Athlete of the Month – May 2020

As I announced at the start of the year, I’ll be publishing a reoccurring article for my chosen ‘athlete of the month’. For May the athlete of the month is… Cyn Cano!

Throughout the month of May, Cyn has consistently hit all of her sessions and this has shown in the respective times she has run during our virtual race series.

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Cyn. At the beginning of the month she had various niggles that needed attention. These niggles were as a result of the increased recent speed work and virtual races. Even though there has been no official races, we have been racing and putting our fitness levels to the test every week in our virtual race series. Luckily none of her niggles seemed to be too serious to the point that it would have forced her to take time off running.

The way we worked through these niggles was by adding in my ‘Morning Routine’ to her daily training. She felt the beneficial effects of this almost immediately and this once again goes to show how important all these extra strength, core and foam rolling exercises are, above from just running week in and week out.

It seems as no matter how hard and bold the target is that I set her, she seemed to not just achieve them, but smash them week on week.

Below are some of the impressive times she has run during our race series;

Initially 3 weeks of 5km time trials to determine where fitness levels were at. Targets were set based on the below time trials;

– Week 1: 5k in 19:35 (ave pace: 3:55)

– Week 2: 5k in 19:24 (ave pace: 3:53)

– Week 3: 5k in 19:03 (ave pace: 3:49)

Virtual race series results;

– Week 4: 20 Minute challenge 5.27kms (ave pace: 3:48)

– Week 5: 4k in 14:53 (ave pace: 3:43)

– Week 6: 5k in 18:53 (ave pace: 3:47)

– Week 7: 8k in 30:45 (ave pace: 3:51)

– Week 8: 1 Mile in 5:45 (ave pace: 3:34)

– Week 9: Half Marathon in 1:23:09 (ave pace: 3:56)

I’ve been really impressed with her dedication and love for the sport. It’s been a pleasure working with you so far and seeing you improve month on month. You’ve proved that a sub 3h marathon is on the cards. I cannot wait for races to return again and we both know your PBs are in serious trouble.

Who will be the athlete of the month for June?