Training - what would Ernesto Gruhn say ?
April 21st, 2009 by Gavin
What would Ernie say in this situation ???
He would say ” Hey listen Boykie, you’ve had a great winters training, you just need to start adding to the account again instead of using up any interest dividend”
The situation I find myself in is that I lost a bit of consistency when I came home from South Africa. Especially in the pool. My aerobic fitness is still there but I have lost some ‘top end’. Consistency was my mantra over the winter so to go and lose it now just isnt ‘lekker’.
Ernie, or as Dan Hugo calls him ‘Master Gruhn’ (or as Master Behan calls him, ‘the Genius’), is a Trader by trade and once commanded the best athletics squad in ‘the Cape’ - along with Elana Meyer (Barcelona Olympic silver medalist) I met so many sub-4 minute milers during my time in Stellenbosch that I once said at dinner
“the Stellenbosch track is 2 meters short you know ”
There was a deafly silence, cars stopped in the street, children started crying, the wind picked up. . . . and I shut up ! (please note the track is accurate, in fact on many occassions I felt it might have been a few meters long !!) .
I lived with ‘the Genius’ and learnt a lot from him. Always a great source of calm and experience, when I find myself in a bit of a training rut I think back to our chats. I tap myself on the shoulder, step out of the box and ask myself the question - ”what would Ernie say?”.
At the moment he is telling me to get back into my routine. Unfortunately he is telling me to pull out of the Irish training camp to France even though I have my flights paid for. He is telling me to focus and ‘get a race in’. He is telling me that British Champs in Strathclyde Park on May 17th will be a brutal introduction to 2009 but a neccessary one.
On a lighter note, it was my flatmates birthday yesterday - we went and got something to eat. The birthday boy says to the the barmaid
“any chance of a quickie ”
I quickly interrupted:
“quiche ! . . . . its pronounced . . . quiche “
One Response to “Training - what would Ernesto Gruhn say ?”
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April 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
You hit the nail on the head, Gav!
Every village has an idiot, but our village has a genius!
I also have a good few Ernie training quotes, but the one that stands out was when I asked Ernie what investment I should make with a few loose dollars sitting around. He said: “Connie, the best investment you can make, is to win another world title” “Just keep chipping away at the training”