What happens when the average person takes on a Red Roses preseason test?

As soon as I crossed the finish line, the only thing I wanted to do was lay on the ground. My lungs burned. It was impossible to escape the glare of the sun. But I had finished.

Three weeks previously I received a text, out of the blue that read: “I have an idea for you… would involve you doing some running.”

The idea was fairly simple; how would the average person, plucked from the street, fare doing a Red Roses fitness test?

Honestly, at this moment in my life I am not the fittest I have ever been. It has been at least four years since I could have firmly put myself in that category. Even with that said, I do love a challenge.

Regrettably, the answer was an almost immediate yes. All I had to do was find my trainers. In the end I never found them. Instead, I used the worn-out trainers I take the bins out in.

The 1,200m test is used by the Red Roses’ strength and conditioning team to assess players’ aerobic capacity. In contrast to the hugely popular Bronco – five repetitions of 20m, 40m and 60m shuttles, with players returning to the start line after each distance – players run 12 x 100m at their highest possible intensity.

The test was first introduced four years ago and is run three times a season – in preseason, at their January training camp and at the end of the season.

It is a gruelling introduction to the season, but one that lays the foundations for World Rugby’s top-ranked side.

“We went down the route of using the 12 x 100m because it is less turns,” Ethan Kinney, Red Roses athletic performance lead, told RugbyPass.

“We’re looking at it purely from a physiological assessment, as opposed to, ‘this is a rugby test’, which is where the Bronco came from. We’ve always looked at it as a maximum aerobic test, so we wanted it as pure as we could to that.

“So, how do you do that? Limit the noise with having the decelerate, re-accelerate over and over again. If you want to even more gold standard than that, we’d put it on a running track and lap it. But we try to replicate it by putting it on grass and wearing boots.

“Because it’s a pure-form physiological test. That’s your foundational test. That’s your entry into rugby. Let’s see how good you are aerobically and then you can layer on other assessments on top of it.”

Kinney believes buy-in from the players and wider coaching staff is a big reason the 1,200m has become such a staple of Red Roses life.

Because, after what is a relatively short period of discomfort, a player’s whole season can be mapped out.

“As a simplistic data tool, it’ll give you a lot,” Kinney said. “It is a good simple tool to give you a lot of bang for your buck. That level of individualisation, especially at international, I think the players appreciate.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Joe Harvey (@joeharvey34)

“That’s the same across the board; with the way we want to play – how can you maximise the positional demands for each group without generalising everybody?

“The players see value in having an individualised programme. It’d be really easy for me to go; you’re all running the exact same. A loosehead prop is going to need a different kind of running programme compared to a full-back.”

“Their management off the back of it is probably really good,” Kinney continued. “When they see it as, this is something I’m just going to work on as an athlete, they understand it.

“That doesn’t mean if you’ve not performed for the maximum of your ability, it doesn’t mean I’m going to have you out at the end of every session running shuttles, they know that is one of their work-ons for the season. And that is going to be something we hold them accountable for.

“They almost want those, what can I work on? Is this something I need to work on? How am I going to work on it?

“The more you run it [the 1,200m], you might not get better at running the test over and over again, but the interventions that come with it don’t have to be barbaric.”

I ran the test by myself at The Lensbury in Teddington, next to the same pitch that England prepared on ahead of their WXV Global Series opening win against the Wallaroos.

In contrast to the world champions, who had some of the best support staff in the world monitoring their progress, I had a gaggle of geese watching on.

Running 100 metres, 12 times in a row, is fairly unforgiving. Who knew? Doing it by yourself with only geese for company, as Kinney later described, is a “pretty lonely place.”

“These players get to do it in their positional groups as backs and forwards,” he said. “They’re running it with 20 other people. You’re all trying to do the best as individuals, but you’re also trying to put your best foot forward – which they’ve all brought into as a squad.”

The entire 12 lengths of a rugby pitch are physical and mental torment. Your body is in a battle with itself to keep one foot going in front of the other. Your mind flits from belief to doubt in less than a millisecond without warning.

My first leg was completed in 23 seconds. Which is, in all honesty, quite pleasing. Looking back, it may well have been part of my downfall in the 10th leg when I, somewhat impetuously, walked.

“You’ll have some that, as soon as the whistle goes, it’ll be handbrake off and they’ll try to get through it as quick as they can,” Kinney said. “Sometimes that works. Sometimes that might not work as well.”

Going out so strong as an opening gambit gave my body absolutely no chance. Especially when the majority of my ‘runs’ in day-to-day life are done crossing the road.

For the first 10 lengths, my times got progressively longer – topped by that 70 second monstrosity. The final two legs, by contrast, totalled 70 seconds.

The big question now is how I fared?

7:39.

Personally, it was quite a pleasing time. But it is sharply put into perspective when you hear the Red Roses’ times. I was a whole three minutes slower  than the fastest England player. About 90 seconds behind the 40th-place Red Rose that did the test at the start of August.

I will not make the squad of any rugby team particularly soon.