Ulster and NI Endurance camp springs into action
Ulster/NI Junior Endurance Performance Squad
The Ulster/NI Junior Endurance Performance Squad enjoyed their first training camp at Gortin Glen Forest Park, Omagh Co Tyrone on Sep 25th-27th. The camp was held in ideal weather conditions with over 40 athletes in attendance at the camp along with some personal coaches. The athletes arrived to Gortin on Friday evening and settled into their accommodation before they then undertook a dynamic warm up before going for an easy run of between 20-30 mins as specified by their personal coaches. Everyone then returned to the hostel and performed a brief core workout that focused on Trunk Bracing. The athletes then made themselves food while the coaches in attendance went through a brief workshop on basic endurance physiology. The athletes then went to bed to prepare for the following days training.
Dynamic warm-up
Saturday saw the group starting at 10:00 and the athletes repeated their Dynamic Warm-up before moving on to a basic Introduction to Plyometrics. The athletes also undertook some basic foot and ankle conditioning exercises. All these progressions were produced by Athletics NI’s Physical Preparation Lead Laura Kerr and Tom Reynolds led these sessions on the day. After a short break, Tom Crick Director of Coaching & Athlete Development for NI Athletics then led a 15min session where the athletes & coaches looked at videos of several top endurance athletes training and racing and pulled out the key features that made their running technique efficient. They then went on to introduce three Basic Running Drills that can be used to practice these common elements. After the running drill practice the coaches then stayed to revisit some basic concepts around running drills and look at video of the three drills being performed by a competent athlete along with common mistakes to look out for.
Hill session
The athletes then took lunch and relaxed before heading up to Gortin Glen Forest to undertake the planned hill session. Based on the sessions the athletes had originally chosen to undertake the group was split into three and athletes performed a dynamic warm up and somewhere between 6-10 reps of hills lasting either 30s, 45s or 60s in length. The session finished with four easy strides of around 80m up a shallow hill and then another 10min warm down jog. After eating food and relaxing for the evening the athletes went to bed tired and ready for the final day of the camp.
Sunday began at around 10:00 with the athletes returning to the Glen to undertake the planned Long Run. Athletes who were running for less than 50 mins ran around a 2.2km loop for their allotted period of time. Meanwhile athletes running for more than 50min were lead around the new longer loop by a member of Omagh Harriers before returning after 50 mins to undertake the 2.2km loop for the remainder of their session. After lunch the athletes then returned for a General Strength physical preparation session. The squad then finished the day with a repeat of the Bracing circuit performed on Friday. This time we cycled twice through each of the exercises. The athletes then left promptly around 15:00.
Without naming everyone individually, we would like to thank all the coaches who attended not only for being open with their discussion but also for helping monitor the athletes’ form during both the physical preparation and running sessions. Lead Coaches Teresa McDaid, Francis O Hagan, Brian Peppard, Eamon Harvey and Mark Kirk did a fantastic job with the athletes over the weekend. Several coaches were also kind enough to run with the athletes on the warm ups and long run to make sure they got around the course safely and this was very much appreciated. A special mention should go to Teresa McDaid for assisting with supervision of the female athletes overnight and to Tom Reynolds for helping to look after the male athletes and for pulling together the Physical Preparation sessions. Laura Kerr provided a lot of the curriculum content for the day. A fantastic camp overall.