Harriers Perfect Triangle of Performance in Portugal

Four Harriers recently joined the annual 2:09 Events warm weather training camp on the Algarve where they enjoyed a high volume of training under expert guidance and a cloudless sky. Alan Derrick, Frances Ferguson, Eddie Reid and Kenny Leinster were all looking forward to escaping the highly variable Scottish weather and consolidating their build up for the Stirling Marathon in May (except Frances who had no specific race targets but was aiming to kick-start her training after a series of injuries and other interruptions). There they joined another 100 or so runners and expert coaches covering the full range of running abilities from relative beginner to elite international athletes.

We are all in there somewhere (Copyright 2:09 Events Ltd)

Over the 10 days of training, each day started with a pre-breakfast easy run of between 5 and 10 miles taking in the cliff-top trails, orange groves, nature trails and, of course, the beach. In the afternoon we usually had a conditioning session of yoga, pilates, core stability or running drills. This was followed by the second running session of the day which could be threshold repetitions on the hilly cross-country course, a track session or another steady run on the trails. The long runs were at the weekend on a flat road loop around the Victoria Golf Course in Vilamoura (home of the 2016 Portugal Masters). The course included a 5km loop located about 6km out from the village, allowing those training for marathons to build up a multi-loop run of anything between 14 and 24 miles with the benefit that runners could take on gels or drinks each time they passed some of the coaches who were positioned on the loop.

Most evenings there was a half hour talk by one of the staff (including Mike Gratton, 1983 London Marathon winner and tour operator, Bruce Tulloh, 1963 European 5000m champion and coach to many top British and Kenyan athletes and Nick Anderson and Tom Craggs, the head coaches on the camp). Midway through the training camp, we had the "pleasure" of substituting the morning run for the Falesia 5km road, race, a testing two and half lap loop of a hilly road circuit around the village which you have read about in this blog before.

Falesia 5k Road Race - Frances mid-pack (Copyright 2:09 Events Ltd)

The foundation of the training camp is the Triangle of Performance. i.e. Training, Nutrition and Recovery. Failing to consider all three parts of the triangle in your preparation will result in poor performance, injury or illness. All the Harriers applied themselves fully to exploiting the triangle although each of us had our strong points as illustrated by the following photos:

Training - Alan hangs on to 2:32 marathon runner Jenny Spink in the orange grove (Copyright 2:09 Events Ltd)

Nutrition - a serious session. Kenny bailed out before this one!

Recovery - Eddie has this one perfected.

Kenny has still to grasp the triangle

In all seriousness, the running was the biggest part of the week and all the Harriers really excelled here with Frances, Eddie and Alan all running well in excess of 100 miles during the camp, as would Kenny had he not had to return home early. Coupled with the relaxation and the food, all the Harriers returned home much fitter, nicely tanned and motivated (until they saw the snow in East Kilbride several days after returning!). Roll on next year.

Some more photos are in this album (note that most are Copyright 2:09 Events Ltd).

Alan

Morning beach run (Copyright 2:09 Events Ltd)