When it is OK to look back

Coach Bernard explains when is a good time to review your training for the year.

Don’t look back!

Looking behind you during a race is generally not a good idea – it gives the opposition the idea that you might be weakening, and even if you’re not, there is the chance of tripping over your own feet and certainly of losing rhythm and momentum – you might not think you have. Still, it’s pretty obvious to any onlooker.

When it’s good to look back

There is, however, one occasion when looking back is very worthwhile. I’m writing this in early September, the track season will shortly be over, and the autumn relays on road and country signal the start of the next distance running year. It’s an ideal time to review how the last year has gone. Think about what went well and what didn’t, and can you identify the factors that affected success and disappointment?

Exams are a classic example – they bedevil students from early in their secondary school careers right through to finals at university. Exams are, of course, a priority – without the GCSEs and A levels, the other stuff may well not happen at all. Did you get the right balance between effective revision and relieving the pressure (for example, by pushing off for a few gentle miles)? There is no right or wrong answer to this one, but given the current frequency of exams over several years, it’s worth discovering whatever that optimum balance means for you. If it worked last time, that’s great; if it wasn’t so good, what might work better next time?

Review recovery

Injuries are another fact of life, and it’s rare for any athlete to go through their entire career without picking up at least a few niggles, if not worse. And of course, there are often bugs such as covid and the like floating around. If that was you, did your recovery and rehab go as planned or were there things that, in hindsight, you’d have done differently? For example, did you get back into hard training too soon?

Progression

If you are a younger athlete and were progressing your training, how did that go? Could you sustain the new level, or did you increase either volume or intensity (or both) too quickly and end up with chronic fatigue or injury? And if you are at the other end of the age range and trying to minimise deterioration, could you still handle the level of training you did the year before?

Planning for the year ahead

Once you’ve looked back, you are in a much better position to start planning for the coming year. I don’t mean getting down in the weeds and deciding what session you’ll do on the third Wednesday in November, but rather a broader strategic view. Do I have exams, and when are they? Am I off to university in a few weeks time? Am I expecting particularly busy times at work or trying to move house? Are there aspects of training that I need to bring in or drop altogether? Did I compete too often, or not enough, and were the races I chose the right ones for me? For example, if all of your races since April have been over 1500m, would you have benefitted from some over 800m or 1000m (think Jake Wightman) or maybe brought in a few over 3000m as well (think Laura Muir)?

You can also consider targets for the coming year. For this, it’s handy to think in terms of three tiers:

  1. the minimum you’d be happy with

  2. a tough objective that should be achievable with some hard work

  3. a dream target where everything needs to go right on the day (and then some).

Targets will also include deciding on which races where you really want to do well but don’t forget to work back to identify what other races you need to do before the big day. It’s no good peaking for the English Schools if you are not in the county team to start with.

Review tips

The review might sound like a complex process, but it shouldn’t be. It’s best done in peace and quiet, preferably with coffee (other beverages are available) and a large piece of cake close at hand (the more decadent the better). Have your training log with you, and maybe have your Power of 10 page open as well, which will provide a great summary of all of your races. But don’t overthink things; anything more than 15 minutes is unlikely to be productive.

You need to end up with a few bullet points written down in your training log. It’s really important that you put a few notes down as these will be the starting point for your next review in 2023. This isn’t a compulsory exercise, but those who’ve done it have found it useful. It’s something for you, not anyone else. I don’t collect training logs in for marking – although fairly often, a review will bring up questions that you might want to discuss with your coach, and that’s fine.

Reviews for coaches

And by the way, it’s also a useful exercise for coaches, firstly because however long we’ve been in the sport, we still keep learning all the time and secondly because the athletes we work with are developing continually (and so are effectively a moving target).

In the words of the late David Sunderland, nobody knows it all, and anyone who says they do is a fool.

Summing up

I found reviews a useful thing to do as a young athlete (it didn’t last, unfortunately), and I’ve suggested it to people in our endurance group for some years now. However, this article is just as applicable to athletes in any discipline and at any level.