two more formal training sessions at Loughborough this month.
Sunday 17th January
A couple of weeks ago, we met up with our coach Adrian Hemery who took us through some more drills and then onto technical event training.
We were both carrying injuries, so Adrian planned the session in a way that avoided making them worse (which was nice !) My particular injury is whats commonly known as ‘ongoing arse trouble’ and Ed has ‘limp wrist’. These are the sort of manly sounding injuries that us Decathletes have to suffer for our sport. I hate to think what might be just around the corner!
Anyway, after Adrian taught us some new warm up drills, we moved down for long jump practice. We both had to work out which foot we were going to use for take off foot, and then we started jumping off a very short run up, which I think was just three strides. We were concentrating on driving off from our take off foot and getting good knee lift on the lead leg. This will give us height off the board which with a longer run up should turn into longer distances. Adrian was pretty happy with both our efforts here and off the 3 step run up we both were getting up to about 4 metres without too much trouble. I have high hopes for the long jump (or should that be long hopes!) as it was my best event at school. That was however a very long time ago.
From the long jump pit we moved upstairs in the HiPAC centre to the high jump bed. Much of the appeal of high jump is the fact that you get a nice comfy landing even though if you aim for a nice long lie down, some over zealous official will move you on!
Again we worked out which leg to take off on, and then measured a very short 3 stride approach. Ed looks far more natural than I do, and my feeling at the moment is that this could turn out to be my worst event. Still, time may change that and one of them has to be the worst, doesn’t it? I wasn’t embarrassed by my lack of ability, which considering we had Bob Weir (national heavy throws coach and double commonwealth gold medallist) coaching next to us, and Fuzz Ahmed (national head High Jump coach) stood watching, is a bit of a surprise. If we weren’t doing it for charity it might be a different story 
After the high jump we moved down to the throwing nets, and Adrian took us through discus technique. When we’d practiced this at Northwood, I struggled with the technique but was a lot happier with this session with the proper training that Adrian gives us. Ed, unfortunately was hampered by his wrist injury so worked on technique without throwing with his right hand, and also had a couple of left handed throws. The theory goes that even if you practice with your wrong hand, some of the technique does transfer across.
So all in all another very enjoyable session. Unfortunately Ed now has a 2 week restraining order against him for staring at Kate Dennison just a little too long when she walked in during the middle of our session. We weren’t planning another session for 2 weeks though, so its no great loss 
Sunday 31st January
So hot off the press, here’s the update from todays session.
I really didn’t feel like going this morning, I just couldn’t seem to wake up properly. Having done the session now though, I’m very glad that I made the effort
It was a 10am start in Loughborough again, and this time all three of us were carrying an injury. Adrian’s is far the most impressive, having dislocated his ankle trying to run up a wall. His theory to how its possible was very scientific and plausible, and I fear he may go back for another go when he’s healed up!
The advantage of him being injured is that he didn’t teach me any more skipping drills, which has to be a good thing!
After warming up today, we moved upstairs to do more High Jump training.
As with the last session, Ed fared far better than me at High Jump. Adrian helped both of us a lot with our technique, which meant that Ed got over 1.25m and looks like he’ll get higher with a bit more work. I still only managed 1.10m. Despite not getting any higher I do think the coaching is working and I understand the components of the jump much better. It will hopefully start to come good in time. Another visit to Northwood may be on the cards soon, just to get some more practice in.
Marko High Jump
Ed High Jump
From there we both started working on our Javelin technique. We started off indoors getting the grip, stance and approach run sorted out. That went well, and from there I moved outside to do some practice throws. Initially I threw from a standing start, and felt that the advice Adrian was giving really did work well. I moved onto throwing from a couple of steps and spent half an hour or so practicing the technique over and over. I started to really get the hang of it, and did measure a couple of the throws just to see how I was doing. From a standing start I was throwing a little over 20m, so that gives me hope of reaching that 300 points target with time. Good stuff!
Ed’s wrist injury meant he couldn’t throw, so he trained for the 110m hurdles. Starting off on the track outside on the small practice hurdles, he then went inside leaving me to freeze on my own in the cold. His training went well and he moved up in terms of hurdle height as the session went on. He was doing 1m high hurdles by the end of the session, so getting up towards full hurdle height, which considering his short legs is good going
So that wraps up another successful session. Bob Weir obviously enjoyed our last visit as he turned up again today. Now, was he impressed with us or did he come for a good laugh? Any ideas?
Thanks again to Adrian, and to Nicky who got up early, took pictures and stood out in the freezing cold watching me throw a javelin. That’s love !
