This year’s Manchester marathon was the source of a fountain of PBs for our committed Team Blizard athletes.

For one particular runner, Nene Valley Harriers’ Yvonne Scarrott, the race represented a huge turning point in her self-belief and racing confidence when she smashed her eight-year-old life time best just months shy of her 50th birthday.

Yvonne has been running at a good club level for many years, regularly claiming podium positions at races across the country, particularly in recent years at Masters level in the UK and Europe.

However, she found she had reached a plateau last year, with her times refusing to budge any lower in races, and, in fact in some of her preferred distances, such as the marathon, her results were getting slower.

She knew she had to make a change in her training, having considered at one point giving up her beloved sport altogether, following another disappointing below-par performance.



Yvonne explained the position she was in, and how her training was soon to take a dramatic turn for the better after a visit to see Dave Tune here at Blizard Physio’s sports performance clinic.

She said: “Traditional training plans of high mileage, speed work and running to pace were leaving me tired, unmotivated and disappointed, and often injured.

“A club mate had raved on about the benefits of threshold training, so, with nothing to lose, I booked in for my first lactate test last summer. I have to admit I was terrified about having blood taken, but it was fine on the day. I also received dietary advice, and, on my second test three months later, there were marked improvements on all aspects.

Yvonne soon reaped the rewards of sticking religiously to her training plan set by her new coach, edging ever closer to breaking long-standing PBs in the 10km and 10 mile distance in the lead up to her goal race this year, the Manchester marathon.

Her superb 68:43 clocking at this January’s Freethorpe 10m was just 50s shy of her 12 year old PB, while her 10km on a very windy, wet day at Chesterton a month earlier also showed encouraging signs that her training was working when she ran a strong 41:46, less than a minute off her lifetime best from 2010.



Interestingly, leading up to Manchester, where she planned to launch an assault on her 8-year-old PB of 3:14:24, she struggled to get into her threshold zone at times.

“Despite my misgivings about the slower paced recovery runs and threshold zone issues, Dave convinced me to trust him. So I concentrated on my new heart rate zones, and it worked - my new PB of 3:12:04 was exactly what Coach Tune had predicted, and I ran the whole race in my threshold zone.

“I have now warned Dave that he won't get shot of me until I have smashed all my PBs! Clearly, his guidance and sensible approach to running, recovery and racing is paying off, and the stretching routine I was given by the clinic after my test is keeping me injury free!

“My next goal is to get a half marathon PB, which would require me to beat my existing best of 88:35 from 2009. Mostly importantly, I now enjoy running again, and have found that running to heart rate zones is achievable.”



Dave was confident she would do well, providing she stuck to her heart rate zones: “I always felt she would beat her marathon best with some structured training, and, although Yvonne questioned how she would ever run a faster time when some of her training speeds were so much slower, she continued to believe in the training.

“As a result of this, and tapering correctly, she delivered the business on Sunday, saying how easy it felt afterwards!”

“This was a mighty impressive performance, and proves perfectly how important the coach-athlete relationship has been for her, working together as a team to support her throughout her training to get the result she really deserved.”