01 May 2009

For the first time ever, UKA are holding an official endurance training camp at altitude in preparation for the summer track season. This week, a small party of six British athletes arrived at the Font Romeu on French side of the Pyrenees mountains, famous for being a training base for the UK’s most successful long distance runner of the last decade, Paula Radcliffe (Bedford & County).

Radcliffe is currently in Font Romeu and she is being joined at the resort by European Indoor 3000m champion Mo Farah (Newham & Essex), European Indoor 3000m 6th placer Nick McCormick (Morpeth Harriers), UK steeplechase record holder Helen Clitheroe (Preston Harriers), European 800m bronze medallist Becky Lyne (Hallamshire Harriers) and former GB & NI U23 internationals Elizabeth Brathwaite (Herts Phoenix) and Ryan McLeod (Loughborough University).

Also on the camp are Ugandan internationals Boniface Kiprop and Moses Kipsiro as training partners for Mo Farah. Kiprop is the reigning Commonwealth 10,000m champion and Kipsiro was 4th in the 5000m final at the Beijing Olympic Games. Farah has recently returned from a training stint in Kenya, this will be his first trip to Font Romeu.

The camp will run until 23 May. Joining the group for three days is James Li, a renowned distance coach who guided Bernard Lagat (USA) to a 1500m/5000m double at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. Li has been contracted by UKA to advise leading British athletes and coaches on a consultancy basis on several separate occasions in the coming 12 months.

UKA National Endurance Coach Ian Stewart said: “We need to expose our athletes to this type of training environment. It has worked for Paula and it can work for other British athletes too.”