POWELL'S PURPLE PATCH

Trackspeed1-UK's head coach John Powell has hit something of a purple patch with 2016 barely a month old!

He has put to one side the sizeable haul of lifetime bests his athletes achieved in the few indoor meetings they took part in last month, and is now celebrating being selected as England team coach (sprints) for the indoor international in Linz, Austria, this Friday (12th).

"It was an email completely out of the blue," John explained, "but it was a pleasant surprise.  I've been to this meeting before and it's an excellent venue and fairly fast track, so hopefully we can come back with some decent results."

The meeting will reunite John with one of his former athletes, Josh Swaray, whose recent excellent form over 60 metres earned him selection at the eleventh hour.

Trackspeed1-UK coach John Powell will be leading
English sprinters into the Austrian international this Friday

Having already been on a flying visit to the USA early in January, and a few days on family business in Thailand a couple of weeks ago, one would have thought that keeping his feet on terra firma would be a reasonable tactic given that he has a six-week trip to the US for pre-season training this Spring.

Wrong!  A local promotions agency put his name forward to act as advisor to an American filming company who are putting together a major commercial from an Olympic sponsor pre-Rio.  So in March it's off to South Africa to oversee and advise the filming of the sprints side of that project!

"I've always had itchy feet," said John, and I'm pretty fond of traveling, but even for me this is a fair bit of globe trotting, given that I'm barely in the UK 48 hours after the filming trip and it's off to Orlando for the training camp!"

Meanwhile back home his squad of athletes have been left with a strict regime of training for the next few days to replenish basic fitness levels which John has assessed as having dropped during the competitive period.

"It's pretty normal to drop a peg or two when you're focussing on speed in January," he explained, "but now it's back down to the serious stuff to ensure we hit the ground running - quite literally - pre-season!"