Wise Words In Brighton

18 JAN2012

On Saturday January 14, a packed seminar room at the Hilton Brighton Metropole was treated to two fascinating talks by Italy's most successful marathon coach, Luciano Gigliotti, and Malcolm Brown, Olympic Performance Manager for British Triathlon. A total of 57 athletes and coaches attended the Brighton Marathon organised seminar, including Brian Scobie and Neville Taylor of England Athletics.

On the Sunday morning, there was a timed 20km tempo run for the athletes in cold, sunny weather along Brighton's seafront.

Now 77 and with more than 50 years' experience in the sport, Gigliotti started with a comparison between lifestyles in Africa and the developed western world. He stressed the advantages of the East African child in terms of an active lifestyle and the ability to withstand hard work compared to the more passive pursuits in western culture. He cited early specialisation of the African athlete as opposed to the lengthy athlete apprenticeship in the western world.

Stefano Baldini won 2004 Olympic gold at the age of 33, sandwiched between two 'youthful' African Olympic champions, Gezahegn Abera collecting gold in Sydney in 2000 at the age of 23, while an even younger Sammy Wanjiru (21) won in Beijing 2008. A cursory glance at the current world lists confirms that the west lags far behind Africa in the marathon. There are now just 11 non-African runners among the fastest 100 male marathon runners of all time.

Nonetheless, Gigliotti has provided Italy with two Olympic champions in the last 7 Olympics, Gelindo Bordin in 1988 and Baldini in 2004. Between those two men, there has been a contrast in work-loads reflecting changing attitudes in the last 25 years. Bordin totalled 300km a week in training, compared to Baldini's 200 - 220km per week. The difference between the two, Gigliotti stressed, was the emphasis on specific intensity and power outputs in Baldini's workouts.

This involved running the first half of a typical 2hr+ session at 6-12 percent slower than marathon race pace. In the second half, however, sections of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1km were run at anaerobic threshold pace with 1km recovery in between. There was also a concentration on biomechanics to increase efficiency. Baldini's stride-length varied from leg to leg, 1.82cm for the left leg as opposed to 1.85cm for the right leg. Specific exercises were introduced to correct the imbalance in addition to other analyses like haematocrit levels and subjective feedback from the athlete.

The overall pattern of marathon training began with a basic training period, moving to general preparation and finally specific preparation that typically started 10 to eight weeks before the race.

As coach to two of Britain's triathlon medal hopefuls - the Brownlee brothers - at the London Olympics later this year, Brown revealed the extent of a triathlete's training day. A typical Monday would involve over five hours of training as the athlete needs to practise all three disciplines. Subsequent days were equally loaded, the only day in the week where swimming was not practised coming on a Sunday.

Brown explained the need to look at the end product and work backwards, pointing out that the run was crucial and that a world champion needs to be able to run away from the group in this final phase. It is noticeable that both Browlees excel in this final phase and Brown confirmed the importance of good running technique with a blend of endurance, speed and a winning mentality.

Because of the heavy workload of a triathlete's day, it is vital to incorporate sufficient rest after hard competition. Given the higher injury risk in running as opposed to swimming and cycling, Brown described the need for non-running training for injured runners to maintain aerobic capacity.

The weekend was well received by many seminar attendees who came from across the country and commented on 'the rich knowledge of the speakers, 'illuminating talks' and 'a great opportunity which was well worth the journey'.