Elite coaching special - Clyde Hart coach to Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner

Learning from schedules
Clyde is keen to point out that it is not just a case of copying his schedules to run well. He said: "When you get a workout whether from a book or a magazine [you are not going to get the same results out of them]. I have got Seb Coe's workouts but I have never had a 1min 41sec runner - I have had a 1min 44sec guy. Some of the stuff I have got from them is good information but I am not going to get exactly the same results out of them.

“Going over Michael Johnson's workouts - which is what I am going to do - is much the same as if we were all chefs and I was giving out a recipe. If I gave some recipe out and said to bring back your casserole I doubt that any one would taste the same as any other. Some of you would take a taste and decide to add a little salt, or some more spices. The secret is not in the workout or training, it is in why you are doing it or the time of year you are doing it. You need to know when to implement it, when to back off, when to add to it - you need to know why and analyse it."

No-one’s perfect
When Hart started out it was a case of ‘We ran speed yesterday, let's do strength tomorrow and then lets do over-distance’. The systematic approach has been developed over the years.

"I was a bit better for the distance runners. But it was a bit of flying by the seat of your pants, there was no systematic approach. But I had national champions before Michael Johnson.”

As with all coaches Clyde has had his regrets: "I probably made my biggest blunder in 1990. But hindsight is always 20:20. I had always dreamed of winning the national champs. I had Michael Johnson, Tyrell Davis and three pole-vaulters. That was not enough to win unless each of them won or got pretty high. We got second in the 4 x 100m and a half miler got second in 1min 47sec. Michael won the 200m, in second was Frankie Fredericks and then 45min later he ran a 43.4sec relay leg. If he'd run the 400m we'd have won.”

But Clyde knows if he had done things differently history may have run a different course: "In 1995 he [Michael] wanted to double at the Olympics. I said, 'Why don't you think about winning the 200m or 400m?' He said that had been done and that he wanted to do them both. He won both at the World's in Gothenburg. If he'd run it in 1990 and got second we'd have won. But may be it would have soured him and then he'd have not gone on with the event [the 400m].

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