Athletics News

Jake Wightman-Increasing the Pace, part 3 on the Training of Jake Wightman

Jake Wightman-Increasing the Pace, part 3 on the Training of Jake Wightman

This is Matt Long’s 4th piece for RunBlogRun on the art and science of coaching athletics. This is the third part of a three part series on the coaching of World Champion Jake Wightman. 

JAKE WIGHTMAN- INCREASING THE PACE, by Matt Long 

IN THE FINAL PIECE OF A TRILOGY, MATT LONG HAS A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN WATCHING GEOFF WIGHTMAN MOVE THROUGH THE COACHING GEARS

In the first of a three-part series, you will recall that we began to explore the coaching journey of Geoff Wightman, which saw his son Jake take the World 1500m title in Oregon back on 19th July last year. In part 2, we worked back to Jake’s junior career in exploring the type of sessions which moved him from a promising junior to an international athlete. You will remember we spoke about how ‘tired surges’ with a floating element were used as a specific form of ‘split interval’ training. This practice was contextualized with reference to the work of GA Brooks on the physiology of the ‘lactate shuttle’ and the coaching pedagogy of the Oregon-based Peter J. Thompson. 

So let’s regress back two decades to look back at Jake Wightman, the boy.

Jake Wightman battling in the EA 800m in Munich, photo by European Athletics

Sunday 16th March 2003

It’s a bitingly cold, wet, and windy half marathon in Bath as the announcer, Geoff Wightman, takes his place in the makeshift commentary box as the mini fun run which precedes the main event gets underway. A nervous nine-year-old Jake Wightman glances over to the watchful eye of his father as he embarks upon one of his very first fledgling athletic experiences outside of the comfort of his school cross-country fields. Midway through the race, tears fill Jake’s’ eyes as he slips and grazes his knee on one of the turns around the recreation grounds of Bath RFC. Spectators politely applaud him as he gets to his feet and soldiers on, but his misery is compounded as his twin brother Sam goes past him and disappears away off into the distance. Jake trudges home near the back of the field to disappear down a finishing funnel which leads many a disheartened youngster into obscurity. No one there that day would have believed they were witnessing a boy who would go on to become a World 1500m champion in Oregon 19 years later. 

So let’s unpick Jake’s long-term athlete development:

Long-Term Athlete Development

Back in 2019, Geoff Wightman told me, “My wife Susan (nee Tooby- a former international athlete) coached Jake…

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