Performance Sprints Coach, Charlie Craddock, takes a look back over his time with WLTF
It’s been three and half years since I joined West London Track and Field (WLTF) in March 2018 as a sprint coach. In this article I’ll be reflecting back on my time; some of the highlights, how coaching has changed and also how the company and training groups have developed over that time too.
How it all started
I found my love for coaching after sustaining a number of injuries when training myself, coaching helped to fill the gap of not training. In February 2018 Laura posted a job advert for a speed coach to deliver 1-hour speed sessions every Wednesday evening and also be mentored by her in the delivery of speed coaching and potentially hurdles at a later date. For me this was the exact opportunity I had been looking for. To be mentored by someone with experience both as a coach and also an athlete in a professionally set up environment, which was dedicated to coach and athlete development with minimal distraction, as is not always the case in club environments.
The story so far ……..
Year 1 March 2018 - February 2019
For the first few sessions I observed Laura and Mikel deliver the speed sessions to understand the technical model they work towards and how they delivered it, eventually they passed the reigns over to myself. Having Mikel to observe coaching was very helpful. Mikel comes from a strength and conditioning background, as a result he often approaches problems or technical aspects from a slightly different view point. Month by month the Wednesday sessions grew in size and we had a few regulars, I discussed with Laura about the possibility of us setting up a bronze/junior group. The idea was to compliment and sit under the silver and gold groups we already had and to continue developing the pathway structure in place and allow us to cater for athletes of younger training ages in our sprint squads. This was another step forward in growing WLTF. As a result of this, in September 2018 our Bronze squad was formed. We had 4 athletes to begin with; myself as the sprint coach, Antonia who had served as an intern for the ‘17-‘18 season was taken on as our strength and conditioning coach and Amanda was our Hurdles coach. Within a few months the group was 7 athletes strong and all were progressing well. We had an age range of 15 to 32 but most had a training age of less than 1 year.
November 2018, Laura, Mikel, Tom (one of our pole vault coaches) and myself attended a workshop in Loughborough by JB Morin about resisted sprint training and force velocity profiling. Looking back, this is the best coaching workshop I’ve taken part in. We all took a lot from the workshop and have since implemented a lot of it too, forming part of our programme on a weekly basis and also monitoring on a monthly basis.
Year 2 March 2019 – February 2020
April 2019, All the sprint groups had wintered well, and April saw the annual trip to Tenerife for warm weather training. This was my second trip warm weather training but first as a coach. For me this was a big learning experience, and I didn’t realise quite how full on in terms of coaching it would be. I recall spending 8 hours at the track one day split between 3 groups. Valuable lessons were learnt though, especially how to approach training differently when away. It’s about running fast and recovering as the warmer weather allow for much higher quality of training. It also opened my eyes to the importance of working as a team and also the importance of rest days/downtime not just for the athletes but the coaches too! The quality of training was brilliant from everyone whilst away and they all came back in better shape, ready to take on the season ahead. Personally, it was also a good chance to get to know some of the athletes better within our group and also some of the other coaches and therapists from around the country that Laura has good relationships with.
In 2019 Laura also started up a junior group for children aged 7 and upwards. This was led by our junior‘s coach Sophie at the time. In the space of a few months this group grew from 4 to 5 each week to around 20 and to the point where we had to have two coaches each week to ensure the session delivery was as good as it could be. This sat at the start of our development pathway, and to see so much interest and enthusiasm from the young ones certainly bodes well for the future of the sport. Having covered the coaching of the younger groups on a few occasions, I felt it was a great experience in hindsight as with kids so young in comparison to the ones I coach. Your communication and explanations of everything has to be so precise, otherwise confusion and chaos will arise!
September 2019 Luke, one of our athletes in our sprint group, retired from track and joined the coaching team. He re-started the Wednesday speed sessions we had, with the addition of Saturdays too. This continued to grow month by month throughout the year.
February 2020, the indoor season was here and this saw two of my group go to Sheffield for England Age Group Championship. This was their second season of training but first experience at a Nationals Championship, so the likes of call rooms and warm up times etc became crucial for them to learn and follow. Both ran PB’s in their events (60m and 400m) and thoroughly enjoyed the experience too, which was testament to their consistency at training. It’s days like these that give you assurances of the way you’re coaching.
Ian, Laura’s dad also joined the coaching team to assist on Tuesdays and Saturdays which were our busier days of the week. With more coaching experience than all of us put together, he’s got some very valuable knowledge to tap into. Sean was bought in too (as a sports science intern originally now as a member of the coaching team too). Something we had always struggled with was keeping on top of numbers we collected for our monitoring and analysing them around the busy coaching schedule. Sean has turned out to be a dream in this case, making spreadsheets for just about anything and everything we need one for but most importantly compiling it altogether in a useable format for the coaches to help us inform coaching decisions.
Year 3 March 2020 – February 2021
I probably speak for a lot of coaches and athletes when I say this last year has been the most challenging yet but where the most growth and learning has occurred. Dominated by the dreaded pandemic we have been going through. Coaching through a time like this is nothing any coach has had experience of nor any knowledge of. For two months programming was moved online, video calls and video feedback was the only way of us communicating with athletes and to move training forwards. Despite training alone for a couple of months we noticed a lot of athletes made vast improvements during this time (as was evident by the results later in the summer competitions). A lot of lessons were taken from this period and it informed us of some changes to our programme going into this winter. This period also enabled the coaching team to push the brand of WLTF forwards and develop a plan for the next couple of years to support our development.
June/July 2020, we managed to get some good race prep in and we had a lot of good results from competitions this year despite the limited number of them, notably Worthing Open and British Champs. Reflecting on the summer performances from the groups as a whole I think Max our 400m hurdler is proof of the philosophy that Laura has laid out at WLTF. Prioritising a long-term development plan over years rather than the immediate seasons coming up and making sure the athletes are able to enjoy long and healthy careers within their events. Max has been at WLTF since 2016, no PB’s were set in the first couple of years in his event however the last couple have seen him take off nearly 2 seconds and come 7th in last year’s British Champs final.
August 2020, we ran our first 3-day speed camp. This was led by myself and Antonia for the older guys and Tom took the juniors, Laura joined us for the last day to take the hurdles workshop and Holly Mills (one of our Junior international multi-eventers) hosted a Q&A session with the athletes on the last day to finish. The aim of the workshop was to showcase and deliver what we do at WLTF. We then had 4 or 5 of the athletes from the camp join our new bronze group in September 2020.
September 2020, we had a shift in coaching arrangements. The athletes I coached stepped up to the gold and silver groups, meaning myself and Laura split the athletes between us. This allowed us to expand our groups to more athletes but maintain the quality of session delivery. Luke transitioned his Wednesday and Saturday speed sessions into a new bronze group and Antonia started up sessions on Mondays for team sport players, which was complimented well by her background in football. Another step forward in growing WLTF had occurred.
One month into training and Lockdown 2.0 struck. Thankfully 1-2-1 coaching wasn’t such a bad thing, it gave us some really good focus with each athlete during the session and we made some very good progress. Since then, coaching face to face has all been up in the air, group training resumed then plunged back into tier 3 then tier 4 and then into lockdown 3.0. Anyway, it’s safe to safe I’m very much looking forward to year 4 of my journey at WLTF and the back of lockdowns!
Reflections from my time at WLTF
Over the last 3 years I have gone from coaching one hour a week on a Wednesday to coaching 3 (nearly full) days a week. Each year I have been handed more responsibility as my understanding of the WLTF philosophy has grown and my knowledge has developed. What I love about working at WLTF and the environment Laura has created for not only the athletes but the coaches too, is the openness of conversation and ideas between us all. Any ideas for growth we actively talk about to see if there’s opportunity for them working out. There aren’t many people I know who enjoy waking up in the morning to go to work. That’s how you know when you’ve found the job for you!
The future
I have 3 personal development goals for the coming years; working towards developing knowledge and delivery in the coaching of hurdles, then combined events. Also, to gain more experience in the therapy side of our programme alongside Ciaran our Lead Therapist. Ultimately, I’d love to be able to coach an athlete to a Major Championship in the future whether that be Commonwealths, Europeans, Worlds or Olympics. I know that will come with time and experience.
Laura was accepted into the first cohort of the UK Sport Female Coach Leadership Programme. It will be very intriguing to see where this course takes her. I can’t think of anyone better to stand on this programme; she’s been the founder, figure head, leader and mentor for the sprint, hurdles, and multi-events side of WLTF which is thriving and shows female power at its finest!
In terms of WLTF, we are maintaining the current size in our senior groups. There’s room to grow the Bronze group to gradually feed into the senior squads. We are looking to expand our work into other areas such as online programme delivery, schools programmes and running more camps & workshops from our base in west London or online.
I have an honest belief that West London Track and Field can set the standard for athlete pathway development and coaching development over the coming years for others to follow. With our diverse team and the plans we have in place for growth, it’s going to be one very exciting journey ahead that’s for sure!