Want to know how the 2013 world champion 50km walker Rob Heffernan trains?
“It’s not that different to marathon training although we have to concentrate on technique – long walks, tempo, intervals. Plus massages and gym,” says a man who can walk a time of under three hours for the marathon distance and of 38 minutes for 10km.
So here’s a typical week of twice a day training:
Day 1 – 25km and 8km
Day 2 – 12km and 8km
Day 3 – 15km (10×100 fast, 400m easy) and gym
Day 4 – 8x2km/1km recovery and 6km
Day 5 – 12km
Day 6 – 8km and 2 pyramids and 8km plus gym work
Day 7 – 6 x 3km (4.10km) /1km (4.40km)
“At the moment, it’s train, eat, sleep, family, train again every day, ” he says. He’s coached by wife Marian and trains with Brendan Boyce and Alex Reid. All three have qualified for Rio ’15, which will be Rob’s fifth summer Olympics – a record for an Irish athlete (although Terry McHugh made six Olympics in all: four summer as a javelin thrower and two winter with the bobsleigh team. In other sports, sailor David Wilkins competed at five Olympics).
Heffernan is aiming for nothing less than gold in Rio. “The dream always is to win gold. Instinctively I always want to win. I’m not there just to take part – though I sometimes look forward to the day when I can go out for a run and not have to think of techniques or what other athletes are doing,” he said.
That won’t be for a while, since he has no immediate plans to retire. “We’ll review the situation after the Games. We’ll see how the body holds up and whether the financial support is in place.”
Robert Heffernan was speaking at the launch of the “Nissan – Road to Rio” series of short films on the preparations of a number of aspiring Olympians.
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