A day in the life of ... Me

Wednesday 22nd April 

I've had a rather interesting and great day so I thought I'd share what's been happening. 

The day started at 5:20am (say what!?). I know, grim. Thankfully this is not my usual alarm but today I have been in Loughborough for a workshop and my flight down to East Midlands was at 7:10am from Edinburgh. 

The conference was hosted by Perform Better and Catapult. The latter a company that make GPS (or MEMS as I've learnt) for sports analytics. You've probably seen or heard about it in football or rugby; the small rectangular units which sit between their shoulder blades. This unit records velocity and movement information which can then be analysed to provide live or retrospective information regarding distance ran, frequency of acceleration, direction of running, jumps, tackles and much much more. It is used to understand the demands of the sport and then influence the training accordingly. 

Sounds awesome right? Yes, potentially. But in reality it's a lot of data to make sense of and to put into a coach friendly format. And like I've said countless times unless the coach buys in and allows the data to influence training what's the point? 

This is my challenge. We are beginning to use the system in a sport I lead in at work. It's an indoor sport so we don't get the velocity data but there's plenty to work with. But how to use it? What are the more experienced teams doing with the data? How have practitioners got coach and athlete buy in and is it making a difference? Moreover can we use the default norms and bandings? What work do we need to do to validate the system in our sport? These were the questions I wanted answered. 

Catapult and Perform Better delivered. From the grandfather of science in football to practitioners working for league teams my brain didn't stop whirring, full of ideas and plans. Each speaker had a real focus on coach buy in and positively impacting performance. Something that can get overlooked at academic conferences. Not going to lie, I hit a wall after lunch (which was top notch), my brain was saturated. Alex (strength and conditioning) and I were setting our world to rights with plans for gps and beyond; it was all a lot to take it and process. But plans we have. Coach buy in we do not as of yet. That will have to be cultivated slowly as we gather more data and (hopefully) make links between match play, training load and athlete wellness. 

So the conference had ended but my day was not over! I was in Loughborough remember? It's a hub of sport and also the land where some of my very best friends still reside! Determined to make the most of the time I had I met with Jayne for an hour and we had a catch up only interrupted to say hi to my bffs boyfriend! I can't wander round Loughborough without seeing people I know! But it wasn't all gossiping with Jayne. Having seen (on twitter) that I was in town Kate; the physiologist for British athletics suggested we have a catch up. We NEVER manage to catch each other on the phone so it was a great idea. An hour and a whistle stop tour of our shared athletes later we were done and dusted: plans in place for the next few months. Efficient.

As my flight wasn't until 8:20pm (on purpose) I had just enough time to squeeze in dinner with two more friends. I lived with Harriet when I was in Loughborough and we never manage to see each other anymore so it was great to see her. And Courtney is a friend who I met when I moved to Scotland, only to have her move to Loughborough to train for pole vault! A yummy Moomba (Australian restaurant) kangaroo burger later and we were somewhat caught up with each other's lives (very low on boy chat though). Next stop airport where my trip was capped off by a keen sales lady in duty free offering me a free shot of raspberry vodka! 

So that's been my day. 100% worth the early and grim wake up call. Once I land it'll be home and to bed to try catch up on sleep before work tomorrow! I can't wait for the weekend!!