A day with Mick Woods GBR Coach

A beautiful sunny day, hardly cross country weather, greeted us as we pulled into the car park at Aldershot Farnham and District. A statue of Wellington overlooked the training field which seemed quite appropriate for what was to follow.

As numerous athletes and coaches from a huge variety of clubs across the South of England drove into the car park Mick Woods and his able assistant Kate Haynes appeared from laying out the course with coloured cones.

Mick was straight into greeting athletes and coaches alike and soon called all the “new observers” into a huddle. Without hesitation he embarked on a brief, but detailed, explanation of what he was hoping to achieve from the sessions and how he structured the various phases throughout the year.

Between 80 -90 athletes, aged between 13 and 50ish, had assembled and without too much encouragement had set off on a set warm up run. Soon they drifted back into the car park and continued with drills and stretches in small groups.The groups included the following atheltes Matthew Ashton, Steph Twell, Emelia Gorecka, Ruth Haynes, Charlotte Purdue.

Before long Mick was suggesting the structure of around half a dozen training groups, for the various abilities. Each group was allocated a leader and the sessions explained. On this day there were 1500 metre and 1200 metre rep sessions at training threshold pace with 2 -3 minutes recovery. The top groups covered around 10k and the younger, less experienced groups, worked around 6k. To conclude the session everyone ran 5 x 200m with 100m jog recovery.

One striking feature of the session was the way each group ended their particular sessions. Regardless of which club they belonged to, what age or gender the individual, everyone in the group thanked everyone else with a handshake. It was a true recognition of camaraderie.

There is little doubt that it is possible to create a similar training squad in Oxfordshire. We have an ideal venue at Shotover Park with a wide range of perfect training trails. Hopefully the athletes and coaches will now come along and see if they can create a similar environment as that at AFD.