Jono Maples (left) is training in the heat of Okinawa, while Lucas Martin is training in cold Canterbury.
The only thing our three Fiji-bound Oceania Championships athletes have in common is that it is their first international competition and their first out-of-season championships.
The three who leave for Fiji at the start of June have had very different training challenges in three very different locations. Jono Maples has prepared in the heat of Okinawa as part of a short Air Force deployment.
Lucas Martin at Canterbury University has had some very cold early-morning training outings, while Juliet McKinlay, part of the under-18 team at the championships, has juggled hockey training with the demands of heptathlon preparation.
Two-time New Zealand 400m hurdle champion and most recently a silver medallist, Maples is used to having to adapt his training. In the past, while posted to Blenheim, Maples had no track, no hurdles and his coach was back in Whanganui.
He creatively used a tennis court and the net lowered to hurdle height for a session involving shuttles with the improvised hurdle as part of the session. For the past few weeks, Maples has been on a short deployment to Okinawa.
He quickly found out that, unlike in Blenheim, he was blessed with facilities.
“The facilities were awesome. There were multiple tracks on the base as well as a huge gym. Off-base there was also a nice track by the beach.”
He got access to that track for a small payment over the last fortnight of his deployment.
Maples has also had excellent preparation in terms of climate preparation for Fiji. The mercury rose close to 40C on many days in the sub-tropical conditions, with many thunderstorms and frequent rain affecting outdoor sessions.
The rain also necessitated the returning of equipment as it was not allowed to be used in wet conditions. Maples overcame such hurdles (excuse the pun) and feels he has established a solid base. He returns to Whanganui this week to build training to a new level in his final 16 days before departure.
New Zealand 10,000 race walk champion Martin has had very different problems in Christchurch, where he is studying at Canterbury University.
Martin’s coach Mark Harris lives in Masterton. Martin has developed well under Harris’ coaching and is used to being in a different city from his coach and following the programme set for him.
After a break at the end of a demanding summer, he has worked through a base phase with a focus on general strength. He has now turned to more specific walking strength with a few key sessions scattered through training blocks.
In the final weeks, Martin will keep working on his endurance while doing some specific race preparation work.
Martin, in complete contrast to Maples, has had very much colder weather to contend with – cooler than Whanganui and very much colder than Okinawa. The cold, of course, is far from ideal preparation for the humid conditions in Fiji noted by Super Rugby teams playing the Fijian Drua in Suva.
As Martin said, ”even for the afternoon training it is pretty cold but mornings are the coldest”. Martin goes on to describe how he layers up for the morning session, opting at times for full tights, long pants, a long-sleeved top, a base-layer jersey with a jacket on top as well as a beanie, gloves and a snood (neck, ear and nose warmer) and clear-lens glasses – “I have basically no skin showing”.
Martin is pleased with his base training and feels energised and excited for his first out-of-international competition in warmer climes. He is pleased he will be joined in his final preparation by race walkers Laura Langley and Jonah Cropp, back from the World Race Walking Championships.
The third athlete preparing for the Oceania Championships is Whanganui Collegiate Year 11 student Juliet McKinlay, who is competing in heptathlon and part of the team competing in the under-18 grade in Fiji.
It is just as well she is a heptathlete and is good at multi-tasking as she attempts to juggle her athletic training with her school’s First X1 hockey and premier club hockey. She has trialled and made the under-18 Manawatū representative team, who will be at a tournament later in July.
Her week’s programme is impressive, spanning her hockey training, conditioning training, throws coaching in Whanganui from Richard Drabczynski, and weekend work in Palmerston North with Anne Thompson (jumps) and George McConachy (hurdles and sprints).
As McKinlay said, “My training is going well at the moment and I am starting to see improvement in technique, with training for seven events beginning to feel more natural.”
We hope the three athletes’ very contrasting training environments reap rewards next month as part of New Zealand’s largest-ever track and field team.