Best coach in the UK

David Lowes from NE seems very good to me. I have only met him the once, at a BMC weekend, but he had all of the qualities that i would look for if i was an athlete.

and then....Waz

waz wrote:

Simply becasue kids are not competing on an equal level. Some kids are bigger and stronger than others at the same age, look at a boys or youths race, there are huge differences in development. seniors is the only level playing field.[/quote]

Waz, you are absolutely correct. If you ever get bored, and i mean 'really bored', take a look at the GBR all time national rankings on Martin Rixx's site. He lists each DOB and it is interesting to note that over 400-1500m a massive majority (something like 9/10) runners in the top 25 over U15-U17 level are born in the five months sept-Jan rather than the 7 months Feb-Aug. Yes, i was very bored that day and i followed it up in some depth.

For me this makes it all the more interesting as i now appreciate just how much catching up the Feb-Aug kids sometimes have to do (although there are exceptions of course and well done to them). It is definately more important to me that an athlete reaches good senior level than anything else. If they are exceptional juniors then so be it, but then it is even more important that you emphasise the fact that senior level is what they really should be looking towards. Too many coaches are interested in producing the best possible junior teams at the expense of a massive drop out/burn out rate.......look at Halesowen for instance. Where is their all conquering team of the mid 90s now? Down the pub, thats where, well done Halesowen.

They are not the only club to have outstanding junior teams, only to have them all drop out as seniors, but i wont go on about it any more. It is a problem that needs addressing, not at UK:A level, but by the coaches! If individual coaches cannot keep athletes in the sport then it is 50% their fault so they should not just shrug their shoulders and complain about it, they should try harder to keep the athletes fit and motivated through to senior level.

Dave

As a kid I ran for J&H, I lived about 400 metres from the track and when the Steve Cram effect was at its height we had an unbelievable colts/boys/youths team. I remember scraping into the D team for a relay, all of the kids in the A,B,C were finishing top 30 at English schools but the people who were coaching didn't have a clue, one guy had a group of about 10 and 6/7 of them were English Schools champions, this in a club of about 120 athletes, they were doing sessions that I would shy away from now, often used to see the girls in particular in tears during and after sessions.

A lot of these kids were very talented but none of them made it past 18. There were kids who had their pocket money stopped if they finished outside top 6 in local road races! I still find it a bit disturbing watching kids races today, especially the younger ones, screaming parents, who don't see their child enjoying the sport just the lucrative endorsements if they make it, its all very sad. I loved being at the athletic club, seeing the top guys train, playing table tennis, having a kick around, I did plenty of running but most of it was recreational, fun, games, nothing structured, that way I grew up to love the sport rather than fear it or resent it or feel any pressure. That way there was never any pressure, the performances were secondary to the fun of being part of something.

I can't help feeling that the level of pressure on kids like Emily Pidgeon etc... cannot be managed for another 6/7 years until she turns senior. Where do you go from AW covergirl at 14??? The weight of expectation must be terrible, I do not see the logic in making her run older age groups, she will have plenty of occassions to face tougher competition if she stays in the sport, let her enjoy it now and pick up her under 15 titles rather than adding pressure all the time. We saw a similar thing with Charlotte Dale last year, running 2 races in one afternoona nd then a 10 miler to follow, has this led to improved this year??? No, she has dissapeared off the radar with injury, lets hope she learns from it...

The kids events can be a good thing but they are not the real deal, they are a means to an end...

Waz, you are probably right with Emily. Having had Alex in the group for a year now, i have learned a lot about Dave Farrow and his methods. I do not like the man at all and will never do anything to further his personal quest for glory. Emily has a very very 'keen' family behind her too, which is unnerving sometimes, i would hate to see what happens when things begin to go pear shaped.....which they always do at some stage.

As i said before, bad coaching or bad coaching ethics are to blame for athletes dropping out/burning out.....Mr.Farrow is a prime example of this. Hopefully Alex has come to us in time and i hope that the work we have put in this winter will now allow him to train like a Junior again rather than just being Rich Davenports pacemaker. We have had to cut his mileage down and introduce him to a whole new system last year.....it was very difficult to plan sometimes as he had a lot of misconceptions about training, but all went very very smoothly in the end.

Back on the best coach in the uk topic.

Another coach that i once met was Wilf Paish, i did a couple of sessions with him years back when he had a travelling roadshow. He used to come to Cheltenham for 2 days every xmas in the 80s. He used to leave me in tatters after day 1, i literally couldnt get out at first and spent the rest of the day in pain on day 2. It was such a buzz though at the time as he was so knowledgable. I learned a lot in those weekends, not least that athletes should never be made to do plyometrics (depth jumping in particular) on an intensive training weekend if they have never even heard of them before.....its just a bit too dangerous!

Having said that, he was brilliant in his instruction, even though i am sure that he would have rather been applying his skills to senior athletes......UK:A need people like him as senior national coaches instead of turning him into some kind of outcast.

Dave

A lot of the older guys seem to be great motivators and though a session is hard it doesn't mean it can't be fun. We seem to be going too far down the science route and this makes everything very serious, we forget why we are doing it in the first place, because its fun and we enjoy it.

Most of the kids I went to school with who were good runners were good footballers and in particular good swimmers, the swimmers were usd to the idea of making sacrifices, they were getting up at 5am to get to the pool to train 3 or 4 mornings per week, and because of this general fitness most of them were on the cross country teams but few maintained their swimming, it was too pressured and often far too dull... length after length. It seems that most of them were training at a pretty high level, 5/6 swimming sessions per week, a cross country race, a football match... they were running against kids who didn't know what training was about... half the kids in the English schools don't train at all, its just a bit of fun, thats why its so hard to judge junior performances. So few of those who are the best at 15 go on to be the best at 25 that its hard to judge whether or not their coaches were doing the right or wrong things... they may not have been the most talented kids they were just fitter than their contemporaries because they were doing more work/or were more advanced growth wise. Kids performances, particularly under 16's bare little relevance to senior competition.

Sorry to mate but its is a lot more than 10 people he coaches. 40 may be a bit high but I think it loads closer than 10. I can give you ten names just from in side birmingham.

Phil Hinch

Mark Miles

David Webb

John Gilby

Matt Lockett

Tom Payn

Dan Dalmedo

Ian Rawlinson

Phil Nicholls

Paul O\'Call

And a load more others. Only 5 people I\'ve listed go to Uni. He does coach a lot of the people at the Uni, but there are a lot that come down to train there. Not to mention the girls that he coaches there as well.

Bud is a fantatic charracter. He knows how to keep people motivated and is always so possitive and enthusiastic for the sport and his athletes. I\'ve got a lot of time for Bud.

You can hardly say bud coaches o cal anymore- he turns up once or twice for a session. Rawlinson is more coached my Dave Sunderland (so that's two off the list). Granted still more than ten that he coaches granted, but a lot of people just turn up to do the sessions and he is available to coach the uni all day for 4 days per week.

Bud likes Jaffa Cakes.

If you ask Rawlinson, he'll say he's coached by Bud. He just ends up doing Dave Sunderland sessions.

O'cal ask Bud to advise him on his training. So I think that as good as being coach by Bud.

Do you all run sessions together, how are they made individually specific? I'm just interested, because I have trained in large groups before and I have always found that they were tailored around 2/3 individuals, often the best runners and everyone else had to fit in around what they were doing, thats why I ran crap for a long time... I was trying to do other peoples training. laso how often do you ahve contact, I tend to talk to the guy who advises me every 1-2 days, is he in regular contact with everyone?

Bud decides who is in what group and how many sets, reps, times they are going to do etc. The sessions are not geared around 1 or 2 runners. Generally there is a group of regulars consisting of Dave Webb, Jon Gilby, Hinchy, Tom Payn, lockett, myself and whoever else is around uni lads. Most of that group talk to bud on a regular basis to talk through training and to see how things are going.

A lot of the uni lot have coaches at home and some of them liase with bud on a regular basis.

It's a very competitive group with a good group of lads to train with because we are all of similar ability and are willing to train hard without been overly competitive.

I guess when everyone is of similar ability with the same goals it can work. I used to find that I was abit of a donkey for others in the group, after all if they finish the rep 6/7 seconds ahead of you then you are losing the recovery aswell! I have started to run a lot better since I trained on my own but the long sessions, 2k's miles 1200's are tough on your own.

Waz, i understand that you had problems working with a group where you were not able to stay with the efforts, but now that you are running faster will you be looking to work with a group again? It will more than likely be a different story this time around.

BILLZEEBUB wrote:

Waz, you are absolutely correct. If you ever get bored, and i mean 'really bored', take a look at the GBR all time national rankings on Martin Rixx's site. He lists each DOB and it is interesting to note that over 400-1500m a massive majority (something like 9/10) runners in the top 25 over U15-U17 level are born in the five months sept-Jan rather than the 7 months Feb-Aug. Yes, i was very bored that day and i followed it up in some depth.

For me this makes it all the more interesting as i now appreciate just how much catching up the Feb-Aug kids sometimes have to do (although there are exceptions of course and well done to them).

Dave

This phenomenon is not confined to athletics. Look at the dates of birth of a random collection of professional footballers and you will see an overwhelming bias towards those born in the first half of the school year.

IMHO - it proves how early sporting prowess is developed. When young, there can be a huge difference between kids born just six months apart. The 'older' kids, generally bigger, stronger, faster, get used to being better at sport than their counterparts. The younger, less developed kids get used to being not so good. The older kids get picked for teams, the younger kids don't - as a result the older kids get more attention thus widening the gap even further.

Not sure what the answer is, but it's still quite interesting. Maybe.

I've found that I have made big improvements since I started to do the sessions alone, mentally I find races quite easy after tackling sessiosn like 5 x 2k on the track on your own, I am finally doing what I should be doing rather than fitting in around somebody elses training. I honestly don't think it works. its ok to say we have groups of similar ability, but thats just it, they are similar not identical and people are always going to be working above/below there levels. I think its fine to do the bulk of the work ina group, Sunday runs etc... mileage but the specifics should be just that. I trained in several groups where everyone was spent after one third of the session except the top guy, ok this can bring people on but it can also do a lot of damage, especially to kids.

It comes down to convenience and motivation, its easy to train ina group, its easier to motivate yourself in those situations but on race day you are on your own and if you are used to it and you have the concentartion to do it on your own its a bonus.

Because of my work.house situation i currently do 100% of my training alone, I run to and from work Monday to Friday, incorporating a session at the track on uesdays, I do a session with my coach on saturday morning and I do a long run, 1.45-2hrs on my own on Sunday. Sometimes its hard but it works, I run my own pace, whetehr that is fast or slow and the sessions are tailored towards me.

One of you guys were talking about Mike Down...you know that he used to coach Jo Pavey?? He still coaches Rob Whalley, he used to have a really elite group back in his prime. Jo is now coached by her husband, just as Paula Radcliffe is. Sometimes a coach is not looking out for an athletes best interest, but of course ones "partner" is and I feel this is evident from Paulas and Jo's results...this is also coupled with the fact that your partner knows you extremely well and thus has great insight into what motivates you. Jo has had a few suppoosedly good coaches but the one that seems to really work for her is her husband. You just need a coach to really care about you and know you very well. Uh..of course knowledge etc etc wouldn't go a miss.

radcliffe coached by the husband??

has anyone told th stantons??

Baldero is a f***in amazing coach - he must have over 40 athletes in his group at present and not one of them is neglected.

He may not have produced millions of superstars but at the end of the day its up to the athletes to be as dedicated as the coaches.

He believes in grass roots as well as the elite and he believes in everyone. His passion and dedication is phenominal and for that reason he would get my vote!

Anybody catch the delete of the thread 11/17/05 about acusations against Dave Farrow. Brothers Johnson are afraid. Very afraid.

I didn't see it, but if it was libelous, then any moderator has a duty to delete the post.