Saturday 1 November 2014

Kevin Forster - Olympian and world class marathon runner

Presentation at Helensburgh AC, Tuesday 29th October 2014

Thank you to Helensburgh AC for arranging this evening. It was inspirational and also a great learning experience to listen to someone who has achieved as much as Kevin Forster. I hadn't heard of him before the talk so, if you're like me, more information about him can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Forster

Kevin is an accomplished speaker who delivered a polished performance that contained within it lessons learned from his own experiences underpinned by a wisdom enhanced with the perspective of time.

The Importance of Environment (Private sphere, Athletic sphere, Performance sphere)

1. He emphasised the importance of stability in the sphere of personal life. He was grateful for the understanding of his family and friends who were supportive of the demands of running up to 130 miles per week in training. He also said that having a secure job and a sport friendly employer had contributed to creating the right environment.

2. He extolled the benefits of belonging to a good running club (Gateshead Harriers). More about this below.

3. On a performance level, he described how he perhaps got the environment wrong in training for an overseas marathon. He moved his family to Boston for 6 weeks to train in warmer weather and afterwards he questioned if there had been any benefit to this over training in his familiar environment at home as he hadn't felt that it had enhanced his performance on race day.

Competition with other athletes

He was running in the 80s where even to win local races he would often have to beat a world class athlete. He was in no doubt that if it hadn't been for the core of quality athletes he had around him at his club and in the surrounding areas, he wouldn't have reached the heights that he did. Healthy competition was necessary for improvement.

Cross county underpins everything

For everyone out there starting to get fatigued with the mud and hills, take heart, it will give you the strength and endurance for great spring performances on the track and road. A fabulous grounding for everything else, according to Kevin.

Junior to Senior transition

From a coaching point of view he said this transition should be managed sensitively, particularly for juniors who had been performing at the top of their age groups. It is inevitable but manageable to work with their expectations that this will not happen straight away when they first run at senior level.

Fuelling and hydration 

Kevin never took on anything other than water in marathons. He also didn't have any special diet and in particular hadn't tried out carbohydrate loading which was in vogue at the time. If there was an underlying message from his presentation overall, it was don't over complicate things and this was reflected very well in his thoughts on food and drink. He said he tried to eat the right things but didn't over think it. His wife piped up at this point to say that the main thing to note re diet was that her grocery bills doubled when he was running!

Jo Pavey Analogy

He was asked by an audience member if he thought that if he hadn't had to work full time, did he think he would have been a better athlete. He answered with a very definite no and said that he would go as far as to say he would have done worse. It was good to have a job to focus on during the day and he thinks he wouldn't have done so well if he had had too much time to think about his training. He just went out and did it.

He used Jo Pavey to illustrate his point. She has been quoted recently as saying that one of the reasons that she thinks she is performing well is precisely because she is so busy. Being a full time mum means she doesn't obsess over her sessions or worry about running so much. It is almost like the "other" (for Jo, full time motherhood, for Kevin a full time job) is a crucial factor in ensuring they run to the best of their abilities.

A recent article in the guardian encapsulates Jo's philosophy to running at the age of 41 with all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/20/jo-pavey-athletics-gold-medal-donald-mcrae

To summarise I think Kevin's running philosophy could be summed up as: keep it simple and maintain perspective in your running in relation to the bigger picture of your life.

pian and world class marathon runner 
Presentation at Helensburgh AC, Tuesday 29th October 2014

Thank you to Helensburgh AC for arranging this evening. It was inspirational and also a great learning experience to listen to someone who has achieved as much as Kevin Forster. I hadn't heard of him before the talk so, if you're like me, more information about him can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Forster

Kevin is an accomplished speaker who delivered a polished performance that contained within it lessons learned from his own experiences underpinned by a wisdom enhanced with the perspective of time.

The Importance of Environment (Private sphere, Athletic sphere, Performance sphere)

1. He emphasised the importance of stability in the sphere of personal life. He was grateful for the understanding of his family and friends who were supportive of the demands of running up to 130 miles per week in training. He also said that having a secure job and a sport friendly employer had contributed to creating the right environment.

2. He extolled the benefits of belonging to a good running club (Gateshead Harriers). More about this below.

3. On a performance level, he described how he perhaps got the environment wrong in training for an overseas marathon. He moved his family to Boston for 6 weeks to train in warmer weather and afterwards he questioned if there had been any benefit to this over training in his familiar environment at home as he hadn't felt that it had enhanced his performance on race day.

Competition with other athletes

He was running in the 80s where even to win local races he would often have to beat a world class athlete. He was in no doubt that if it hadn't been for the core of quality athletes he had around him at his club and in the surrounding areas, he wouldn't have reached the heights that he did. Healthy competition was necessary for improvement.

Cross county underpins everything

For everyone out there starting to get fatigued with the mud and hills, take heart, it will give you the strength and endurance for great spring performances on the track and road. A fabulous grounding for everything else, according to Kevin.

Junior to Senior transition

From a coaching point of view he said this transition should be managed sensitively, particularly for juniors who had been performing at the top of their age groups. It is inevitable but manageable to work with their expectations that this will not happen straight away when they first run at senior level.

Fuelling and hydration 

Kevin never took on anything other than water in marathons. He also didn't have any special diet and in particular hadn't tried out carbohydrate loading which was in vogue at the time. If there was an underlying message from his presentation overall, it was don't over complicate things and this was reflected very well in his thoughts on food and drink. He said he tried to eat the right things but didn't over think it. His wife piped up at this point to say that the main thing to note re diet was that her grocery bills doubled when he was running!

Jo Pavey Analogy

He was asked by an audience member if he thought that if he hadn't had to work full time, did he think he would have been a better athlete. He answered with a very definite no and said that he would go as far as to say he would have done worse. It was good to have a job to focus on during the day and he thinks he wouldn't have done so well if he had had too much time to think about his training. He just went out and did it.

He used Jo Pavey to illustrate his point. She has been quoted recently as saying that one of the reasons that she thinks she is performing well is precisely because she is so busy. Being a full time mum means she doesn't obsess over her sessions or worry about running so much. It is almost like the "other" (for Jo, full time motherhood, for Kevin a full time job) is a crucial factor in ensuring they run to the best of their abilities.

A recent article in the guardian encapsulates Jo's philosophy to running at the age of 41 with all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/20/jo-pavey-athletics-gold-medal-donald-mcrae

To summarise I think Kevin's running philosophy could be summed up as: keep it simple and maintain perspective in your running in relation to the bigger picture of your life.

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