FEATURE: FOR THE LOVE OF RUNNING FOR THE LOVE OF RUNNING having to work the legs— it’s more to get the lungs and the heart to work together with exerting with load. Obviously, we use ice baths, recovery boots and massage once or twice a week depending on the time of the year. When it comes to competitions, if we have rounds we will apply ice the night after a heat in the lead-up to the finals. BRITTANY, CAN YOU TELL US YOUR SIDE OF RECOVERY AFTER AN EVENT? BM: My training days are big days and my recovery days are not. I’ll do a track session on a Tuesday and then I’ll lift in the afternoon. I’ll also do a weight session in the morning on a Thursday and I’ll lift in the afternoon. I make sure that it’s all Instagram @brittsheruns focused, because I was finding that if I lifted on one day and then did a track we haven’t done any real track-work, session, and on paper, it was only meant workout, that I was just breaking down so a lot of quick, good quality sessions to be an 8. We start to look where we every single day because I wasn’t in the gym, and a lot more power stuff, have overloaded and look into if we’ve recovering. Where this way, my recovery really helps sharpen things up. done too much in the gym, or if we’ve days are for recovery. maybe done too much in the lead up. JAMES, HOW DO YOU Again, it’s those discussions between I also find it really important to MONITOR BRIT’S TRACK Brittany, myself and Nic. nutritionally boost myself up and I am a SESSIONS AND STRENGTH big napper—2:30pm and I’m out [sleep]. AND CONDITIONING JAMES, WITH SO MUCH That’s me pretty much every day. I ice SESSIONS? TRAINING INVOLVED, HOW sometimes too, when I want to. I used to DO YOU GET BRITTANY TO rely on it a lot more, but with travel, it’s JK: We have actually looked at RECOVER AND BE READY difficult. If I’m really sore, I can now use implementing an athlete management FOR THE NEXT SESSION? the facilities at the AIS. system moving into 2019 but at the moment, Brit keeps a diary. We monitor JK: We are lucky being here in Canberra AS A COACH JAMES, IT MIGHT things like heart rate, saturation of and have access to the AIS’ facilities. BritNOT BE AS IMPORTANT, BUT oxygen —especially when going from swims a lot: around 3 sessions a week, HOW DO YOU TRAVEL AND altitude to sea level. But generally, it’s thewith the idea being 60% recovery and HOW DO YOU RECOVER FROM discussion you have with the athlete: like 40% aerobic conditioning, so it’s not a TRAVELING? “what’s your thoughts on the exertion of hard swim. She might swim anywhere that track session?”. Although to my eyes from a kilometre to 2 km depending on JK: I had a discussion with Keely Small’s it might look like Brit had a really good the outcome. If it’s meant to be more of [800m Runner based in the ACT] dad session, it’s about Brit’s physical an aerobic outcome, she might swim about this. The recovery from travel as an exertions. So for me, when it looks like 2kms. If it’s just recovery focused, she athlete is one of the things I found really she’s done a really good job, Brit may say might just swim 1200m in a gentle hard, especially in the first week of travel. it’s like a ‘12’ and for her, a really hard freestyle with flippers so she’s not really If I went to Europe, the first week I would 10 VOLUME 36 • APRIL ISSUE 2018