Chrissie Wellington Presentation

On Wednesday December 21 Chrissie Wellington came to Leeds to take part in the Run with Chrissie 5k in aid of the Jane Tomlinson appeal
After the run and a 60 minute coaching session by myself, Steve Worthington and Rob Harvey, Chrissie then signed autographs and then gave a wonderful, articulate and motivating presentation on what it takes to be a World Champion.
Below are my notes on the presentation and some of Chrissies ideas

Chrissie started off by saying that she never wanted to get to the end of her career and wonder what if.. so she took a calculated risk in turning professional after just 12 months in the sport

Later on she came back to say What’s your dream?

On training I didn’t hear her talk about doing anything revolutionary but what she does is to make sure everything is done 100%.. Everyday
When ever she is asked about how many hours training she completed per week she often replies 168 hours
So, there is the physiological training which probably occupies 25-35 hours per week but then even when she’s not engaged in these everything else she does is geared towards making these hours as productive as possible
For example – eating (which involves choosing the right food for refuelling and repair), stretching, relaxing, sleeping, planning) she admits to being anally retentive and obsessive but in my experience this could apply to most successful athletes in a range of sports and similar traits are shared by the most successful entrepreneurs and entertainers.

Her philosophies for training include
Make sure you have a coach or at least an advisor
Keep it simple (I very much agree with this – too many athletes spend too much time worrying about HR or power zones and not just getting on with the training
Make it individual
Be consistent but be prepared to be flexible
Have key sessions that you do each week
Take a holistic approach
Place more emphasis on nutrition and on training the brain (psychological interventions)
Make sure you include Strength & conditioning year round (I’ve been promoting this for 15 or more years so it’s nice that the world champion echoes my thoughts. Chrissie felt that her running improvements of the last 2 years have been influenced by extra gym time)
Year round her programme looks very similar so that she knows that she has the same sessions each day of the week. The only thing that does change is the intensity and duration depending upon the time of year and her race plan.

As I said earlier there’s nothing earth shattering here and she follows the basic principles of training that I have written about previously.
Most of you were probably nodding as you read them but the difference is that Chrissie actually follows these principles every minute of the day

On Injury Chrissie gets injuries like anyone else although in recent years most of hers have come from bike crashes. She pushes herself hard and says that you shouldn’t fear injury or illness. They are part of your development. The difference for pro athletes is that this is their job. For age groupers I’m not sure that pushing to the absolute limit is necessarily the right thing but for Chrissie and her peers they don’t want to get to the end of their careers and wonder what if (see my first sentence)

Lessons from injury
Get good medical diagnosis ASAP and then learn as much as possible about your injury/condition. (E.g. she gave the example that caffeine limits absorption of calcium so if you have a broken bone that healing you may want to consider reducing or giving this up for a time
Focus more on what training you can do than what you can’t. E.g. a broken rib stopped her running so she replicated exactly here run sessions on the elliptical trainer (I’ve long promoted either the rowing ergo or deep water running as viable alternatives for when injured)

Every apparent catastrophe provides opportunity. It’s up to you to find it!!

On rest & recovery
This is a massive part of her life (168hours in the week – 40 hours training means she focuses on this for 128 hours.
She doesn’t necessarily have rest days because as a full time athlete she can get a lot of rest between workouts. However she did emphasise that age group athletes would be advised to take a rest day each week
Her end of season recovery was 4-6 weeks with 2 weeks (usually after Hawaii) of just being active and then another 4 weeks of very light unstructured training. Lots of emphasis on this!! (Age group athletes take note after 10-11 months of hard training you can probably afford at least 4 weeks of easy stuff).
Sleep, massage and the ability to switch off (don’t dwell on bad sessions, just move on) all rated very highly as did the use of compression and elevation for recovery
Nutrition were also key components for recovery as well as performance

On race nutrition
She works on the basis of 1g carbs/kg of bodyweight/hour
Uses caffeine gels especially on the run
On interesting point she made was that her handlebar mounted water bottle only ever has about 4-5cm of water in as a full bottle affects the handling characteristics of the front end of the bike

On training the brain
Uses visualisation a lot – What’s your dream?
Makes lost of lists to make sure she’s prepared for eventuality – creates peace of mind which builds confidence
Runs and cycles parts of the race course wearing an iPod and listening to music. Each part of the course has a different tune. On race day she then sings the song that relates to that part of the course
Break race into small segments
Stay in the moment (Paula Newby Fraser used to talk about this. Avoid thinking about the run while you are still on the bike. Don’t let yourself be distracted for too long. Be aware of what happening at that moment. If you feel bad work out why and then how to change things to feel better
Gain energy form spectators & other athletes
Learn to suffer (I heard Gordo Byrn mention this once. He actually planned events leading up to his big race where hi sole purpose was to suffer as much as possible) Then on race day recall how your were able to cope
Remember goal motivation for actually doing the race
Race for a cause
SMILE
Retain a perspective (Chrissie talked about how she did a standard distance race and came 5th and was gutted… but it gave her a kick up the ass and she built from there. Remember that out of every apparent catastrophe there is opportunity… if you can find it

In summary
A fantastic presentation delivered with Chrissies usual good humour and articulation.
She is a very inspiring person and certainly everyone in the room was buzzing when she had finished. As a coach I felt that she didn’t mention anything that I hadn’t heard before. What was nice was to hear that she endorses and follows the basic principles of training.
As I wrote earlier, most people will have heard a lot of this information before. But that’s probably as far as it goes. Chrissie actually does all of this stuff and when you link that to an iron will and good genes you get a world champion.

You may think you don’t have the advantage of good genes but if you were able to carry out even half of what’s in this article on a daily basis you’ll take a massive leap forward.
Perhaps that something to think about for 2012

Thanks for all of your support in 2011. I’ve really enjoyed providing you with the blogs and videos.

For those of us in the UK 2012 will be a massive year. Lets do all we can to enjoy it

Stay healthy & have fun in the festive season.