Ivo Piták, national walking coach, 17.12.2018, Lanzarote, Canary Islands

We are at a three-week training camp in Lanzarote, where in good climatic conditions we gain working kilometers with Anežka Drahotová and Lukáš Gdula (walking, swimming, cycling), as well as other training hours (strengthening, stretching, gymnastics), we also use excellent conditions for regeneration (regenerative line, massages, relaxation exercises).

We usually start the day by jumping into the pool at 7 am, after 2-4 km (swimming, swimming exercises, various sections, swimming) we have breakfast after 8 o'clock and relax for a while. We move to the stadium around 9:30 am -10:11 am, followed by athletic and walking training, which ends around 30:45 am and we immediately continue with special training in the gym (led by a fitness trainer) for about 60-4 minutes. If we go in the morning or go on endurance training, we will not go to the gym. Endurance cycling training is usually up to 5 hours for Ana, and up to 1 hours for Luka, in which case the fighters go for a short walk in the afternoon for about an hour and possibly swim regeneratively. Walking training is usually followed by cycling training at a slower pace lasting from 30:2 to 30:XNUMX and in the evening gym + regeneration.

In the total daily load, it "suits" Agnes and Lukáš on average daily laps. 6 to 7 hours of training (net active time) and around 1 - 1: 30 hours. regeneration.

We are here in the joint national team with other athletes and I see and feel one important thing. The athletic disciplines of it (apart from the general all-sports basis) have little in common. Athletics is a set of various sports, where almost all somatic and mental types of children and adults can find their application and discipline. But unfortunately our discipline (probably still together with endurance runs) has little in common with most athletic disciplines. We are much closer to cyclists, triathletes, maybe even cross-country skiers.

The daily routine of other athletes is very different from ours, and Anežka, for example, often complained that she felt much better here living with triathletes or cyclists. Because then he doesn't have the "bad feeling that he's training so hard. This is not a criticism of other athletes. This is just a statement of the fact that we do not have so much free time against them that we have to regret trips, daily pleasant sunbathing, entertainment, evening sitting.

I'm not writing this to admire Agnes and Luke, or to "shock" you with what they will endure.

I was prompted to write with a discussion with some of you who work with Czech walking youth. I know the paths to success can be different. But if we do not gradually teach the future pedestrian to work well and in volume, if we do not have him generally prepared in terms of sports, how will we be able to "load" him in the junior category and the U23 category? Between the ages of 17 and 18, the pedestrian representative must, if he is to be able to compete, endure at training camps for an average of 4-5 hours of net movement time per day at training camps. And who would be able to withstand it from our youth and junior champions of today?

From September until almost the end of November, the German national team member Teresa Žurek trained with us, and we discussed a lot with the current German national team coach Ronald Weigl about the method of preparation. In many ways, our opinions differed significantly, and perhaps for this reason he wanted Teresa to complete a longer training block according to our notes together with Anežka. And on the contrary, I will use the opportunity for Lukáš Gdula to complete a training block with the German national team.

Ronald and I have different views on the composition of the training, the use of different training tools and the phasing of the training. But what we unconditionally agreed on was the need for training quality and quantity. We agreed that without an enormous training commitment from a young age, it is simply impossible to compete with Europe and the world today! I was surprised though last year's German junior she was willing and, above all, able to train almost everything with Anežka, who was three years older. Even unusual training in the gym and pool, and in the end also walking training, made Terese busy, because she is worse in performance than Anežka. But she fought, she persevered, even though she sometimes "didn't catch up." We lent her a racing road bike, on which she had never ridden before. I sometimes pushed her on a bike from a motorcycle or a car into a group, in the pool she surprisingly mastered all styles technically well for her, she had no problems with gymnastics and strength. She also tried to pursue pedestrians and cross-country skiers, although not always, and sometimes I had to correct her pace and adapt to reality. In general, the girl managed those three months admirably well.

And the Czech reality? Last year's junior and U23 national team does not want to, and most importantly, he cannot train together with Anežka, because she would "seize" him. To the argument that they both need roughly the same performance for their national team goals, I received an answer from a personal trainer: "Well, the limit for ME23 does not have to be chased this year, he can give it in two years." And it's about the subscriber limit. How does the guy want to fight at ME23 ahead in two years, now that he doesn't believe in the participation limit?

Try to get into the feeling of a person who is responsible for the representative results of Czech pedestrians. Which should lead the racers in the uncompromising "walking battles" of the biggest races. Should this person accept that he or she repeatedly comes to the national team for work, general sports and mentally unprepared competitors? This is the main reason why I try to convince the "competitors" of almost childhood to cooperate, so that they can gradually prepare them and they will be able to handle the demanding preparation later. And with you, coaches, I "hit". Because there is plenty of time where I hurry, there are different paths to the goal and in the end, the performance will come later. And I can't convince you that later it is NEVER equal today.

We should be on the same ship. For years, I have been looking in vain for someone who could win us all over for a goal that would unite us. Who would find what all pedestrians have in common. The ship must have one captain, but we have only been fighting for the helm for years. Yet today we have a man who can compete with the world. A girl we can be proud of because she came from our community. A competitor who is not afraid of rivals, work, or her weaknesses. Why can't we unite around her, show her as a role model and encourage at least some "cubs" to follow?

Friends walkers, please, if we want to succeed, we must work together. I appreciate the work of the volunteer coaches that you most are. I know that you train children and young athletes after work, in your free time. Of course, if you want to "fight" with a professional coach who can devote all your time to the result, you are at a huge disadvantage. You cannot devote more time to training and preparation than your work responsibilities allow. At the same time, you can't use a comprehensive team of casual collaborators, which a "professional" coach usually builds for many years. Of course, you know your charges and you can try to keep the talented individual in your exclusive care with various psychological and coercive arguments. The most common argument is that there is no place to hurry and there is plenty of time. But the years go by and it usually looks like there is still plenty of time and suddenly it is too late!

Now I will try to compare.

Yes, I can lead a tourist section, take trips to the mountains. But if a member of the squad starts dreaming that he will climb to XNUMX without oxygen and my maximum was climbing Sněžka, and I'm afraid of high altitudes, what can I do? I can say that trips in the Giant Mountains are wonderful, that climbing the XNUMX is very difficult and it is enormously demanding to prepare for the ascent, that the result is uncertain and sometimes the climber may perish, and I should actually admit that trips in the Giant Mountains he won't prepare the eight-thousanders. And I should never say that for a person of our conditions, this is an unrealizable dream and nonsense. And that the High Tatras are already high mountains and that it will be amazing when we climb Kriváň or Rysy together. And if he and his gang continue to go on trips that we'll go to the Tatras someday.

Why are we afraid to direct the dreamer to someone who has and had the same "crazy" dreams and who moves in those Himalayas and we will not say. Here is a little man I learned to love nature and the mountains. But he dreams of the highest. I lead him to you, because I will be happy and proud when he looks around one of his dream peaks and says, "We did it." And he will think of you at that moment, because you showed him the view from the mountains for the first time, even though it was the Krkonoše Sněžka at that moment.

In our country, we usually try to silence the existence of eight thousand, and when it comes to them, when children find out that someone is climbing on them and climbing up, we discourage them from doing so by describing the "horrors" that would await along the way.

I try to discuss with you, the walking coaches, even though I know that I will not convince you completely and that you will still think that shortcuts lead to the top, you can also get there more comfortably and, most importantly, that there is enough time to climb. I have to try to convince you, otherwise you will cut me off from the "young" again and again and you will be upset if I take someone so-called and convince you. It's as if someone wants to get the young climber comfortably to the 8th and claim that the last 1.000 meters can be walked, for example, after 50-100 meters a day. That he doesn't have to hurry. And since the expert has never been there, he has no idea that he must be prepared to manage the last kilometer best in one day, because you can't work in the "death zone" for a long time.

Please, if at least some of you can finish it and think about what you have read, the article has fulfilled its task. If some of you found that you could imagine collaboration and help pull that performance walking cart a little ahead, it would be more than I expected.