Double Olympic champion and former world record holder Seb Coe highlighted the benefits of working together and celebrated the immensely valuable contribution of volunteers at this weekend’s inaugural European Endurance Conference hosted by UKA, England Athletics, the British Milers’ Club and the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund in London on 8-9 October.
The Conference was the second of the 2011 European Athletics Coaching Summit Series.
Speaking just over nine months out from the London 2012 Olympic Games to an audience of almost 200 from 16 countries, Coe, also chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee and vice president of the IAAF, pulled together three key themes: the role of his coach (his father) in his career; coaching volunteers and the importance of collaborative working in sport, before taking part in a question and answer session.
He admitted that his success over 800m - having started out as a 3000m runner - was testament to the support group around him who dared to be different and challenged some of the norms: “The market moves on but you have to pick up trends years before the changes actually happen so that you’re prepared,” he said.
“After I won European bronze in Prague (1978) we (his support team) made adjustments, we took things apart and put them back together; we worked on strength and conditioning and physiology, a lot of which was new to endurance athletes at the time.”
It wasn’t all about detail however, as he did advocate simplicity on many levels, for example the necessity and benefits, in his opinion, of cross country; training using the natural environment around you and strength work using your own body weight.
Coe concluded by presenting an award to BMC Founder Frank Horwill - who he credits with providing much of the information his father gleaned over the years - in recognition of his MBE.
Earlier, the Conference had been opened by UKA’s Head of Endurance Ian Stewart who acknowledged the continued forward momentum of European endurance running, most recently celebrated by Mo Farah’s global gold over 5000m and silver over 10,000m at this summer’s IAAF World Athletics Championships.
“It’s a privilege to be hosting this event in Britain and we’re proud to have the opportunity to have you all here,” he said. “European endurance running is on the up and we’re working hard to move it forward.”
Canada’s Wynn Gmitroski, who has attended five Olympic Games and 12 World Championships in a coaching capacity, took to the stage as the first keynote speaker of the weekend and focused on therapy, technique and training prior to delivering workshops on 800m and Championship preparation.
Flagstaff-based Jack Daniels, author of Daniels’ Running Formula and with a complex and impressive
CV that includes a six-year period working as an Exercise Physiologist with Nike’s Elite Athletics West Program, simplified the principles of training generally through his keynote ‘Reflections on a coaching career’ and workshops on the foundations of training, but specifically in his marathon workshop where he outlined his philosophy as “maximum benefit from the least possible work.”
Concluding the international speaker line up, Dr Thomas Rowland focused on the variations between, and requirements of, child and adult athletes through workshops on thermoregulation and fluid requirements and early specialisation, in addition to a keynote speech on iron deficiency in young and adult athletes.
Domestic speaker highlights included ‘Exercise physiology into practice’ workshops delivered by Professor Andy Jones and Dr Barry Fudge, key members of the UKA/London Marathon Altitude Programme team, and an individual keynote presentation from Jones focusing on the physiological assessment of the elite endurance runner - who in this case was Paula Radcliffe - a currently relevant and essential topic given the success of the ongoing UKA/London Marathon Altitude Training Programme which is inextricably linked to the input and advice of the duo, in addition to the UKA medical team.
All of the weekend’s presentations will be available on the uCoach website www.uka.org.uk/coaching within the next few days with video presentations being uploaded to the same site in due course.
The next two in the 2011 European Athletics Coaching Summit Series are the European Jumps and Hurdes Symposium in Falun, Sweden, and the European Shot Put and Javelin Throw Symposium in Tanhuvaara, Finland, to be held on 11-13 November.
European Athletics’ support for the conference includes the offer of Coaching Summit Series scholarships to its Member Federations to help them cover the costs of travel and accommodation for coaches attending.