Comments for Drop The Hammer

Comment on Olympics – Done by hugh

hugh — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:17:33 +0000

empire state stair climbs perhaps.

Comment on Munich and Onwards by David Bagnall

David Bagnall — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:07:43 +0000

Great post Sam. Good to hear how focussed the crew are. Enjoy the journey.
I am a bit worried about the pills. Red ones look like Mike McKay’s Angry Pills.
Noel should have cleaned out the athlete’s fridge at Yarralumla.
Anyway I don’t think they are illegal. ASADA did a lot of research in 2000. Ask Hamma.
And the blue ones are herbal valerian. I wouldn’t touch them myself, except with a good bottle of red wine after London.

Comment on Munich and Onwards by rupert guinness

rupert guinness — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:36:31 +0000

G’day Sam … Sounds like you guys are making great progress … rip in mate. All the best to the crew. Looking forward to reporting to you guys on Dorney Lake … Im leaveing here on Tues for TDF … hows about @dropthehammer joins the SMH Tour de France tipsters panel??? I’ll put the website under your name. All I need is your top 5 in order for overall victory, and your tip for the KOM jersey and Green sprinters jersey!
Make it your tip, or a collective Mens coxed 8 tip – nice little.
Maybe during the TDF you can drop me a line of @dropthehammer’s thought on ‘le Tour’? I do a daily column in the Tour – like my weekly The Breakaway columns … either way mate, keep it up.
Cheers
Rupe

Comment on Derek Clayton by David Bagnall

David Bagnall — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:52:53 +0000

Yes Sam. Within our sport some of the best were coached by Russell “Rusty” Robertson. Coming from NZ he was close to middle distance runner dual Olympic champ Peter Snell (800m & 1500m from memory). I recall Robertson & Snell were mates that cycled from one end of NZ to the other for fun (as you do).
Anyhow I believe that the running coaching philosophies of Snell’s coach Arthur Lydiard permeated into Rusty’s coaching. I think Harry Mahon might also have built on some of this knowledge, and Mr Tonks has continued that tradition.
Talk to some of the guys who were coached by Rusty. There was a lot of open ended 1 minute intervals in some of his training. Going into these sets the athletes (and possibly the coach) had no idea how many reps were involved. This was not fine tuning before racing. This was pre-comp endurance base, and scary.
It ran counter to the prevailing paradigm from Eastern Europe.
Many of these athletes (now coaches) will say Rusty was unique.
But our sport is very conservative, and follows the fashion in lots of ways.
How come NZ is top of the tree?

Comment on Derek Clayton by Sam

Sam — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:00:26 +0000

Thanks David. It’s always interesting when performance is achieved through varying means. It demonstrates that either we haven’t quite worked out the holy grail of training methodology or that it’s different strokes for different folks. Probably a combination of both.

Comment on Derek Clayton by David Bagnall

David Bagnall — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:06:39 +0000

Sam. I enjoy your posts because they don’t accept the prevailing paradigm. Always good to keep an open mind about training and how there might be different recipes for different individuals.
The three guys mentioned (Clayton, de Castella and Monoghetti) were all very different athletes with vastly different training philosophies. Clayton allegedly bled rectally after one of his world record marathons. Now this may have been headbanger folk lore, but it sure scared the opposition.
Not sure that it is the only way to do it for every athlete. Clayton’s best Australian rival was Derek Farrington (Farrington set the World’s best time in 1973). Farrington was the complete opposite of Clayton in terms of personality and probably training loads. Farrington was into much lower mileages and very high quality which is another unique approach.
By the way have a good row on the weekend. Make the Poms nervous before London.

Comment on Derek Clayton by Sam

Sam — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:33:58 +0000

I stand corrected. No Australian, other than Steve Moneghetti, has run faster.

Comment on Derek Clayton by Tom Harrington

Tom Harrington — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:32:30 +0000

Erroneous information. Steve Moneghetti is the 2nd fastest Australian ever in the marathon.

Comment on Lucerne Wrap-Up and Moving Forward by rossa

rossa — Wed, 30 May 2012 08:11:22 +0000

Watched live, saw the vintage Oakley’s… Respect

Comment on Lucerne Wrap-Up and Moving Forward by Lucy

Lucy — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:54:29 +0000

It’s all about the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight…you can beat anyone!
Purnee that haircut is outrageous …. Well done!