Has Covid-19 impacted Road Running? Has the changes in people’s liberties, work-life, and time affected their training behaviours? This month I am dedicating my blog to exploring these questions.
My interest in Road Running has stemmed from a very personal place. Growing up in an economically challenged City, Peterborough, is fun, but there can often feel like a lack of opportunities. I recently heard a congresswoman in America share a similar frustration, she said “it feels impossible to become what you cannot see”. Bearing this in mind, I felt I had finally found a passion that my beloved City could host when I took part in the Great Eastern Run as a teenager. Since that first run, running has opened a lot of doors for me, in both my academic pursuits and my career, as I have spent over five years working with different sport federations.
But that’s me, whereas the race itself has witnessed impressive Half Marathon running from Kenyan stars (it used to be part of the Great Run Series). Getting to meet these incredible athletes was the muse for wanting to further myself in athletics. Other British athletes that have performed both equally and inspiringly well are Aaron Scott, Josh Lunn, and Tom Evans. They will all feature in this month’s blog as interviewees, all with insight to share on how running has changed under the unprecedented events that have unfolded over 2020.
So what has changed exactly? This month’s focus will seek answers through a variety of exploratory pieces of work. It is hard to provide a comprehensive report on such monumental changes, but there are definitely a few areas which stand out and warrant a deeper exploration than other areas. For instance, the cancellation of races across the world has led to a unique challenge for both elite athletes and recreational runners. Nowhere is this challenge felt heavier than with marathon runners. The cancellation of the Olympics has meant no Olympic marathon and across the globe the loss of major city marathons has meant that athletes have been losing events to focus their training to. The first three articles of the blog this month will explore this challenge, and will look ahead to the rescheduled London Marathon, where a small number of elite racers will tackle a marathon within an enclosed biosphere in St Jame’s Park, London. We will hear from elite athletes, marathon debuton Josh Lunn and Aaron Scott, an experienced Marathoner who has placed in the top three within the All-English race in London before. This will be complemented by a race review of what can only be described as the most unique London Marathon in the race's history!
On October 15 I will continue exploring how the cancellation of major events has impacted elite participants. But will be focusing on elite teams. ON Running invited me to join them in Mont Blanc to try new gear, to do performance gear testing, and to work with their athletes who are doing a relay around the course of the UTMB, as a replacement for the actual race. You’ll get to see exclusive behind the scenes snaps form the trip, and hear from their Head of Athlete Services and their youngest Elite athlete Antoine Charvolin.
From there we will stick with trail running, but will look at how potential pandemic-led training based behavioural changes may have impacted performances. Herein the blog will report on an original piece of research which has explored how elite, amateur and recreational athletes have been impacted by the lockdown and cancellation of races. Tom Evans will provide insight into how his training has changed and the performances that this has led to! For context, this is a guy that races 100km races, but smashed out a 13:47 5k after going through a national lockdown! Further research will explore if the lockdown has created opportunities for athletes working full or part time jobs to train as full time athletes. With furloughed schemes ending, it is a poignant point to reflect on their effectiveness, but for the sake of this month’s blog, I am going to provide research into whether athletes could train full-time and how this impacted their performances. Despite the summer season being shortened due to the lockdown, their have still be many record breaking performances, as Max Burgin ran the U20 800m record and Marc Scott ran the British 5K road record. Therefore, understanding the impacts of furloughing more broadly are certainly warranted.
This month’s blog will end with insight from another elite marathon runner. As always this month’s blog will be published in a report and sent to all subscribers and participants. Most importantly, I am extremely grateful to those that have made this blog possible. Putting together a monthly blog consisting of 5 articles and 5 interviews would not be possible without the help of many people. So, thank you to Trail Running Mag, Aspire PR, ON Running, Vivian Ruijters, Patrick Swain, and each interviewee.
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