An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir October 2019 www.dfmagazine.ie 12 | BY COMDT KEDNEY PHOTO'S PROVIDED BY COMDT KEDNEY T rying to marry a career in the Infantry while aspiring to compete as a track and field sprinter hasn't been the easiest of challenges but its like anything in life, if you want it bad enough, you'll make it work. On the face of the Defence Forces it doesn't seem to value speed and power highly as one of its components of military fitness. Historically we have looked to the 2-mile run and the 10k battle run and hold these up as our badges of honour in terms of fitness. But this is constantly evolving. And having the perspective now to be able to look back on 17 years in the organisation I feel that in many ways the Defence Forces offered me the opportunity to run fast and compete to as close to maximum potential for as long as possible. Not many people can say that about their line of work. We as a defence force place a high value on sport. And provided that your military career and skillset always comes first, I have found that numerous CO's over the years will support your sporting endeavors. For me that support came in the form of structured training time while in the various units I've served in, participation on athletics training camps and my release to compete at 2 CISM world military games. Of course by the nature of overseas service, it means that train- ing will be less than optimum for long periods of time. But all you can do is control the controllables. I spent January 2018 to Janu- ary 2019 in camp Faouar in UNDOF, trying to rekindle my love of sprinting as a master's athlete (o35). With no access to a track or even grass for that matter and extremely limited access to weights, everything was going to be a compromise from day 1. But you very quickly learn to work with what you have. For me that was a gently sloping hill from the main gate up to the operations building and also a flat area to pull tyres over near the FRC compound. And with this as my foundation I was able to build consistent sessions that would get me into reasonable shape for the World Master athletics in Sep- tember 2018. I was heartened by my performance (narrowly missing the semifinals) know- ing that my preparation was so clearly hampered by the restrictions of an overseas mission and knew that I could target the World Indoors in March 2019 with some degree of optimism. On return from overseas in late January 2019 I was able to utilize my UN leave to get some consistent track work under my belt and this period of training culminated in a strong performance in the World Indoor Masters in Poland with an 11th place finish overall and very much knocking on the door of making the final. My 2019 season was ultimately a successful one as I was finally home to compete in and win my first national title (men's o35 200m). Building towards the future of athletics in the Defence Forces we hope to be more collaborative with the many other sports we share our physical attributes with. In sport, speed kills and we hope that through sharing training days with other speed and power sports that we can breath some new life back into track and field while developing excellence in other sports too. DF athletics are planning a speed performance seminar with some of Irelands leading speed coaches on WED 13th NOV in the national indoor stadium to promote athletics, develop coaches (PTI's and sports coaches) and collaborate with our sister sports.

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