Adidas Boost Bootcamp

Race No 25 – Adidas Boost Bootcamp – London Marathon Training Day

Ok so I am getting a bit desperate so I am claiming this as a race, this chest infection has floored me and ruled out my final 2 runs (Regents Park 10k & a Christmas Day Parkrun) but when you are told by an Olympic Marathon runner that you shouldn’t be running you listen right!

I was lucky enough to win one of 100 places at an Adidas Bootcamp held at the London Marathon store in London, I had been looking forward to this for weeks and as my cough was only in its early stages I was determined to attend, after all with Olympic Athletes Liz Yelling, Scott Overall and Ultra Distance Runner and Super Slimmer Steve Way all their to offer advice and support who wouldn’t want to be there

The day started with with a 5k run & we were given a shiny new pair of Adidas Boosts to try out (sadly these had to be given back after our run), the run was mile out and back to a local park and a miles worth of tempo running led by Liz, unfortunately due to my chest infection I really struggled with the tempo running as at the best of times I only have one pace (slow) and today I even that was a struggle, when we got back to the store Liz, Scott and Steve all done a short talk about their own marathon experiences and shared their top pieces of advice, their were also brief talks from representatives from Adidas and Lucozade, as well as a physio and a sports nutritionist

The 3 biggest piece of advice I took from the day were

1) Listen to your body, someone asked with cold & flu season approaching when should you run, both Steve and Liz answered this by saying if it is a head cold you should be ok for sort slow runs but if its in your chest its a no, apparently Steve had recently gotten over a chest infection so had been out of running for 2 weeks, as they knew I had struggled during the tempo run, I was used as an example of when you shouldn’t have run :o(

2) The most important run is your long run, not that anyone would recommend only running once a week we were told that if that’s all we could squeeze in then make it a long run, and to increase distance gently 

3) I am not sure this is a great piece of advice but its something thats certainly stuck with me the 7p’s ‘Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance’

At the end we were also given the opportunity for one of one chats with any of the experts and were invited up for photos, I couldn’t resist a quick pic with Steve Way, as someone wanting to lose some weigh myself and interested in everyone’s weight loss journeys plus attempting to run myself Steve is one of my biggest Runspirations

Finally we were all given the opportunity to have a free gait analysis and offered a 20% discount on any purchases we chose to make & finally if we did make a purchase we were very kindly all given an Adidas Goody Bag worth £130, well it would be rude not to make a purchase wouldn’t it

In the Goody Bags there was a foam roller and physio ball, an adidas phone holder, running cap & gloves, a bag for life and a gym bag, a sports towel, energy gels, lucozades, deoderant, shower gel, aftershave and a few other bits, unfortunately I didn’t buy my boosts, these Mizuno Wave Inspire 10’s fitted me like a glove and while I usually go for something brighter I decided to be sensible as I was now training for a marathon and listen to the experts and make my purchase based on fit and comfort rather than colour and style.

While the day was hosted by Adidas we did have some contact with the staff from the London Marathon Store and if you ever find yourself in London I would definitely recommend paying them a visit (I am taking my husband there next week for a gait analysis and to get him some new shoes for the marathon) I had my gait analysis done by Jason the store manager who couldn’t have been more helpful especially when he tried to accommodate my need for pretty coloured shoes rather than boring blue & even if you don’t have a need for shoes or new kit the store is still worth a visit just to check out the London Marathon memorabilia, I loved the route map & the wall of medals and my friend and I took cheeky photos, her pointing at the medal she received for completing the 2014 Virgin London Marathon & me pointing at the gap for the 2015 medal

The London Marathon Store also host their own running club the 26rs that meet several times a week, more details of the 26rs and when they run can be found here