Hi SP fam,

As most of you would know I have just returned from a 6-week hiatus, travelling the world looking after the hurdlers of the Australian Athletics team (no I wasn’t on a holiday, well I was for a tiny bit of the end). Traditionally, in athletics we have 1 major championship each year that athletes work and train so hard to peak for.

However, this year we continue to play the COVID catch up game and the choice was made to target both the 2022 World Athletics Championships ↗ in Eugene, Oregon as well as the Commonwealth Games ↗ in Birmingham, England.

In hindsight, this seemed like an easy decision. Athletes compete in multiple races during the Australian domestic season so why can’t we do this overseas?

here comes the learning curve

Travel is exhausting

It’s one thing to be at home, relaxing in your bed, eating your favorite foods, catching an hour flight every 2-3 weeks. Let me take you through my travel plans:

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON >> EUGENE, OREGON >> LONDON, ENGLAND >> BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND

In that period we had 2 staging camps plus 2 major competitions where most athletes competed in 4-6 races.

Now I’m just the coach and I don’t have to complete training sessions or compete on the biggest stage of the world! Most athletes also started their journey in Europe, travelled across to America and then ended up back in Europe.

Emotions are high

Eugene, Oregon is the home of Nike - the World Champs experience was one of a kind, with the athletes competing in a brand-new stadium and on a very fast track. The sessions were sold out each day and the crowd was pretty special. Unlike in Australia, Americans love their Track and Field and they are very patriotic.  So think about coming off this experience, getting through your jetlag and going back into a small training block in London.

The plus side – with such a short turn around you are emotionally drained so we really reduced the load of the athletes training schedules. They did not need to work hard between races, it was more fine tuning the body and race tactics, whilst keeping on top of recovery, sleep and food.

It is important to read your athlete emotionally to gauge how they are feeling, some were on top of the world post great performances whereas others were struggling to bring themselves back up to race mode if they hadn’t quite performed to their potential.

“Baby covid” is still stressful

Our COVID experience was very different compared to the 12 months prior during the Olympic Games but COVID still exists (SHHHH). We had to do 1 RAT test prior to arriving in the World Champs villages (this was pretty cruisy), however, to get into the Comm Games village we had to produce 3 negative PCR tests over a 10 day period (this was stressful).

We did have a slight outbreak with a few team members contracting COVID between the US and the UK, but this was managed extremely well by our medical staff and the virus wasn’t passed on to other team members.

BUT WE CAN’T FORGET THE HIGHS THAT COME WITH HIGH PERFORMANCE SPORT!!

You meet great people and learn lots of cool things along the way:

When you are rubbing shoulders with the fastest athletes in the world, watching them compete and train is inspiring. It may be something super simple like a new drill or a slightly different way of prescribing a session for a 400 runner. As coaches, we love to have a good chit chat, spill the tea and talk about the serious and not so serious components of our training sessions. We discuss what we find works, what doesn’t work, what we struggle with as coaches and how we can become better coaches for our athletes.

Travelling with NO RESTRICTIONS!

Enough said!

Living the life of a full-time coach and athlete:

My squad in Wollongong all work and have careers outside of athletics, meaning life can get busy at home as they juggle work and sport. It was wonderful to dedicate our time and effort to the sport we are so passionate about, be present in the moment and absorb what these athletes achieved on the world stage.

I am grateful that my career as a coach is progressing, and I have been given the opportunity to travel the world and share these experiences with my personal athlete.

Watching Sarah race (4 times!) and achieve her goals against the best in the world:

Now my patients know everything about Sarah, her journey, how hard she has worked and what a fantastic season she was able to produce. It’s one thing to run fast, buts it’s a whole other ball game running fast against the best in the world. Sarah continues to do this at every major championships, putting together consistent, strong campaigns against the best of the best (did I mention the world record got broken AGAIN in the women’s 400m hurdles).

The support from home was overwhelming, including everyone who set their alarms for 4:30am on a Saturday to watch her Comm Games final. It was great to come home to my patients, with the first thing said  “I WATCHED HER RACE!!” (even though they have no previous experience watching athletics).

That’s the beauty of sport, it makes people happy and brings people together.

So that’s it from me, thanks for reading and hanging on for the ride. I learn ’t a lot from my 2022 experience overseas and wanted to be able to share both the highlights and challenges with everyone at home.

Until next time.