I was reading some New Scientist this week, I quite enjoy reading about quantum physics (I wonder how many physicists do the reverse?). After the following inevitable thoughts about my insignificance in the universe and the brief bout of depression that surrounds it, it led me to start thinking about time. I thought about how valuable it is, how addictive it is and how individual it is.

We know how valuable a tenth of a second is when an athlete competes, how valuable a day can be during recovery, how valuable a couple of weeks can be for another block of training and how valuable an extra couple of years in a training history is. The length of time doesn’t determine it’s value though, you don’t pay by the slice. All time is valuable.

Time is addictive. No matter how much time we have or we are given, we always want more, we always need more. We are often in competition for that extra time with others. Time is infinite. It is also very definitely finite. Because we are not always sure of how much time we will given, we have to make full use of that time. We already know how valuable it is, we don’t want to waste any do we?

Time is individual. One person’s perception of how much time they need, of how much time they have and of the best uses of that time are very often different to the views of another person. You can’t always agree to disagree. It takes time to argue your case and we all know how valuable time is.

It is impossible to create time but it is possible to maximise and make the most of your time. It requires practice, education and trial and error. Above all you need time. Told you it was addictive.

As I look out of the window at a pretty miserable day, it’s easy to see how at this time of year training could become a little more of a chore and motivation to get out to the gym, track or field could start to waiver. The will to train is massively important to get the quality out of sessions, even to do the sessions at all, particularly for those entering preseason for summer competitions.

Picking (or building) the right training environment to maximise that motivation is vital, don’t underestimate the effect some draft excluders, some heating, indeed a roof that doesn’t leak in some cases can have on that. In the past, these have all been issues and while all the lifting kit I want is to hand, it’s no use if you don’t want to take your hands out of your pockets in order to lift it!

This is also the time of year that the weather can start to have a major effect on conditioning sessions you may usually take outside. Pitches become waterlogged and roads/pavements/tracks become covered in leaves or frozen. Having a backup plan is always a good idea particularly if some very angry weather looks as though it may drop just before your session and there’s an incredibly protective groundsman on the prowl.

Someone asked me this week if I could coach any athlete in the world, from any time, who would I coach (a good one to think about yourselves actually), instantly the head starts to buzz with ideas about the greatest athletes in the world; Roger Banister, Tiger Woods, Jonah Lomu, Michael Schumacher but then I thought to myself why would that be my choice? To be associated with a sporting great, to contribute to a world record, to travel the world. The more I thought the more it eventually whittled down that picking someone like that would be pretty much for notoriety, to show off that I’m coaching a star. Pretty poor reasoning I thought.

Then I thought about the athletes I currently coach, many of them young athletes and I think about the steps and progress they’ve made (and I like to the think the S&C support has had some say there alongside technical improvement!). I thought about the coaching I’ve had to do in order to get some of those improvements and how my coaching has developed over the years as each athlete I work with has presented different challenges that have had to be identified and overcome.

The big names I mentioned at the beginning would all be pretty technically efficient and from a coaching point of view, potentially less interesting and challenging than any one of the athletes I’ve coached to date. I enjoy coaching because there’s nothing better than helping someone to get better at something they enjoy doing whoever that may be.

That said….it would be pretty sweet to have coached Pele!