Rivals of the double Olympic and world champion embraced her after making history in Florence

The biggest compliment you can receive as an athlete is getting respect from your competitors.

When athletes who battle you for Olympic and world titles come together in an expression of unity, to congratulate you on a historic achievement, you realise the impact you’ve made off the track as well as on it.

That was the situation when Faith Kipyegon set the world 1500m record at the Florence Diamond League (June 2).

The 29-year-old clocked a stunning 3:49.11 in the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region, finally surpassing the 3:50.07 that Genzebe Dibaba ran in Monaco eight years ago.

Kipyegon, already considered by many as the greatest female 1500m runner in history because of her two Olympic and world crowns, knew breaking that elusive world record would cement her place at the top of the tree.

Faith Kipyegon (Getty)

After opening up her outdoor season with a comfortable 1500m win at the Doha Diamond League, the Kenyan told AW: “Absolutely [breaking the world record], everything is possible. This year, I’m looking forward to challenging it and I will try and break the record. I didn’t get it before and I hope this time around it will be really good.”

Kipyegon refers to last year’s Monaco Diamond League, when she missed out on the world record by just three tenths of a second after running 3:50.37.

In 2021, she also attempted to break Dibaba’s mark in Monaco but clocked 3:51.07.

Those two failed attempts, plus the 3:49.11, means that Kipyegon now holds the third and sixth fastest times in history as well as the world record.

She will be the heavy favourite to claim a third world 1500m title in Budapest and, if fit, no one would be in their right mind to bet against her.

Such was the level of respect for Kipyegon in Florence that Laura Muir, Jessica Hull and Cory Ann McGee – who finished third, seventh and ninth respectively in Oregon – waited on the track to congratulate the Kenyan after her lap of honour.

Not only did the trio, plus the entire 1500m field, hug Kipyegon but they posed for a photo, pointing at the double Olympic and world champion as she held the world record sign.

Faith Kipyegon poses with the WR sign (Getty)

It’s the kind of moment that, in track and field, is usually synonymous with multi-eventers who celebrate two days of work. For an individual discipline that lasts less than two minutes, that kind of reaction is a rarity.

Muir, who was beaten by Kipyegon to Olympic gold in Tokyo, told Scottish Athletics: “When you’re trying to stick with the world record-holder, it’s going to be tough! I’m just so happy for Faith [Kipyegon], she deserves that so much.”

Ciara Mageean, a double European 1500m medallist, finished second to Kipyegon in last year’s Diamond League final and was even more emphatic about her praise for the Kenyan.

She told AW: “I crossed that line and I saw ‘world record’ and I was like ‘holy moly’. To be in a race where a world record was broken and to go to such an amazing woman is just fantastic.

“I’m so delighted for her and that will be the highlight of that race for me, never mind my time! I’m not going to be a sub-3:50 runner and I know that.”

The group photo was as special as the run itself and spoke volumes of how Kipyegon is perceived as a person and not just an athlete.

Benevolent and endearing, she radiates a warmth that is impossible not to notice.

Faith Kipyegon (Getty)

Kipyegon, who started out in athletics by running the 4km journey from her home in the village of Keringet to her primary school and back again, stepped away from the sport in 2018 – having already become Olympic and world 1500m champion in 2016 and 2017 respectively –  to give birth to her daughter Alyn.

After a 21-month absence, she returned to claim a world silver medal over the distance in Doha and then retained her Olympic crown in Tokyo.

Family and female empowerment is everything to Kipyegon, who is based out of Kaptagat in Kenya and is, like world marathon record-holder and double Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge, under the stewardship of coach Patrick Sang.

In an exclusive interview with AW in our November 2022 magazine, she stated: “When I’m training in camp, I think about her [Alyn]. When I’m out of the country, I think about he, so when I get home it’s something special for me to be around her.

“I want to motivate women. I want to show them the right way and I was them to follow in my footsteps. I want to be their mentor and for them to think ‘Faith Kipyegon is a great woman. I want to do things like Faith’.

Faith Kipyegon, Ciara Mageean and Laura Muir (Getty)

“I want to motivate the women and young athletes around the world – not just in Africa – to follow their hearts and work on their careers.”

It’s no surprise then that Kipyegon has joined up with Nike as part of an Athlete Think Tank that aims to inspire young girls both in sport and fashion.

The initiative seeks to accelerate change from the grassroots level by investing in more than 135 community partners supporting women and girls worldwide.

In decades to come, people will look back at athletes from this era and Kipyegon’s legacy will likely be one of the strongest.

The world record was the final piece of the jigsaw on the track and every athlete in that race in Florence knew it.

A picture truly does tell a thousand words.

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Marathon runner on the feeling of representing England for the first time over 26.2 miles

On Sunday (May 14), I represented my country for the very first time, writes Anya Culling.

I could have viewed the race as an epic honour, an insurmountable, once in a lifetime competition. However, this would have been an obsolete attitude to adopt. The race was also about meeting and connecting to athletes from other nations and learning from one another.

When I was offered the opportunity to race the Copenhagen Marathon for England, my mind went straight to fear!

My coach [Nick Bester] and I discussed at length about whether I was ready or not. I wasn’t fearful of the other athlete’s personal bests. Yes, they were impressive, but their mental strength was even more amazing. I was scared I would fall short, stand on that start line and crumble under the pressure. This marathon block was a mental build.

Nick Bester and Anya Culling (SpartaLob)

Everyone knows that a marathon is a battle with your mind and I feared that would be my Achilles heel. I needed to train my mind to become an enabler rather than a disabler. I would dread a session or hard run workout because I was so scared, putting so much pressure on myself.

Over the four month build-up, I learnt to adopt the mindset of ‘what if it could turn out better than you could have imagined’ – that’s exactly what happened in Copenhagen.

We stayed in the race hotel with many other elite athletes. I shared a room with Phily Bowden who had the race of her life on Sunday. She finished third with a time of 2:29:16 and was the only athlete who wasn’t Kenyan to be on the podium in both the male and female races. Everyone helped and supported each other through those pre-race nerves.

We all ate meals together, shared stories of races that we’d done before and went for shake-out runs as groups. Plus received messages from the same therapist. On the start line, the fist bumps and the words of encouragement confirmed we were racing for ourselves and not against the clock.

I had Nick [Bester] running alongside me and we had formed a solid group by the 5km mark.

We clipped along nicely at around 3:35min/km. I had my sunglasses on while trying to make sure the sweat didn’t wipe up off the splits written on my arm. The sun quickly heated up like a celestial fireball and I knew it was going to get tough.

Splits on Anya Culling’s arm (SpartaLob)

It was an honour to run in an England kit and Copenhagen will always be such a special race for me. When the going got tough I kept reminding myself of the little English rose printed on the back of my race knickers and my surname in bold across my chest.

The aim was to get bored before it got tough. Get into a rhythm, switch off and sleep run. Try not to surge when I see what I can only describe as the inception of hooliganism in athletics; 30 of my closest friends and family in matching personalised bucket hats blurring in and out of focus around me in the heat.

At the 13.1 mile point I felt good but everyone knows the true half-way mark is 30km. This is where the wheels started to come off and I realised I was completely cooked. My pace dropped slightly at 34km but this is what I had trained for. I stopped looking at my watch and knew I needed to stay strong. It’s the mental battle I had been preparing myself for.

This last 8km is what I was most proud of. I gained two places to show I was still competitive. It was 23 degrees by this point and while the sun burned down on the road, the fire was in my belly. I knew I was still on for a two minute PB.

ICYMI, @philybowden and @AnyaCulling produced some fantastic performances at the Copenhagen Marathon

Bowden finished third in the elite women's race and took over five minutes off her PB to clock 2:29:16

Culling was eighth with an amazing 2:34:45 pic.twitter.com/ErbveQ6xZv

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) May 15, 2023

I didn’t allow my brain to think a single negative, that’s a waste of energy. I am strong. I am in control and it’s not over until I say it’s over. I know my body can do so much more than my brain tries to trick me into thinking. I ran across that finish line, towards Phily [Bowden] who was waving the English flag.

I embraced her and our England team staff. Three teammates crossed the line within a second of each other shortly after me. I was trying to cry but didn’t have a droplet of water in me. My Dad made up for that as his eyes welled up.

The marathon isn’t about running, it’s about an insane amount of human energy and emotion. Every single person has their reasons for running 26.2 miles, whether it’s challenging yourself, or for someone else who is going through something even more than you. No matter your time, everyone is just trying to run their best. The marathon could rival literature for the home of love, rapture and heroism.

Finishing time: 2:34:45

Second Brit, eighth finisher. seventh fastest marathon time from a Brit in 2023. 

Average Pace: 3:40/km (5:63/mi)

Elevation: 147m

Average HR: 174

Cadence: 204 average, 250 spm max.

Nutrition: 1 x Maurten 320, 1 x Maurten 120 (split between 6 bottles), 2 carbon gels, 1 normal gel.

Fastest km: 3:27

Slowest km: 3:49

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For some winners at Highgate, victory has been their crowning moment. Yet at other times it acts as a springboard to even greater things

Since Eddie McGinley won the low-key first staging of the Night of the 10,000m PBs at Parliament Hill in north London in 2013, the event has gone from strength to strength and featured a ‘who’s who’ of champions.

Weather conditions have varied over the years but Steph Twell (31:08.13) and Yeman Crippa (27:16.18) own the fastest times in the annual event, which is organised by Highgate Harriers and part of the new On Track Nights series.

Many of the winners – and those hot on their heels – went on to make their mark in major championship 10,000m races, marathons and even triathlons. For others, victory at the Night of the 10,000m PBs proved their finest moment.

Here is our Highgate “hall of fame”…

Jo Pavey – 2014

The popular West Country athlete was already an established international and aged 40 when she clocked 32:11.04 ahead of European cross-country champion Sophie Duarte of France to win the women’s race at the 2014 Night of the 10,000m PBs. But this was Pavey’s first race since giving birth to her second child eight months earlier and her first track race since the 2012 Olympics.

Pavey later joked that her Exeter Harriers singlet was older than most of her rivals. And victory set her up for a superb summer, too, where the veteran runner won the European 10,000m title in Zurich and Commonwealth 5000m bronze in Glasgow.

Jo Pavey on her way to 2014 victory (Mark Shearman)

Andy Vernon – 2014

Like Jo Pavey, victory for Andy Vernon at Highgate in 2014 set him up for some of the best major championship running of his life a few months later. The Aldershot runner clocked 28:26.59 at the Night of the 10,000m PBs to beat Chris Thompson but later that summer he won European 10,000m silver behind Mo Farah and 5000m bronze as well in Zurich.

Andy Vernon and Jo Pavey (Mark Shearman)

Jonny Mellor – 2015

After finishing behind Andy Vernon and Chris Thompson in 2014, the Liverpool Harrier returned 12 months later to win in 28:46.80 ahead of Dewi Griffiths. Mellor would later run a marathon best of 2:10:03 in Seville in 2020 and, after a number of championship selection disappointments, he finished sixth in the Commonwealth Games marathon last year after earlier winning the English trial in style in Manchester in 2:10:46.

Jonny Mellor leads Chris Thompson (Mark Shearman)

Jess Andrews – 2016

With Olympic selection at stake, Jess Andrews enjoyed the run of her life to clock 31:58.00 ahead of Linet Masai of Kenya and Beth Potter. The 23-year-old had been overshadowed in her own club – Aldershot, Farnham & District – during her teenage years by talents such as Steph Twell, Emelia Gorecka and Charlotte Purdue, but she rose to the occasion at Highgate in 2016 to claim a memorable victory.

Later that summer she finished seventh in the European 10,000m in Amsterdam and 16^th in the Olympics in Rio in 31:35.92. But after marrying Tour de France cyclist Dan Martin she retired at the age of just 24 in August 2017 to enjoy life as a mum.

Jess Andrews (Mark Shearman)

Beth Potter – 2017

“Tri-tastic” boomed the AW headline after Beth Potter proved that swim-bike-run training was good enough to defeat the full-time runners. The Scottish athlete clocked 32:04.63 and went on to finish 21st at the World Championships in London that summer before committing completely to triathlon where she went on to become European champion in 2019 and Commonwealth bronze medallist in 2022.

In 2021 Potter gave further proof that triathlon training can produce brilliant running results, too, when she set a world 5km record of 14:41 in Lancashire, although it was unfortunately never ratified.

As is often the case, there were a few gems buried further down the fields too in 2017. The winner of the women’s B race that same night, for example, was Georgina Schwiening, who clocked a modest 35:17.29 but the former world junior duathlon champion has improved her marathon best from 2:58 in 2017 to 2:26:18 this year.

Beth Potter (Mark Shearman)

Kojo Kyereme – 2015

The Shaftesbury Barnet veteran won the B race in 2017 at the age of 40 in 30:08.94 ahead of a field that included a young Jack Rowe. But that’s not all, as Kyereme is something of a Highgate legend as he’s the only runner to race in all of the events since the meeting started 10 years ago.

Kyereme, who works as a cardio physiologist, told AW: “The format from the beginning was very good. The moment I stepped off the track (in 2013) I was keen to come back the next year and every year it’s grown.”

Kojo Kyereme (Mark Shearman)

Richard Ringer – 2018

Held on the same day as the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the FA Cup final where Chelsea beat Man Utd 1-0, the Night of the 10,000m PBs reached new heights in 2018 on a sun-drenched evening where fire jugglers, live bands and an RAF flypast added to the atmosphere as BBC covered the event live for the first time.

The event incorporated the European 10,000m Cup, too, with Richard Ringer of Germany out-kicking Morhad Amdouni of France in a pulsating men’s race as Alex Yee pipped Andy Vernon and Chris Thompson in a dramatic three-way sprint to finish top Brit. “This is the best track race I’ve ever done!” Ringer told AW. “The energy is crazy!”

He later went on to win the European marathon crown on home soil in Munich in 2020 and clocked 2:08:08 in Hamburg last month, whereas runner-up Amdouni won the 2018 European 10,000m title in Berlin and last year ran a French marathon record of 2:05:22 in Paris.

Richard Ringer beats Morhad Amdouni (Mark Shearman)

Lonah Salpeter – 2018

The Kenyan-born Israeli athlete was little known at the time but AW discovered at Highgate in 2018 that she had been a nanny to the Kenyan ambassador in Israel before becoming a full-time athlete. Winning in 31:33.03 despite erratic pacemaking, Salpeter would go on to greater things.

A few months after her Night of the 10,000m PBs win she won the European 10,000m title in Berlin. Moving to the marathon, she won the 2020 Tokyo Marathon in a swift 2:17:45, finished runner-up at the 2022 New York City Marathon and was third in last month’s Boston Marathon.

Lonah Salpeter (Mark Shearman)

Steph Twell – 2019

Making a powerful move on the penultimate lap, Steph Twell surged clear of her rivals to win by seven seconds in 31:08.13. Behind, European champion Lonah Salpeter was runner-up with 10,000m rookie Eilish McColgan in third.

A few months later Twell ran 2:26:40 at the Frankfurt Marathon and earned selection for her third Olympics, where she finished 68th in Japan.

Steph Twell and Eilish McColgan (Mark Shearman)

Yeman Crippa – 2019 and 2022

The Italian was third in his Highgate debut in 2018 but returned in 2019 to clock 27:49.79 in wet conditions and came back three years later to win again in an even faster time of 27:16.18 ahead of Sam Atkin and Emile Cairess.

Now he is one of the world’s finest distance runners as holder of Italian records at 5000m (13:02.26) and 10,000m (27:10.76), whereas in 2022 he won the European 10,000m title in Munich and clocked 2:08:57 on his marathon debut in Milan last month.

Yeman Crippa leads Sam Atkin and Emile Cairess (Mark Shearman)

Roll of honour
Year – Men / Women
2013 – Eddie McGinley 29:53.37 / Louise Perrio 36:11.55
2014 – Andy Vernon 28:26.59 / Jo Pavey 32:11.04
2015 – Jonny Mellor 28:46.80 / Rhona Auckland 32:28.32
2016 – Ross Millington 28:28.20 / Jess Martin (née Andrews) 31:58.00
2017 – Andy Vernon 28:21.15 / Beth Potter 32:04.63
2018 – Richard Ringer 27:36.52 / Lonah Salpeter 31:33.03
2019 – Yeman Crippa 27:49.79 / Steph Twell 31:08.13
2020-21 – no races due to the pandemic
2022 – Yeman Crippa 27:16.18 / Jess Warner-Judd 31:22.24

Night of the 10,000m PBs (Mark Shearman)

Who will be crowned as the winners in 2023?

» Find out more about Night of 10,000m PBs here

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Is it better for athletes to stick together when it comes to relationships or are there more benefits from being able to lean on someone from outside of the sport? Verity Ockenden examines affairs of the heart 

In sport, we often talk about the importance of the people we surround ourselves with. We are influenced to work hard if those around us are also working hard and we consciously seek good “team culture”, knowing that happiness, motivation and success become contagious given the right environment.

We live and breath our work, paying close attention to the minutiae of our daily routines, but we don’t often talk about the roles our personal relationships play in our careers. Understandably, the desire to maintain a certain level of privacy and professionalism around our romantic lives is what keeps this topic off limits most of the time, but that doesn’t lessen the impact that it can have on both an athlete’s wellbeing and their performance. 

Speaking from my own personal experiences, as well as listening to those of my peers, it’s clear that creating and maintaining healthy relationships while dedicating oneself to an ambitious goal has its complexities, and these vary from person to person, depending on their scenario.

One only need watch the concern with which Gjert Ingebrigtsen reacts to news of his sons’ relationships on their YouTube documentary in order to understand the gravity of their potentially disruptive consequences to the elite lifestyle.

It is an expenditure of energy that isn’t considered available to spare, and a potential catalyst to changing priorities. Embarking on a relationship (or deciding to leave one, for that matter) can feel like a leap into the unknown at the best of times, and belonging to a community that tends to value continuity and “control of the controllables” can make it seem even riskier.

However, as the Ingebrigtsen documentary goes on to show, making space for good relationships can actually also bring out the best in an athlete. As single-minded as we might like to be, most humans, at the end of the day, need love. 

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Elisabeth Asserson (Getty)

Finding that love and keeping it isn’t always straightforward, though. Even with the best of intentions, most people make a bit of a mess of it along the way. For athletes, it becomes an even greater minefield.

By nature we can be a demanding, selfish, boring and frankly confusing lot. When dating, people’s preconceived perceptions of us can differ wildly from the reality of our existence. While competing and indeed on social media, we usually come across as strong, fearless, confident competitors with everything going for us and so the person that we really are at home is often quite different to the idealised version of us that somebody has imagined. 

Many are surprised by the fragility and insecurity exposed behind closed doors, finding themselves faced with challenges they weren’t necessarily expecting from the relationship. This, topped with the practicalities of a strict training and sleep schedule and lengthy absences due to camps and competitions, can make us pretty difficult people to spend time with. 

When it does go wrong, regardless of fault, of course our mental health is likely to suffer and this in turn can affect athletic performance. One might well assume that an unhappy personal life would directly correlate with poorer results, but often this is not the case. One athlete I spoke to noted that during an unhealthy relationship they actually trained harder and more consistently than ever. Though they felt isolated and suffocated by their situation, their emotional response to it was to use running as their only outlet and distraction from reality. Looking back they recognise that their performance during that period was elevated, but now realise that the “fight or flight” survival mode that motivated them to throw themselves into training so intensively was not sustainable.

Emotional angst can only fuel the fire for so long before burnout occurs. Unfortunately, many athletes also find it difficult to get out of relationships that are not good for them. There’s an unwillingness to “rock the boat” during important phases of the season or cut ties with people who are involved in facilitating a lifestyle that works well for the athlete. 

Some athletes consciously choose partners who share the same sport or discipline, benefitting from a shared understanding of each other’s goals and needs, while others find the intensity of this kind of relationship too much.

Take, for example, distance star Eilish McColgan and her partner, Michael Rimmer, a now retired three-time Olympian over 800m. Eilish acknowledges that, for her, having a partner who understands the sport makes life a lot easier.

Eilish McColgan and Mike Rimmer (Getty)

“Being an athlete is a strange life – involving a lot of time travelling and being around other professional athletes,” she says. “I found, in previous relationships, my athletics was an issue. 

“Other people picture it as glamorous and that whilst they are working a ‘real job’ – you’re living the high life. And so it used to cause friction as the reality of being an athlete is actually very far removed from what others think it is! Having a partner who gets the sport removes the mystery of what your profession truly is. We have a really good understanding of each other and what is important to us – both career wise but personally, too. We are a team and we find happiness being together.”

As well as providing invaluable practical assistance for Eilish, Michael is also a key source of emotional support. Understandably, Eilish feels the pressure of wanting to perform well on behalf of her partner and family, knowing that they invest just as much effort into her career as she does, and so of course it “can be upsetting to feel you’ve let them down.” Thankfully, having found a partner such as Michael, however, Eilish always has his reassuring perspective at hand. 

Similarly, Irish middle-distance talent Georgie Hartigan and partner to reigning men’s 1500m world champion Jake Wightman shares that, when leading such an unusual lifestyle “it’s nice that someone gets that you have to go up to the mountains for four weeks at a time or probably don’t want to spend too much time on your feet between training sessions”.

Georgie is also lucky enough to live and train with her partner, so the logistical problems of spending time together are reduced by the similarity of their seasonal plans. They both understand that they only have “a short window to achieve [their] athletic goals and therefore just do [their] own thing and support each other through it”.

Georgie Hartigan (David Lowes/BMC)

Georgie also recognises that athletics can be a selfish sport but is willing to accept there will be times when each of them have to put their training before everything else. Jake has also had a positive impact for Georgie in terms of inspiring her to better her own performances. 

She remembers being “quite lazy” with training before she started seeing him, and has since learned from him exactly “what it takes to compete on a high level and how to be more professional”. Being in an athlete-athlete relationship is not without its challenges, however, as periods of success and failure are not always going to be in perfect synchronisation. 

For Georgie, last year was a good example of how that can be difficult as “Jake had the best season of his life and I couldn’t race due to having glandular fever. It actually was really fun for me to just be able to watch his season without worrying about my own races so that helped to take my mind off it, but it was sad not to be in Oregon to watch him, which I would have been had I been healthy.”

As painful as it was spectating those championships from the sidelines, Jake’s complete understanding of  ow heartbreaking athletics can be was a hugely comforting element of their partnership, and Georgie also appreciates being able to celebrate together when things go well as they both know exactly what work has gone into the achievements. 

This isn’t a formula that works for everyone, however. I’ve met many an athlete who has found the “hyperawareness” of living with a sporting partner difficult. 

Sometimes a partner’s extremely high understanding of athletics’ ups and downs  has caused unhealthy levels of scrutiny in a relationship, and made it feel difficult to switch off.

For one athlete I chatted with, their relationship with a non-sporty person enabled them to feel far more stable mentally. Allowing space for their authentic self, for new experiences and differing perspectives made their relationship with running a lot healthier and created an environment in which they felt relaxed and fulfilled. It helped them to cope with periods of injury better and their time spent together on holidays provided a welcome energy boost.

Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Marcel Uibo

It’s also worth noting that just because a person does not understand the particulars of athletics doesn’t mean that they cannot draw parallels to their own experiences and passions. In fact, we can often learn the most interesting and useful things in life from those who bring a fresh approach that we are not familiar with.  

Either way, I think people are increasingly coming to the realisation that emotional wellbeing and performance are inextricably linked. We’re learning that balanced lives which include other interests outside of our niche world can often actually add to, rather than take away, from our ability to perform at our best.

My personal takeaway given my own experiences of unhappy relationships, break-ups, periods of loneliness and of course happy relationships is that, at whatever point you find yourself, it’s important to put your own happiness ahead of your athletics performance (that will follow of its own accord!) and to remember to nurture who we are both outside of our sport and outside of our relationships, before losing ourselves completely in either of them.  

» This article first appeared in the April issue of AW, which you can read here

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With so many incidents and storylines it is hard to remember a more action-packed weekend since the event began in 1981

Feared disruption from environmental protestors did not materialise at this year’s TCS London Marathon but the event still produced more than enough drama. Perhaps more than on any occasion in its long history.

As the dust settles on the British capital, here are nine storylines from the 2023 race.

Hassan the drama queen

Surely there has never been an elite women’s race so packed with excitement? Dropped from the lead group and finding herself around half a minute behind the leaders, Sifan Hassan stopped to stretch before mounting an incredible comeback. With 2km to go she almost collided with a motorbike after suddenly veering across the road to grab a drink. Soon afterwards she won a three-way sprint down The Mall to claim victory on her debut. It was brilliant, breathless stuff.

Sifan Hassan (LM Events)

An unpopular theory

Hassan’s 2:18:33 was one of the slowest winning times in recent years. If Brigid Kosgei had rolled up in her 2:14 shape, or Peres Jepchirchir, Almaz Ayana or Yalamzerf Yehualaw in their previous 2:17 form, would the Dutch athlete have been able to get back into contention? Paula Radcliffe from 20 years earlier would have been almost an entire kilometre further up the road, for example.

On Sunday the leaders were on schedule to run 2:17 for much of the race as well but slowed, unwittingly allowing Hassan to catch them. Still, the Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion could only beat the best on the day – and, who knows, she may have run even harder and faster if she’d needed to!

Off-road controversies

Away from the races themselves there was intrigue and controversy behind the scenes relating to commercial aspects alone. Eilish McColgan’s much-publicised sponsorship dispute aside, the men’s winner Kelvin Kiptum appears to have got mixed up in an even bigger row with the Kenyan racing in Nike despite reportedly having a deal with Chinese brand Qiaodan. Then there was the strange case of Kosgei, who dropped out only three minutes, sparking theories that she only started to fulfil some of her race fee requirements.

Kelvin Kiptum (LM Events)

Kawauchi’s crazy racing calendar

The Japanese runner Yuki Kawauchi has earned a reputation for being a prolific racer. He often runs a marathon roughly once every month but in 2018 sprang to fame by winning the Boston Marathon men’s title. In London on Sunday he was the fastest non-elite competitor with 2:13:18. Impressively he has already run three marathons already in 2023, too, with victories at the Ishigakijima (2:18:05) and Saga Sakura (2:11:32) events and 12^th place at the Osaka Marathon (2:07:35).

Innes FitzBrilliant

Innes FitzGerald is undoubtedly the most exciting young distance runner in Britain right now. Just 17, she has swept all before her in recent months with victories in the English Schools, English National and Inter-Counties cross-country championships before successfully defending her Mini London Marathon under-17 crown.

She is also one of the most interesting athletes in the country, too. Her environmental principles are well known after she chose to skip a trip to the World Cross Country Championships in Australia this year due to aircraft emissions. But on Sunday the West Country athlete headed from the Mini Marathon to “the big one” protest in central London where she was part of the Champions for Earth group at the demonstration.

Mini marvels

Last year the Mini London Marathon was moved from Sunday to Saturday to give it its own slot in the spotlight rather than being a buried and potentially over-looked on the ‘main marathon’ day. It has proved a good move and is the only realistic way that organisers can also grow the event from its current 7000 participants to an ambitious target of 50,000.

Next year they should consider expanding the post-race presentation area, though. Currently the ceremony unfolds fairly quietly in an enclosed area close to the finish line and features only the championship and London Boroughs race winners, with stars like Eliud Kipchoge and Jake Wightman presenting prizes. AW hears that a few silver and bronze medallists have felt a little left out, though, after being handed a voucher as their reward and then told they are free to leave.

Mini London Marathon (LM Events)

Relentless rise of super shoes (and CGMs)

If you felt self-conscious as a club runner wearing super shoes three or four years ago, the scenario has flipped on its head. It is increasingly hard to spot any of the quicker or more committed runners wearing ‘traditional shoes’. Indeed, even in the Mini Marathon the majority of kids are wearing fast footwear these days.

While it’s unlikely this will catch on in quite the same way, another trend seems to be the use of continuous glucose monitors (or CGMs) with runners like Sifan Hassan sporting a sensor on her upper left arm. These help runners plot their pre and mid-race fuelling strategies and are becoming all the rage with runners like Eliud Kipchoge and Eilish McColgan also using them. Look out for a review on them in the May issue of AW magazine.

2023 TCS London Marathon

Kudos to Farah

Amid all the medals and the media coverage, it’s easy to forget that Mo Farah is a tough little character who never shies away from a scrap. He’s threatened to get involved in charity boxing in the past and of course his gritty nature has helped him endure countless gruelling training sessions and races. Running long distances, after all, is a pain game.

We were reminded of this on Sunday when despite an underwhelming 10km warm-up race in Gabon a fortnight earlier he started the race in determined fashion and, rising to the occasion, was still leading Emile Cairess as the No.1 Brit at halfway. Following this Father Time caught up with him and the 40-year-old faded to third Brit as Phil Sesemann out-kicked him in the final metres. He resisted the temptation to drop out, though, and his 2:10:28 smashed Andy Davies’ British M40 record by almost four minutes as he went down fighting.

Mo Farah and Phil Sesemann (LM Events)

Thommo tears up

Finally, my moment of the weekend goes to another British veteran runner, Chris Thompson, who unexpectedly choked up during this post-race chat below on Sunday. Thommo, 42, wears his heart on his sleeve and, while he might not be the fastest British marathon man these days, he is still running impressive times and remains the undisputed and undefeated champion of media interviews.

» Look out for our London Marathon coverage in our May magazine. Subscribe here

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The Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion stunned everyone with comeback for the ages at the London Marathon

For the tens of thousands of runners who lined up at the 2023 TCS London Marathon, a sense of apprehension and trepidation would’ve likely set in, with 26.2 long and arduous miles ahead and the realisation that the final 10km would be as much a mental as a physical challenge.

Elite athletes, who have won global medals and received international acclaim for their achievements, arguably get those feelings but they know their ceiling is much higher. A sense of admission that they are not ready for the battle could be perceived as a sign of weakness. Especially when their competitors are the best of the best.

The elite women’s field at this past Sunday’s London Marathon contained the greatest line-up for a female marathon in history. It included world record-holder Brigid Kosgei, Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir and world record-holder over 10km plus 2022 London Marathon champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw, to name just a few.

At the pre-event press conference, the trio were relatively poker-faced. Game faces on and not a lot of eye contact. One athlete took a slightly less cautious approach. Sifan Hassan.

Sifan Hassan (London Marathon Events)

An Olympic champion over 5000m and 10,000m, Hassan’s CV is stellar. The 30-year-old Dutch athlete is also a double world champion in the 1500m and 10,000m, holds the mile world record and has perhaps the greatest range of any female athlete in history. Hassan has run 1:56.81 over 800m, is the European record-holder over 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10,000m, 5km and half-marathon. Oh, and she’s claimed a European cross-country title.

Even though this was her first marathon, you might’ve expected an athlete of that calibre to be confident of upsetting the odds. Not a bit of it.

“Why the hell did I decide to do the marathon?” Hassan remarked to the 50-odd journalists in the room just two days before the event. It was a line more synonymous with the runners starting a couple of hours behind the elites but to hear it from a double Olympic champion? The candour was unexpected but not unsurprising.

Hassan, both on and off the track, is not your average athlete. At the Tokyo Olympics two years ago she attempted to be the first athlete in history to claim a treble of golds in the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m.

She won bronze in the former and won the latter two. “Why do I have to make myself so stressed?” Hassan stated after Tokyo. Well, quite.

Sifan Hassan wins the 5000m (Getty)

When asked why she wanted to take on the marathon, the multiple global track champion said she was curious and wanted another challenge. The fact that Ramadan (March 22 – April 20) fell in such close proximity to the London Marathon was another obstacle to overcome. Hassan told AW that she did a 41km long run during Ramadan, meaning she was hardly able to practice drinking fluids.

Hassan arrived in London, primarily to test herself in uncharted waters.

She has a childish enthusiasm which comes across as incredibly innocent yet there is a steely determination beneath the surface. It’s like Hassan always feels like 99.9% isn’t enough and constantly has to prove herself, even though she’s already achieved success on mesmeric proportions. Both enigmatic and eccentric, it’s impossible not to like or watch her.

All of her personality traits, from the bonkers to the brilliant, unfolded in the London Marathon as individual  five kilometre splits turned into different chapters of the Hassan storybook.

For the first 15km or so, Hassan kept up with the leading pack and they went through the mark in a steady 48:43. Kosgei succumbed to a previous knee and hamstring injury and dropped out after three minutes. But such was the strength in depth of the field, Hassan’s path to an unlikely victory was narrow.

Sifan Hassan at 20km in London Marathon (LM Events)

Then, around 17km, her left side tightened and the marathon debutant stopped not once but twice to stretch it. In preparation for London, she had actually switched from Ethiopia’s dirt roads to a 20km run on asphalt, which subsequently aggravated her quad. That flared up but in typical Hassan style, she later stated that she forgot to ask her physio to tape up her whole left leg on the morning of the race.

By 25km, Hassan had fallen back 28 seconds behind the leaders and looked in trouble.

Yet, the combination of a relatively ‘pedestrian’ 5km split of 16:28 at the front and sheer willpower from Hassan, saw her rejoin them at 30km and even a surge from Jepchirchir, which initially saw the pack establish a 14 second gap over Hassan by 35km, wasn’t enough to remove the threat of the Dutchwoman.

The only thing that could stop Hassan was herself.

She was the first to admit that it was going to be difficult to stomach fluids in the marathon due to the fact a large percentage of her training block took place during Ramadan. That’s if you can find the bottle.

As Hassan, Jepchirchir, Yehualaw and Alemu Megertu passed the London Eye, the debutant was blind to the last and crucial drinks station at 40km and narrowly avoided a collision with a support motorbike.

Hassan then bizarrely offered Yehualaw her own drink but last year’s winner was full of focus and barely glanced over.

Sifan Hassan wins the London Marathon (LM Events)

As they approached The Mall, Yehualaw dropped off and Hassan, locked in a battle with Jepchirchir and Megertu, kicked away in the same fashion which has seen her win Olympic, world and European titles. The final 50m was Hassan’s easiest assignment.

Born in Ethiopia, she moved to the Netherlands aged 15 as a refugee and lived in a shelter for asylum seekers.

Never giving up wasn’t an option and Hassan has that mentality instilled into her head. She told AW that she had thought about stopping at 20km but a voice inside urged her to continue. The reaction when she hit the tape to win was of someone who won a marathon but didn’t know quite how they did it.

“I was telling myself I was stupid to run this marathon,” Hassan told the world’s media after the race. “I even cried because I was so scared. What was wrong with me?”

The ridiculous nature of the comeback and the relatability to the everyday runner made Hassan that popular she made the front pages of the UK national newspapers.

The headline to describe her victory in London could be taken out of a movie script. Run, Sifan, Run.

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Legendary Ethiopian celebrates milestone birthday on April 18 and his performances continue to stand the test of time

Eight years ago we asked AW readers to decide the greatest long distance runner in history. We were inundated with opinions and Haile Gebrselassie emerged as leader of the pack with 45.6% votes ahead of Emil Zátopek (20.3%), Kenenisa Bekele (15.2%), Mo Farah (8.6%), Paavo Nurmi (5.5%), Lasse Viren (3%), Abebe Bikila (1.8%).

Since that poll Farah went on to win more world and Olympic titles. More importantly, we have seen the rise of Eliud Kipchoge with two Olympic titles, multiple big-city marathon wins, world records and of course his sub-two-hour time trial.

So, the question is, as Gebrselassie celebrates his 50th birthday this week, is the ‘Ethiopian Emperor’ still the greatest? I would say yes, largely due to the sheer range of his achievements.

Mo Farah, Kenenisa Bekele and Haile Gebreselassie race in 2013 (Mark Shearman)

Gebrselassie first made a name for himself by winning 5000m and 10,000m golds at the World Junior Championships in Seoul in 1992. The 10,000m attracted plenty of attention, too, after Kenyan rival Josephat Machuka punched Gebrselassie in the back out of frustration when the Ethiopian kicked past him metres from the finish line.

Kenyan athletes would have to endure a similar experience of being out-kicked time and time again throughout the rest of the 1990s and the turn of the millennium as well as Gebrselassie won the Olympic 10,000m in 1996 and 2000, plus four world 10,000m golds, four world indoor titles and a world half-marathon gold.

Not all victories were easy either. His duel with Paul Tergat at Sydney 2000, for instance, if sometimes described as the greatest 10,000m race in history.

Haile Gebrselassie (Mark Shearman)

When racing against the clock he set an incredible 27 world records. On the roads he was the first runner to go sub-2:04 for the marathon when he ran 2:03:59 in Berlin in 2008. Such was his range, he won the world indoor title at 1500m in 1999.

Not surprisingly he appeared on the cover of AW at least a dozen times during his heyday. His achievements outside athletics have been extraordinary, too, with Jim Denison, the author of his official biography, once telling me that his off-track energy and accomplishments in the business world were every bit as impressive as his running results.

Certainly, Gebrselassie did not merely impress when he was running. His ever-smiling and charismatic personality helped him become a big name outside the world of athletics.

There’s no doubt Gebrselassie’s place in athletics folklore is secure, but is he still the greatest of all-time?

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Is athletics stuck in the dark ages by asking athletes to attach paper bibs on their singlets?

Do today’s leading athletes still need to wear their name or number on a paper bib on their competition clothing? The debate emerged on social media this month and seems to divide opinion.

Athletes such as Noah Lyles, Rai Benjamin and Jazmin Sawyers got involved with the latter saying: “Pins just feel needlessly fiddly and bad aerodynamics!”

A short poll on our Instagram channel showed that 49% are in favour of wearing numbers with 51% feeling it is unnecessary. I didn’t vote but, if I had, I would probably have tipped the results so that they would have ended up 50/50.

Should athletes wear bibs when competing?

Olympic and double world 400m hurdles silver medallist @_Kingben_ raised the question this week pic.twitter.com/hwUcr0F6cs

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) April 12, 2023

Putting your number on to your singlet is a pre-race ritual I wouldn’t like to see disappear. Yes, we’ve been doing it for a long time and it might feel dated but why change a winning formula?

In some ways it’s been around longer than you can imagine too. Much of the debate centres around the use of the humble safety pin, but did you know this small metal device was created long before the first ancient Olympics in 776BC was created and dates back to unknown Bronze Age inventors in Greece.

In AW we even ran a feature in our magazine on the use of safety pins in 2011 and wrote: “The basic design is brilliantly simple – a straight pin looped in the middle to form a spring with one end bent into a hook to hold the other sharp end, with tension from the spring holding it safe and secure.”

As for the paper numbers themselves, they’re important for sponsors’ logos and spectators (as you see in the main image above, AW has even featured on them in the past), plus of course runners will often be asked to write medical details and emergency contact details on the back.

Of course there have been improvements over the years. For a long time athletes only wore numbers on their singlets, which meant you could only identify them if you had a list of competitors to refer to. But gradually over the past 20 years we have seen numbers replaced by the athlete’s name.

This month, for example, saw the 20th anniversary of Paula Radcliffe’s amazing 2:15:25 marathon in London and the images from 2003 remind us that she wore “101” on her singlet. Checking back at photos from that period, I see some (but not all) of the top athletes had their name on their singlet in 2004, whereas by 2005 it was even more widespread.

Paper bibs are a big part of the sport’s history. If you’re in any doubt of this then pay a visit to the Museum of World Athletics and you’ll see find paper bibs in abundance alongside spikes and shoes and other track and field paraphernalia.

As a teenage runner in the 1980s I was fascinated by leading runners like Rob de Castella (below, No.25) cutting their number to the bare minimum and inserting holes in it to enhance the breathability before tackling major marathons in hot weather such as the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Rob de Castella and Carlos Lopes

In 1985 Steve Cram and Said Aouita broke the 3:30 barrier for 1500m in an epic race in Nice, but one of the enduring memories is Cram starting his long run for home with his number on his back flapping around loosely like a tail.

One type of paper number I’m not a fan of are the ones that organisers insist on sticking to the side of athletes’ legs. Much of the time they simply fall off.

As for the main name or number on the athlete’s chest, though, I’m firmly in favour of its survival.

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Collaboration with SportsShoes has paid dividends with events becoming more popular, regular and crucially engaging

An athletics event at a go-kart track, four levels underground below the main shopping centre at Canary Wharf, shouldn’t theoretically work.

Given the Epic Karting circuit in Docklands had an abundance of tight turns, the surface was designed for rubber tyres rather than shoes and the venue contained no natural light, the setting, was peculiar to say the least.

If you, however, add a swathe of marketing – from a myriad of photos to slick social media cutdowns – to create hype, invite one of London’s most prominent DJs and crucially award prize money – £1000 for first, £500 for second and £300 for third – for podium spots, it can definitely work.

At tonight’s @podium5k Underground event in Canary Wharf, there is live music all night

Making running really cool pic.twitter.com/EXBbWIRQBz

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 17, 2023

After covering the event last week (March 17), I got back home thinking it had.

The average age of those who attended almost certainly didn’t exceed 30. That wasn’t just the runners but those who flocked down to watch. Some might have not even known who was racing but with live music bouncing off the walls around the venue and a bar in the background, it didn’t matter.

People enjoyed themselves because the behind the scenes side of the event was as good as the action they watched.

That wasn’t to say the standard was bad. European Indoor 1500m silver medallist from 2021, Holly Archer, was the leading contender in the women’s race. She lost out to a superb Megan Davies in a close-run finish to the line.

Double British 3000m steeplechase champion Zak Seddon, coached by Geoff Wightman, claimed the plaudits in the men’s event.

Zak Seddon collects his £1k top prize (Simon Roberts)

“It was really cool. It sounded really loud with the music. There was so much noise and it was a really great atmosphere and it wasn’t like anything else I’ve seen,” Davies told AW.

“The event is completely different and I really enjoyed it. I hope so [if there are more events] and it’s changing the way the sport looks. It can be really easy to focus on times all the time so it’s really cool to come to an event where that’s not the importance.”

Seddon’s reflection of the spectacle was along the same lines.

“The atmosphere was unreal. Everyone I spoke to was just enjoying themselves and the sport,” he added. “That’s what’s so good about these events. You’re just running hard.

“It’s the time in the season where you’re not going after fast track times and just putting out a base. So to come out here and just really enjoy yourself, it’s perfect.”

“It’s really cool to do something where times are just not important.”

Megan Davies won the women’s final at last night’s @podium5k Underground event in Canary Wharf

She is full of praise for the innovative idea

@TimAdams76 pic.twitter.com/wqtFsnrHPX

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 18, 2023

Other athletes I chatted to echoed the same message. This was different. In a good way.

The fact that it was an event where times were insignificant and the primary focus was to claim the highest prize money was a refreshing change, in a sport where the stopwatch can get far more attention than rivalries and storytelling.

Those who watched from the sidelines were allowed to move around different sections of the circuit and although the racing environment was surreal, the view by the start/finish line was excellent and you could see athletes meander their way through the course.

The distance of approximately 2.5km didn’t seem to be too strenuous while the format of heats to finals worked, although the quality of athletes in the heats differed drastically at times.

Above all though, the reaction on social media was mightily impressive.

Podium 5k focused on drawing in a raft of photographers, videographers and cinematographers to encapsulate not just the action but the wider event itself.

Zak Seddon crosses the line (Simon Roberts)

That kind of marketing, where buzz centred around the behind the scenes aspect, as well as athletes, is crucial for athletics to not just survive but thrive.

In their own unique way, Podium 5k have so far achieved that.

It wasn’t a surprise that the videos I took on our AW social media channels exceeded 170,000 views. To put that into perceptive, 250,000 people watched our videos on social media over three days at the European Indoor Championships.

“It was great fun, course had more grip than expected and the racing line became a key part of the race,” commented Ben Short, who competed in the event, on AW’s Instagram. “Brilliant spectator sport as can see the racers multiple times per lap and Podium 5k always know how to put on a show. Bring on the next one!”

Other messages varied from “this is awesome, some fantastic ideas coming through” to “would be even better if they had bananas, speed boosters like Mario Kart”.

The crowd watch on at Podium 5k (Simon Roberts)

The main thought people had from Podium 5k’s Underground event, whatever their view on whether it was a success or not, was that it was innovative.

It created conversation around the sport, when on occasions athletics can feel stale and too repetitive.

Podium 5k’s events in the past few months have included a 5km race at Battersea Park and the Breaking 10 event in Barrowford, the latter seeing Emile Cairess break Richard Nerurkar‘s 30-year-old European 10-mile record.

The crowds are not anywhere near that of a Diamond League or a Continental Tour Gold event but by hammering home social media content, Podium 5k have reached hundreds of thousands of young people who will be inspired by their ability to make running look attractable and worthwhile.

Night of the 10,000m PBs is another example. The event, set-up by Ben Pochee in 2013 was initially created for faster running in the 10,000m but it has grown rapidly and is one of the most much loved events on the athletics calendar in the UK.

This year's @NightOf10kPBs will feature four 800m races for under-20 and under-17 women and men

They will get to experience an electric atmosphere in Highgate + target qualifying times for junior major champs https://t.co/ty0AnUtxa5

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 25, 2023

A combination of free entry and entertainment – including pyrotechnics and beer scales – plus athlete interaction with spectators you don’t find at an elite level, gives a feel of inclusivity for all those attending.

The athletes also get the opportunity to record fast qualifying times over a variety of distances. This year’s meet once again features British Championships and World Championships trials for the 10,000m with a total of £30,000 in prize money up for grabs.

No surprise then that On Running have incorporated it into their Track Night series which includes similar meets in Los Angeles, Paris, Vienna and Melbourne.

The financial aspect to making athletics desirable is obvious. By providing prize money at events for runners, who sometimes just run as a hobby and work in other jobs, it creates a clear incentive to race in the event. Win it and there’s even the prospect of a sponsorship deal.

Someone films on their phone (Simon Roberts)

By amplifying all of this messaging on social media makes a difference. With Gen Z – people born between 1997-2012 – consuming their content so vividly on Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and TikTok, you have to take what you’ve produced to them. They shouldn’t be expected to look for it themselves.

Days after the Podium 5k Underground event had finished, pictures and videos from the event were still being pumped out on social media. You would’ve struggled to miss it.

Alone, Podium 5k cannot change the perception of the sport. That’s the job of a global behind the scenes series on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Yet, they are making an impact. The market for athletics in the UK, from just the level of engagement on our social channels, is huge. Young people will compete and watch if something is marketed well.

Change and innovation should be applauded and not frowned upon. Athletics needs to catch up with other sports. And fast.

Nike ZoomX Streakfly promoted at Podium 5k Underground event

The event organised by SportsShoes in conjunction with Nike showcased the ZoomX Streakfly. The Streakfly is Nike’s lightest road racing shoe and was perfect for courses, such as the track at the Podium Underground event.

The light, nimble nature of the shoe copes with the twists and turns with ease as it sits a little lower to the ground with its 32mm stack height (compared to the 40mm of shoes such as the Vaporfly).

Nike ZoomX Streakfly (Paul Freary)

It’s light as well, coming in at just 185g. Despite the lightweight cushioning, it isn’t compromised as it features a full-length ZoomX midsole for that highly responsive feel, perfect for a 5km race.

The mesh upper is ultra-light and highly breathable and the heel collar is neatly padded for a secure fit.

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AW columnist Verity Ockenden shares her experiences of being sidelined and explains that how someone responds to a setback can have a big effect on how quickly they are up and running again

There is an art to approaching injury. I’ve had my fair share of stresses and strains over the years, but currently it’s a spot of sciatica that has come along to complete the trio in true alliterative style. Like many a previous injury, it took a frustratingly long time to diagnose correctly and the healing process has sometimes taken one step forward and two steps back. Still, the more experience I gather of this inevitable aspect of elite athletics, the more adept I get at handling it, and here is what I’ve learnt.

Facts are important. It is imperative to understand the true what and why of the injury as quickly as possible, if I am not to waste precious time on misdiagnosis rather than effective treatment. This can create a maddening puzzle for any athlete, coach or therapist since every injury has its own peculiarities and can present differently, depending on the individual.

I personally struggle to describe physical sensations and levels of pain accurately, so choosing a set scale to stick to and keeping a detailed diary in which I record what I am experiencing as immediately as possible helps with that. Otherwise I tend to waste too much time continuing training when I should have stopped earlier.

Though it pays to focus on such factual elements of the healing process, managing my feelings well is just as important. We all hate getting injured because running, jumping and throwing at our best is the fun part of Track and Field, while crummy rehab routines are, well, boring. Maintaining the desire to do this kind of work when the rewards are not as visible or close at hand as usual is difficult, particularly when the sadness of lost opportunities depletes morale.

It takes discipline to train at full capacity every single day when I am fighting fit, but it takes even more of it to stay motivated when I am not seeing the results that I strive for.

Nobody has a favourite type of injury, but if I had to choose, I’d always take the one with the clearest timeline. It takes four weeks? I can get my head around that. It’s those without a predictable trajectory on which to fix my sights that are the worst.

Verity Ockenden

Just like in competition, focusing on series of goals is an important aspect of planning recovery. Trusting and believing in the work I am doing is also crucial. I have been reprimanded on occasion for doing “il giro delle sette chiese!” [the tour of the seven churches] when it comes to finding cures for things, without having the faith to stick to one avenue of treatment.

That’s not to say that a thorough exploration of causes and research into treatment options is a bad thing (particularly when I don’t have my go-to therapist at hand), or that multiple treatment forms can’t work harmoniously together.

However, there isn’t much point in going to a doctor or physiotherapist if I’m not going to be honest and open with them about every aspect of my situation, or even adhere to their treatment plan at all.

Often I encounter the same initial stumbling blocks. The first is denial. “This isn’t an injury, it’s a niggle.” I often stubbornly justify training through these “niggles” through comparison to others who never seem to let anything stop them. I fight any reaction to small levels of pain as a sign of the kind of mental weakness that won’t get me through tough workouts and tough races, let alone to the top.

What I’ve come to realise, however, is that the best athletes don’t ignore such warning signs, however tiny. They take proactive measures immediately and it is that level of care and attention to detail that allows them to continue training while ensuring an injury doesn’t escalate.

Stumbling block number two is pride. With strengthening routines, it is easy to feel humiliated during the first session as my weaknesses get exposed. I’ve always found this particularly difficult to deal with, specifically for rehabilitation that requires niche exercises in the pool or the gym. I’m not a person who likes to draw unnecessary attention to themselves, or one who deals well with not being naturally good at things.

The horror of some muscle-bound weightlifter watching me wobble around helplessly on one leg like a baby bird, unaware that I’m not a complete idiot without a clue about what I’m doing, was for a long time so cringe-inducing that I would find any excuse not to go.

How my game has changed now! I’ve always focused on following my strengths, which did at least get me this far, but I know full well that at this point, playing to my strengths will only get me this far. If I want the next level, I need to be okay with being a beginner at a few things, and a bad one at that.

If I want it badly enough, I’ll undergo whatever level of shame and embarrassment it takes, and maybe even realise along the way that most of the other people who have also chosen to be in this environment started at the bottom just like me, and they are busy working on their own weaknesses as well. Though the gym is fertile soil for comparison, I now also recognise the common desire to simply better oneself in everyone who goes there, in whichever way suits them.

Last but not least, what I’ve finally come to understand is that the arrow that strikes me in the heel every single time might be a new arrow but it always comes from the same bow. That is to say, when I fix one wound, all too often I declare victory on that particular battle and forget that, in order to win the entire war, the boring rehab work never stops and it is never time to let down my guard when it comes to injury prevention.

So this time, though the programme might change and different weak spots will come and go, each time heralding different sets of silly exercises, I won’t be discarding it as unnecessary as soon as my normal running service resumes.

» Verity Ockenden is a British international athlete and European indoor 3000m bronze medallist

» This article first appeared in the February issue of AW, which you can read here

The post Being a model patient when dealing with injury appeared first on AW.

Olympic 800m champion in 1984 turns 60 this weekend and we look back on the career of one of the all-time greats

Joaquim Cruz is best known for beating Seb Coe to the 1984 Olympic 800m title in Los Angeles. For many in South America there was also a decent argument to describe him as the world record-holder too.

Coe ran 1:41.73 in Florence in 1981 at an event where the photo-finish equipment malfunctioned. The Briton’s time was calculated from three photo-cells positioned at three different heights at the finish and officials hand-timed his run at 1:41.6, 1:41.6 and 1:41.7.

The world record stood until 1997, when Wilson Kipketer broke the mark. But in Cologne in 1984 – just 20 days after his Olympic victory – Cruz ran 1:41.77 to miss Coe’s mildly controversial mark by a mere four hundredths of a second.

That statistical story is one of many embedded into the folklore of middle-distance running in the 1980s. It was a golden period, largely dominated by Coe and fellow Englishmen Steve Ovett, Steve Cram and Peter Elliott, but there were a number of athletes from around the world who were just as good on their day. Most notably, for example, Said Aouita of Morocco and, of course, Cruz.

Humble beginnings

Cruz turns 60 this week (March 12) but the athlete (whose first name is pronounced Joe-Akeem not Wah-keem incidentally) was born in 1963 in a favela in Taguatinga near Brasilia. To begin with he was a talented basketball player and his athletics talent was spotted when playing that game by a coach called Luiz de Oliviera.

Initially Cruz was a reluctant runner who preferred basketball, but he had stacks of natural running ability. He clocked a world junior 800m record of 1:44.3 in Rio in 1981 and moved to Eugene, Oregon, to train.

Injuries held him up a little and it was discovered his right leg was slightly shorter than the left, which needed an orthotic to fix. But in 1983, aged just 21, he made his mark at the World Championships in Helsinki by finishing third behind winner Willi Wulbeck of West Germany.

With an aggressive front running style that would become his trademark, he battled for the lead with Elliott at a furious pace before running out of steam as the more experienced Wülbeck charged through for gold.

Glory in Los Angeles

One year later Cruz was virtually invincible over two laps. He began the summer by winning the NCAA 800m and 1500m titles, plus a 3:53.00 mile in his debut at the distance at the Pepsi Invitational (pictured right).

Then at the Olympics in LA itself he ran a remarkable series of races with 1:45.66 in his heat, 1:44.84 in the second round, 1:43.84 in his semi and 1:43.00 in the final – all in successive days.

Three years earlier an 18-year-old Cruz had finished well behind Coe as the Briton destroyed the field to win the IAAF World Cup 800m in Rome. But now, in LA and aged 21, he was always in control and surged clear of Coe and runner-up Earl Jones (pictured below on the podium) and the rest of the field in the home straight to win with ease.

“We’re too old to be playing with fire,” the runner-up Coe famously told Ovett.

However while Coe went on to successfully defend his 1500m title, Cruz withdrew from the metric mile with a cold.

Back in Europe a few days later, though, Cruz scorched to some great end-of-season victories with 2:14.09 for 1000m in Nice, 1:42.34 for 800m in Zurich, 1:42.41 in Brussels and then 1:44.77 in Cologne.

Such was his status back home now, in Sao Paulo an abandoned baby was left on someone’s doorstep and it was named Joaquim Cruz.

Mark Shearman

Post-Los Angeles

Cruz was never quite the same after his impeccable 1984 season. In early 1985 he was humbled in an early season 1500m showdown in Nice where Cram narrowly held off Aouita in a world record of 3:29.67 as Cruz lost contact approaching the bell and faded to seventh in 3:37.10.

At his specialist distance, though, he still ran brilliantly by beating Tom McKean at Crystal Palace, whereas he also enjoyed victories in 1:42.49 in Koblenz, 1:42.54 in Cologne and 1:42.98 in Berlin, plus a narrow defeat to an in-form Cram in 1:43.23 in Zurich.

The 1986 season was lost through injury and with his career seemingly on the slide the Brazilian whipped himself into great shape again for a defence of his Olympic title in Seoul in 1988 and managed to put up a gallant fight that nearly resulted in gold.

On the eve of the Games in August he ran a 1500m PB of 3:34.63 to win in Hengelo and finished a close runner-up to Aouita in Cologne over 800m in 1:44.27.

Ultimately the title in Seoul went to surprise package Paul Ereng (below, left) as the Kenyan burst past Cruz in the closing metres to claim victory as the Brazilian ran 1:43.90 ahead of Aouita, Elliott, Johnny Gray and fellow Brazilian Jose-Luis Barbosa.

Mark Shearman

Cruz carried on racing until 1997 but was only eighth in his 1500m heat at the 1996 Olympics and, in recent years, he has been based in San Diego as a coach primarily for the United States Paralympics programme where he has continued to inspire modern-day athletes in addition to older ex-athletes and fans who remember him as one of the most graceful and powerful 800m runners of all time.

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UK Athletics want to select smaller teams for global championships but their policy flies in the face of popular opinion

About 20 years ago I knew an ambitious British runner whose main goal was to run in the World Cross Country Championships. He realised the ceiling of his talent was to squeeze into the squad and after years of gruelling training he eventually managed it in his early 30s by qualifying for a couple of global events.

Ultimately he finished outside the top 60 and several minutes behind the winner, but he achieved his dream and is now able to tell his grandchildren that he ran for Great Britain at the World Cross. As my friend and many other proud international athletes over the years will agree, these championships are not all about winning medals.

The problem is, the medals mentality is dominating UK Athletics’ selection strategy right now. Jack Buckner, the governing body’s new chief executive, said recently: “There will be a bit of a shift in our selection philosophy which is going to be quite hard in some ways. We will be moving towards a philosophy more about performance. It will have a slightly sharper edge. You need to really focus on the big hitters. We could have a list of six to 10 names and we need to be all over them. We need to identify where the medals are coming from and have the right resources in place.”

Buckner has made a positive start to his role at UKA but in this case he appears to have misjudged the mood of the people. An AW poll this week asked if UKA should send smaller elite teams of probable finalists and potential medallists to global championships? Or should they field as big a squad as possible to maximise development opportunities? At last count 72% want squads that are “as big as possible” with only 3% preferring “small select squads” and 25% choosing “somewhere in between”.

Athletes and fans have gone further than a mere click of the keyboard to vote too. Some have taken to social media to voice their concern. Established GB internationals claim the policy is driven by UKA’s cash-strapped position – although the governing body denies this – whereas others have made jibes about the number of support staff soon out-numbering the actual competitors.

Katharine Merry went to the 1993 World Championships as a teenager before going on to win Olympic 400m bronze in Sydney seven years later. She says she would not qualify for that World Champs with the current selection policy and adds: “Not every athlete can be a medallist or top eight at a Champs, but all deserve to showcase their best on the biggest stage they can. This is why athletes train. To be the best they can be and reach the highest possible level with their talent.”

Katharine Merry (Mark Shearman)

What would Mo Farah have achieved during his 2011-2017 heyday if he hadn’t endured the stinging experience of being knocked out of the 5000m heats at the 2008 Olympics?

Katarina Johnson-Thompson finished 14^th in the Olympic heptathlon – a long way behind winner Jess Ennis – in London in 2012 but the experience put her in good stead to win a world title seven years later in Doha.

Nafi Thiam and Katarina Johnson-Thompson (Mark Shearman)

At the same home Games, meanwhile, a young runner called Eilish McColgan finished a distant ninth in her 3000m steeplechase heat but look what she’s gone on to achieve. There are plenty more examples like this too.

What is exasperating about UKA’s selection stance is that it see-saws from one extreme to another. Less than two years ago, for example, Buckner’s predecessor Jo Coates unleashed a plan entitled ‘age of the athlete’ where one of the targets was to have athletes representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland in every single track and field event at major championships by 2032. This ambitious but very worthy goal was not original either as UKA proposed the same idea at the turn of the millennium.

It is also only six years since UKA launched a campaign with the hashtag “#represent” which was devised by a creative agency – probably at considerable cost – and primarily promoted the beauty and honour of competing for your country.

In the run-up to London 2012, however, the GB team adopted a tougher selection strategy similar to the one Buckner is now suggesting will happen on the road to the Paris 2024 Olympics. Charles van Commenee, the GB head coach at the time, famously said that “nobody is going to jump higher by lowering the bar”.

Van Commenee added: “When you raise the standards, you will have a more successful team and success breeds success. When you are in a championship and in the first two days you’ve got a dozen going out in the first round then that doesn’t set the right tone for the rest of the team and for the people watching us.”

With reference to under-performing “championship tourists”, he continued: “I think at major championships you shouldn’t fail, so I don’t want to send people with a high probability of failure.”

Charles van Commenee (Mark Shearman)

There is definitely some logic in that approach and it is important to add that UKA’s strict selection strategies only apply to global championships. Events like the Commonwealth Games, age-group championships and of course this month’s European Indoor Championships are always regarded as development opportunities for up-and-coming athletes.

Since the days of Van Commenee, the selection strategy now appears to be coming around in full circle and looks set to be repeated. Is it what athletes and fans want, though? Clearly not.

Surely UKA is underestimating the sheer achievement of making a national team for a major championship. If ever you need to be reminded of this, just remember the scenes of joy and emotion two years ago when Chris Thompson won the Olympic marathon trials in Kew Gardens.

Thommo probably realised he would not win Olympic medal in Japan. Making the top 10 would be a long shot – and he ultimately finished first Brit home in 39th. But, really, who cares?

What mattered is that he earned the right to stand on the same start line as Eliud Kipchoge at the greatest show on earth and is part of an exclusive club of super-athletes who go by the name of “Olympian”.

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Darren Ritchie explains why this month’s England Athletics International Jumps and Throws Conference could help give you an edge over your fellow competitors

We often talk about fine margins in sport, but for field athletes the difference between success and disappointment can be as agonising as the thickness of a fingernail. Great Britain and England long jumper Jazmin Sawyers knows this better than most.

After what must have seemed like years of missed opportunities to top the podium at a major championship, she finally got that much-deserved gold medal around her neck on Sunday night in Istanbul.

With a world-leading clearance of seven metres – a landmark distance for a long jumper – the 28-year-old won a stunning long jump competition at the European Indoor Championships for Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

If ever there was an athlete who encapsulates drive, determination, and a ‘never give up’ attitude towards her craft, it’s Jaz.

Her comment of: “I’ve never won anything!” when she spoke to the media after the competition, coupled with her stunned reaction and infectious smile also speak volumes of her as a fabulous human being.

Jazmin Sawyers (Getty)

Prior to the weekend, Jaz has won two European medals outdoors and competed at Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games.

Throughout her career Jaz has demonstrated that she has the talent and ability to mix it with the best, but may have felt prior to these Indoor Championships, that golden moment would never come.

Now that it has, she also said to the media out in Turkey: “I just want more of it.”

And knowing Jaz, I wouldn’t bet against her topping more podiums in the future!

Her coach Aston Moore, a legend in his own right, will be in attendance at our International Jumps and Throws Conference, part of European Athletics Coaching Summit Series 2023.

What an amazing opportunity for those in attendance at Loughborough University over the weekend of March 25-26 to learn alongside and network with Aston.

Furthermore, presenting at our conference is Yannick Tregaro, who coaches Thobias Montler from Sweden, who came second in the men’s long jump at the European Indoor Championships with 8.19m.

And if that wasn’t enough, also speaking at our conference is Paulo Reis who coaches the winner of the women’s shot at the European Indoor Championships, Portugal’s Auriol Dongmo.

Across the conference, we have an amazing line-up of elite-level coaches, strength and conditioning experts, and leaders in sports psychology, including: Dr Áine MacNamara, Elliott Newell, Herbert Czingon, Dr John Kiely, Dr Alison O’Riordan, Stefan Holm, Paulo Oliveira, and Steve Backley.

Steve Backley (Mark Shearman)

The conference, which includes lunch on Saturday and Sunday, dinner on Saturday, and refreshments across both days, offers delegates a unique opportunity to learn from and network with these world leading coaches and specialist practitioners who will be providing lectures, workshops, and practical sessions on a wide range of topics.

As well as gaining in-depth knowledge and insight from the stellar line-up of speakers across the technical, tactical, and psychological aspects of sport, attendees will be able to exchange ideas with fellow coaches, leaders, and athletes.

As I mentioned at the start, fine margins come with the territory if you’re working in high-level sport.

By being exposed to the knowledge and ways of working exhibited by world-leading experts, you can go a long way to ensuring, like Jaz did at the weekend, that you’re nearer to that line of success than disappointment.

» Darren Ritchie is the England Athletics Event Group Lead for Jumps and Combined Events

Book online for the England Athletics International Jumps and Throws Conference. Please note places are limited, therefore, we advise signing-up early to avoid disappointment.

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Are you looking to reboot your running? Author Christopher McDougall, whose book Born to Run caused such a stir in 2009, is back with some practical advice

Few running books have been as influential as Born to Run. When it was first published back in 2009, Christopher McDougall’s tale of exploration and learning how to race across Mexico’s remote copper canyons, adopting the running traits of the Raràmuri tribe, sparked an explosion in minimalist and barefoot running. 

While that particular trend may no longer be so widespread, in the intervening years the American continued to receive messages of thanks from readers whose running had been changed by the ethos of eschewing expensive footwear and focusing on the movement techniques and simple nutrition at the heart of the Run Free philosophy.

It was coach Eric Orton who guided the author through that journey and, back then, in his mid-40s McDougall thought he might be lucky if the process granted him another couple of years of running.

Now 60, he is still going strong and his partnership with Orton remains. The two have such conviction about their methods, in fact, that they have recently released Born to Run 2 – the Ultimate Training Guide. 

It is exactly as it sounds. This is an explanation of processes, principles and methods to the Run Free philosophy, mixed in with the experiences of those who have tried it, as well as sections on improving your running form through to nutrition and, yes, footwear. It includes a 90-day programme to “Reboot your running” so we spoke with McDougall at his home in Hawaii to hear more.

How did this new book come about?

With Born to Run, I wrote it from what I thought was a really healthy perspective of “not really being sure, but I think this stuff works”, and I was willing to experiment and explore. It became this book of exploration.

I think a lot of times with books about sports, they come from a place of conviction and knowledge and authority and mine was from the position of “exploration, serious doubts, so far, so good” and I think hopefully that’s what made it an appealing story. I think a lot of readers found themselves in my shoes.

Now, 13 years later, I’m treated like an authority, and I keep fending that off. I’m totally not an authority but I realised that the thing Eric had promised me when I began working with him years ago came true.

He said that if you change the behaviour, you’ll change the outcome. Change the way you run and your body will respond differently – it’s not this inevitable march toward bad knees and injury and despair and frustration. It can be something really joyful.

That’s what he promised me and now it’s been 15 years and I’m still running. I kept becoming a better and better runner, so I thought this would be an interesting book to do. 

This would have been in the middle of Born to Run if I’d known this stuff, so when I went back to Eric I said: “Let’s just document dump your brain and combine it with stories of the people we’ve met that really illustrate the ideas and put it all together”.

What’s the biggest mistake you see people making?

No contest, it’s running form. There’s this conventional wisdom, convincing us it doesn’t matter. You see this again and again. “Don’t change your natural form, just run the way you run and just get the proper shoes.” 

If you’re playing a guitar, they don’t say “just play the way you play”, or when kicking a soccer ball “just smack away at it”. Every single activity, you refine a biomechanically efficient way of movement, except in running where they say “well, just buy different shoes”.

You can’t tell me that by making a movement lighter, easier, smoother and more biomechanically efficient it’s not going to be superior and this is where I become one of these raving zealots because in my case it really worked and reversed something which I thought was irreversible.

» This is an edited version of a feature that appeared in the January issue of AW magazine. To read the full article, CLICK HERE

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Bathurst or bust? Will this weekend’s Aussie event prove a backward or forward step for the world cross-country championships?

This year marks 50 years since the first world cross-country championships took place in Waregem in Belgium and 120 years since the event’s predecessor, the ‘International’ cross-country championships, was staged on Hamilton Racecourse in Scotland. Often dubbed ‘the toughest footrace on the planet’, it has a long and varied history.

Athletics is a sport that rebels against change and therefore it is little surprise that the 1973 event in Waregem was described in AW by its correspondent, Cliff Temple, as “the first of the IAAF-organised International Cross-Country Championships”. The title of an event that had survived from 1903-1973 was not going to die easily.

AW’s headline read: “An end to English domination” – and Temple reported that “there was no lack of incident or excitement” at the event with, among other things, Irish demonstrators impeding the athletes.

England had won the men’s team gold for nine successive years but in this first official ‘world cross-country championships’ they could finish only fifth.

Individual titles went to Pekka Paivarinta, a 23-year-old caretaker from Turku who raced to gold wearing a distinctive red and white cycling hat, and Paola Cacchi, the 27-year-old daughter of an Italian opera tenor and a Spanish mother.

Paola Cacchi (70) with Joyce Smith (2) (Mark Shearman)

Paivarinta beat Mariano Haro of Spain and Rod Dixon of New Zealand – both of whom were affected by the demonstrators. There were no Kenyans or Ethiopians at all, although such was its importance the Irish hope Neil Cusack flew into Belgium from the United States to compete.

There was no junior women’s race in ’73 either, but Jim Brown of Scotland took the junior men’s title. Spectators paid £1 to enter and another £1 for a seat in the grandstand. “They must have felt they had their money’s worth of entertainment,” wrote Temple.

Gaston Roelants leads in 1973 (Mark Shearman)

It is something of a myth that the world cross-country championships once enjoyed massive fields with athletes from every corner of the globe. Those inaugural championships featured athletes from just 21 countries with the number rising over the subsequent decades to 33 in 1983, 54 in 1993 and 65 in 2003.

The 2019 championships in Aarhus, Denmark, saw athletes from 67 of World Athletics’ 214 member nations turn out. The 2023 championships, which takes place in Bathurst, Australia, this Saturday (Feb 18) is set to feature 48 nations.

The Aarhus event four years ago brought a level of energy and imagination to cross-country running that had not been seen before. As I reported at the time: “Aarhus lived up to the hype to deliver a devilish course and memorable races in sizzling sunshine.”

The course featured a number of obstacles, most notably there was a steep climb and descent on the grassy roof of an eco-friendly museum. Mass races for club runners helped to draw in the crowds. Seb Coe described it as a “watershed moment”.

World Cross in Aarhus

Then the pandemic struck and the plan to stage the event in Bathurst in 2021 was postponed to this year. The Australian organisers appear to have taken the baton from Aarhus with gusto and have expanded some of the ideas such as holding a world masters championship event, plus schools races and an intriguing “race before the race” which has given athletes a last-minute qualification opportunity to run in the main event on Saturday.

There is no doubt Australia deserve to stage these championships too. Wherever the event has been held in recent decades, the Aussies have been one of the most loyal and committed supporters of the event. In the last 50 years it has only been held in Oceania once, too, in Auckland, New Zealand, back in 1988.

The big question, though, is whether it is wise to hold the championships so far away from its heartland in western Europe. Bathurst’s biggest problem is effectively its geography.

The original beauty of the world cross-country championships was that it pitted the world’s top milers versus marathoners in an ultimate test of endurance. Yet Olympic 1500m and world 5000m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen has insisted all winter that he has no intention of interrupting his preparations for this summer with a long journey – and the associated jetlag – to Australia.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen leads in Turin 2022 (Mark Shearman)

He is not alone and those who are criticising UK Athletics for sending just one competitor in the senior men’s race should realise that many of the top British athletes like Emile Cairess, Marc Scott and Mo Farah have no interest in doing it. As someone mentioned to me last month, the British trials in January may as well have been staged in Perth, Australia, instead of Perth in Scotland given the small number of elite athletes who raced there.

Notably, only five European countries are sending athletes to compete in the senior races in Bathurst. Along with Britain there is Spain, Denmark, Latvia and Estonia – and that’s all. Countries like France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Turkey, Scandinavian nations and many others have simply not bothered.

Letesenbet Gidey (Mark Shearman)

Still, the championships in Bathurst will have mouthwatering line-ups in all the races. World record-holders Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda will be among the favourites. Cheptegei’s team-mate, Jacob Kiplimo, plus Kenyans such as Geoffrey Kamworor add to the quality. The host nation is naturally turning out a strong team, too, with Olli Hoare, Stewy McSweyn, Abbey Caldwell and Jess Hull part of a 4x2km mixed relay team with medal-winning ambition.

READ MORE: Olli Hoare looks forward to Bathurst test

For the Brits in Bathurst, the team is affected by the aforementioned athlete apathy. Or, to be more accurate, a preference to perform on the indoor circuit, or roads, or outdoor track this spring and summer. Traditionally Britain has supported the world cross far more than lots of European nations too.

Yet the appetite to send a full GB team to the world cross has been waning for many years. Over the last 20 years the European Cross-Country Championships has become a far bigger focal point for Brits – and indeed cross-country runners across the continent in general. Athletes, coaches and selectors are also forever faced with the dilemma of whether finishing down in the 70s or 80s, or worse, will act as an inspiration to improve or whether it will deliver the painful realisation that the leading east Africans are on another level.

In the past I’ve described the UKA selection policy for the world cross as “short-sighted, defeatist and will sap the spirit of any ambitious runners who felt they had a sniff of representing their country on the world stage”.

Of course there is also the argument that even if they are not ‘competitive’, what’s wrong with simply earning a national vest and being part of a world championship? Most athletes would love the honour and cherish the memory to their grave.

Australia is a long way to travel to suffer a bruising defeat, though. But it is interesting – and perhaps a sign of the times – that the GB squad that went to the World Mountain and Trail Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, earlier this winter was almost twice as big as the Bathurst-bound squad. Saying that, the Chiang Mai event was effectively two global championships rolled into one.

Maybe now that Jack Buckner is chief executive at UKA the selection strategy will change. The 1986 European 5000m champion will know that Rob de Castella travelled from Australia to Gateshead to finish sixth in the 1983 world cross before winning the inaugural world marathon title later that year.

Or that Said Aouita, the Moroccan who beat Buckner to world 5000m gold in 1987, first appeared on the AW cover as an enthusiastic junior leading the under-20 men’s race at the world cross in 1978 (he faded to 34th).

Paula Radcliffe battles through the Ostend mud in 2001 (Getty)

Or that Paula Radcliffe, Mo Farah and countless others cut their teeth at the world cross before going on to dominate the roads and track. Even 800m star Keely Hodgkinson was grinding it out on the cross-country circuit – and making the English Schools podium – as recently as four years ago.

Keely Hodgkinson (David Hewitson)

Individual governing bodies aside, World Athletics has not been blameless either when it comes to dwindling fortunes of the world cross. During Lamine Diack’s reign as president they took the event to far-flung places like Guiyang in China and Amman in Jordan. In 2010 and 2013 it was held in Bydgoszcz twice in the space of three years largely because the IAAF could not find anyone else interested in hosting it.

Most embarrassing of all there was a cross-country brain-storming get-together in Belgrade in 2013 where delegates were invited from Caribbean nations with little cross-country heritage and, many months later, a 184-page document was belatedly released full of graphs, photos and quotes from Winnie the Pooh and with a short-list of solutions buried on page 122 that could have been written in five minutes flat by anyone who has ever worn 15mm spikes.

READ MORE: Why Ethiopia prioritises cross-country running

The best move World Athletics ever made for cross-country was when they awarded the 2019 event to Aarhus. There, a team led by Jacob Larsen breathed fresh life into the concept and gave cross-country enthusiasts hope that the event was on the mend.

Aarhus reminded us that some of the best endurance running comes on the country not concrete; on mud as opposed to Mondo.

Will Bathurst take the championships forward or backwards? Let’s see.

» Jason Henderson first attended the world cross-country champs for AW at Durham in 1995 and has since covered the event in Vilamoura, Dublin, Lausanne, Fukuoka, Edinburgh, Bydgoszcz, Punta Umbria and Aarhus

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It’s 50 years since the World Cross Country Championships was first staged but, as the final touches are made to Bathurst, there are concerns that the combination of time and place may not help the event thrive

The World Cross Country Championships was long known as the greatest footrace on earth, for the reason that it brought together the whole world of elite running, from the middle-distance specialists up to the marathon legends. It was a unique clash of the biggest names from all surfaces.

Today, the strength in depth of distance running has never been greater but it is now a very different world.

In case you haven’t heard, the 44th World Athletics Cross Country Championships is soon to be with us (it’s 50 years since the first one) and, for the first time in many years, it’s taking place in mid-February – Saturday 18 to be precise – about a month before its traditional late March slot. This fifth edition of the championships to be taking place in the southern hemisphere is being staged at Mount Panorama – a venue better known for motor racing rather than the fleet of foot – just outside Bathurst, Australia, roughly 100 miles west of Sydney.

Yes, that’s right. Australia, in February, which is their high summer. Perhaps not what you might associate with a discipline which has its roots in winter.

I am sympathetic to the need to move this event around the world – and primarily for reasons of cost, there aren’t so many places bidding to host it these days – but I also remain disappointed that it looks set to be held around a parched Australian hillside with temperatures probably in the mid to high twenties centigrade.

Mount Panorama

Cross country running should ask different questions of participants to the challenges of flat road and track summer racing, and while hills tend to be year-round physical features, cool temperatures, a muddy and unpredictable surface, combined with twists and turns and other surface variations, are more common in a real winter. For me, at least, these are ideally non-negotiables. Otherwise, what’s the point?

To be frank, a global cross country championships should no more be staged in the middle of the Australian summer than a global outdoor track championships should be held in the UK in mid-January.

» This is an edited version of an article that appears in the February issue of AW magazine. To read the full feature, click here

» Tim Hutchings won a silver medal at the World Cross Country Championships in 1984 and 1989 and nowadays works as an athletics broadcaster

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Will Cockerell slams a decision by The Royal Parks to stop cross-country events in its largest public park

When once asked if all the technology he was introducing to the world was changing it for the worse, into a more soulless, less romantic place, Bill Gates replied: “Don’t worry, whatever I do will never replace the treasured words ‘let’s go climb a mountain, let’s go for a picnic’.”

Words that do descend the world into a joyless place, though, are these from the Royal Parks: “Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting cross country events in Richmond Park as we feel these are not suitable for the park being a SSSI [site of special scientific interest] and NNR [Natural nature reserve].”

It’s the easiest, most brutal, draconian of cop-outs for the bureaucrats who have been tasked with preserving the park’s indescribable beauty and, for sure, I think it’s the greatest park in the world. But it’s not as if we’re asking to put on races in the Isabella Plantation for goodness sake.

And it’s not as if local councils and Parks officials have been blameless themselves over the generations. The myriad and many council skyscrapers that overlook the park, ruin countless of its views and are a huge blotch on the Mona Lisa. Busy roads carve up the park from all angles. The car parks are enormous. But some runners scampering along its trails, keeping fit, improving their health, taking priceless joy from nature? No. Scrap them. The degenerate hooligans.

Thames Hare and Hounds is the oldest cross-country club in the world and they too have just been thrown out of the park. Their Parkland relays each June are as low-key and grassroots as it gets. A team even for those who fancy a three-mile time trial for their beloved club or manufactured-for-the-night team. Lots of children take part too – my son first did the course aged five and is now one of the leading runners in Surrey a decade on – thanks to events like this instilling him a love of sport and fitness. The conditions are baked, like running on concrete. The atmosphere is surreal in its beauty, friendliness and magisterial splendour – it’s like being dropped into another world. A vast majority will have come from stressful jobs in town, and suddenly they’re in this parallel paradise, a heaven on earth, that reminds them of the joy of life, which they may have felt was in quite short supply in the 14 hours since 6am.

Mo Farah training in Richmond Park (Mark Shearman)

My first cross-country race in Richmond Park was in January 1999 and as we cantered down the long ride, toward the Ballet school, I instantly realised, that by some distance, I had seen the most beautiful sight of my life. And I don’t change that opinion nearly quarter of a century later. Yes, the magnificent surrounds helped, but what really made the image was the 150 souls all around me, at one with nature. I was instantly inspired to have one of the best races of my career. It’s still one of the best, happiest days of my life. I never missed a race there for the next generation – hooked on running for life.

The thing about Richmond, and what makes it cross-country nirvana is that it’s usually very firm and fast. And we use around 4% of the park? My family and I often go ‘off-piste” for our walks, and it’s far muddier there than it ever gets at the Surrey League.

Racing in Richmond Park in 1965

The power that these directives have is astonishing, their brutality and insistence to destroy quality of human life untold. Will the huge commercial events they charge the big bucks for remain? Will the superb Richmond parkrun remain – around a kilometre of which is on grass – in all sorts of terrible conditions, with 400 runners cantering away each Saturday morning? Can you imagine the pushback if they tried to cancel that too?

There should be events in life that are listed, ring-fenced and deemed safe from the bureaucrats and the dissemblers, and cross-country running is clearly one. Yes, occasionally some turf may get scuffed, but two questions: will it right itself? An overwhelming yes, and quickly too. And who really minds? Maybe 1 in 200. And that’s who these directives are really for. Then there’s the odd park walker who loathe cross-country, as it interrupts their daily stroll. One moment they’re walking along, the next they have to get out of the way, to make way for the runners. They may even have to put their dogs on the lead. Perhaps one race a year, I hear one spectator bellowing abuse at us: “You f***ing people, this is our park, not yours!” They may also fire off a letter to the council. I will probably run past, what, 10,000 spectators over the course of my 10 cross-country runs per winter all over England? But that one curmudgeon – goodness do they try to make themselves heard.

Jo Pavey running in Richmond Park (Mark Shearman)

I very much hope that with enough push back from the community that these draconian, short-sighted, joyless sanctions will be lifted or adjusted in the coming months and years. Yes, the odd worm, caterpillar or even butterfly will rest less easy if they do, and yes some small stretches of the hundreds of miles of pathways in the park, will look a tad more rutted for a few weeks after a busy event but, for goodness sake, look at the upside too, about how cross-country promotes human health and happiness.

Postscript: following our article above, The Royal Parks released a statement, saying…

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Be part of the biggest athletics meet of the year in England, writes Chris Cohen, by sponsoring one of the events on the track and field programme in Birmingham

Athletics in Britain is regarded as the No.1 Olympic sport. Everyone wants to watch athletics when the Olympic Games schedules are published, as they were recently for Paris. Almost 90% of the GB team that competes in athletics in 2024 is likely to have competed at the English Schools Championships. Not all will have been winners, but the experience gained will have helped them on their way to their greatest challenge.

Looking at the names of those who have competed at the Championships is like a who’s who of British athletics over the last century. From Daley Thompson (Britain’s first world champion – decathlon) to Jess Ennis (gold in heptathlon), from Dorothy Odam (Britain’s first Olympic medallist – high jump silver 1936 Olympics) to Robbie Grabarz (high jump silver, London 2012), from Mary Rand (the first English Schools athlete to go on to take Olympic gold – 1964 long jump) to Greg Rutherford (gold in London 2012 long jump).

It’s also interesting to note how many people reached the top of others sports via the English Schools Championships, including the Brownlee brothers (triathlon), Joe Bugner (boxing), Helen Glover (rowing), Lizzie Yarnold (the English Schools’ first Winter Olympic champion – 2014 Skeleton) and on and on. Even that great Welsh rugby player, Sir Gareth Edwards, won an English Schools title while at school in Somerset!

In all, 14 Olympic golds have been won by athletes who competed at the English Schools Championships and 85% of all medals won in athletics at the Olympics have been won by English athletes who competed at the Championships.

Below that level of excellence, English Schools competitions attract a million youngsters to take part in the preliminary rounds of our competitions, with 2000 of them taking part in each of our major championships, in track and field and in cross country.

English Schools 2022 (Andy Cox)

Each year our championships cost over a quarter of a million pounds to stage, most of which is to pay for accommodation for the 2000 athletes who attend the two-day event and, without a sponsor, we are struggling to continue to stage this major event on the sporting calendar. This year we will be hosting the event at the venue of last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Having received very generous individual donations last year to support staging our championships to compensate for the lack of a major sponsor, this year we are looking to corporate sponsors as well and asking them to sponsor an event at the Championship.

At the Track & Field Championships, over three age groups, we stage a hundred events over two days, most of them with heats and finals. We want companies to sponsor an event and have their name associated with that event.

English Schools 2022 (Andy Cox)

The company name would be linked to the event in the programme and on the medals, as well as a space being offered in the programme to advertise. We can even offer board space alongside the track at an extra cost. We would also offer tickets for staff and car parking, as well as the possibility to be part of the medal awards ceremony for your event.

The cost for each event is £1100, with a special offer of £3000 for three years, which would include our Centenary Championship in 2025.

READ MORE: Athletics world rallies to save English Schools

If you have any contacts in the world of commerce, please ask if they are interested and ask them to contact us at esaasponsorship@gmail.com

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Young British distance runner puts environment ahead of athletics ambition but it won’t stop her making her mark in the sport

Innes FitzGerald’s decision to reject the chance to race at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst next month because it would involve flying from the UK to Australia has divided opinion. Some have applauded her stance whereas others have ridiculed it.

Criticisms range from “the plane will fly with or without her” to “she sounds brainwashed” to “she may as well hang up her spikes now”.

After all, the European Under-20 Championships this year are in Jerusalem – the same city she refused to consider flying to last year for the European Under-18 Championships – whereas the next World Under-20 Championships are in Peru in 2024.

The 16-year-old has been running competitively for little over a year but has shown immense potential. Last summer she sliced nine seconds off Jess Warner-Judd’s UK under-17 record for 3000m of 8:59.67 when winning the British schools title in Belfast.

After claiming a Mini London Marathon title in October she enjoyed a runaway victory at the British Athletics Cross Challenge in Liverpool in November, beating much older athletes as she stormed around Sefton Park. Then, at the European Cross Country Championships, she once again blasted into the lead before finally being overhauled in the latter stages as Maria Forero of Spain, who is three years older than FitzGerald, took gold with the Briton fourth.

Innes Fitzgerald and Maria Forero (Mark Shearman)

The news that FitzGerald had taken the train from her home near Exeter in Devon to Turin in Italy that weekend began as a crazy rumour but it soon emerged to be true. She had taken overnight coach and then train to the championships along with a fold-up bike to get from station to station. Given the travel disruptions en route she later admitted it may have affected her performance.

It has not affected her decision to put the environment ahead of her athletics ambitions, though. On the prospect of racing in Australia next month she says “the reality of the travel fills me with deep concern”.

Given this, is she wasting her time trying to be an athlete? Not at all.

For starters she won an international cross-country race in Belgium on Sunday (Jan 22) when she finished a full minute ahead of fellow English athlete Rebecca Flaherty at the Belgian CrossCup meeting in Hannut, a small city near Brussels.

Belgian CrossCup U20 women's top three (l to r) – Rebecca Flaherty, winner Innes FitzGerald, Sophie Nicholls. #CrossCup #Hannut

https://t.co/14IiwpsYt1 pic.twitter.com/282OisqVCr

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) January 22, 2023

History tells us that you do not need to travel far to have an impact in the sport either. Many record-breaking performances have been set by athletes competing on their doorstep. You do not need to travel the world to make your mark as a runner.

There are loose comparisons here with Zola Budd. As a teenager she was forced to compete on home soil due to her native South Africa being banned from world athletics due to its apartheid policies of racial segregation. Yet one month before her 17th birthday she ran a world junior 3000m record of 8:39.00 in Durban in 1983 followed by a world junior 5000m mark of 15:24.08 just days later in Stellenbosch.

Budd was a prodigy, as she went on to set a world senior 5000m record of 15:01.83 aged just 17 – once again without setting any of her shoe-less feet outside her own country. But interestingly her best 3000m set shortly after turning 16 was 9:03.5, which is four seconds slower than FitzGerald ran last summer at a very similar age.

Zola Budd in South Africa 1983 (Mark Shearman)

Budd eventually began running on the international circuit and gained notoriety for racing against Mary Decker at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Coincidentally, the LA Games in 2028 would be a logical target for FitzGerald, assuming she avoids injuries and continues to improve.

“Good luck getting there,” said another social media critic in response to FitzGerald’s eco-friendly travel tactics. Don’t forget, though, only a few decades ago international athletes used to go to major championships via boat. Take the 1950 Commonwealth Games, for example, where British athletes sailed to New Zealand to compete and kept fit by running around the deck of the boat.

 

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A post shared by Innes FitzGerald (@innes_fitzgerald)

FitzGerald’s stance is also a little reminiscent of triple jump world record-holder Jonathan Edwards, who refused to compete on Sunday during the early part of his career for religious reasons.

READ MORE: Running away from net zero

There are surely lessons here for ordinary club level runners and athletes. Many of us are tempted to travel long distances to compete in far-flung destinations, but isn’t it logical to firstly try to win everything on your local home patch before venturing farther afield?

The Paris Marathon, for example, is independently audited at a whopping 26,500 tonnes of CO2e.  “Marathon event organisers must reconsider the dynamics surrounding attracting international participants if they genuinely want to lower the carbon footprint of their events,” concluded the 2021 study, The Carbon Footprint of Marathon Runners: Training and Racing.

Why travel hundreds of miles to run a marathon if you can’t even come close to winning a local event taking place on your doorstep first?

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World champions Dina Asher-Smith, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Jake Wightman are among those overlooked in new year honours

A bit like team selection for major championships or elite athlete lottery funding announcements, the UK honours system sparks celebration and criticism in almost equal measure. For everyone who is recognised with an award, there is often someone who feels left out. If you google the words ‘UK honours’ and ‘snubbed’ there are plenty of examples.

Recent new year honours saw Denise Lewis and Aston Moore rightly recognised by King Charles, for example, but athletics fans are left wondering what some of Britain’s leading current athletes such as Dina Asher-Smith, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Jake Wightman – all crowned world champions in the last three years – plus Olympic medallist and multiple European champion Laura Muir have to do in order to get a gong of some kind.

Andy Young, the coach of Muir, spoke out in the Mail this week, saying: “It maybe now is time to point out there is something very structurally wrong with the system.”

Speaking with Muir, Asher-Smith and KJT in mind, he added: “I am not standing here telling you to consider those who have received such honours over the years as undeserving, but if you take a look at the sporting recipients receiving honours over the last decade, you will find countless sportsmen and women who have achieved less than this amazing trio.

“And that would be on a like-for-like basis, not even taking into account that athletics is the most competitive of global sports for women, making what they have achieved even more impressive. So why have they not been awarded the honour like their compatriots from other sports?”

Laura Muir and Andy Young (Getty)

In the latest release of honours, Leah Williamson, Beth Mead, Ellen White and Lucy Bronze were all recognised after their role in the Lionesses’ triumph at the UEFA European Women’s Championships.

It’s not just footballers who get the nod over athletes either. Just days after turning 20, Emma Raducanu, who coincidentally went to the same school as Asher-Smith, was given an MBE for services to tennis.

Athletes being snubbed from in the honours system stems back years. After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, three of Britain’s four gold medallists – Ann Packer, Mary Rand and Lynn Davies, together with GB captain Robbie Brightwell – received an MBE soon after the Games but Ken Matthews, who won 20km race walks gold, was ignored until belatedly receiving an MBE in 1977 following a public outcry.

Ken Matthews (Mark Shearman)

The sport is full of similar perceived injustices. Dorothy Hyman, European and Commonwealth sprints champion in the 1960s, had an athletics track named after her but was never recognised by the UK honours system.

Such was his popularity, distance running legend Gordon Pirie finished ahead of Roger Bannister and others in an Athletics Weekly readers’ poll in 1965 to find the “greatest British athlete in history”, but ‘Puff Puff Pirie’, as he was affectionately known, was never recognised in the UK honours system.

Ron Hill, the former European, Commonwealth and Boston marathon winner, received an MBE but many felt he should have been knighted for his services to athletics and running given an immense career that included world records, an incredible 52-year run streak and pioneering work in creating innovative athletics apparel.

Parental guidance

I heard over Christmas that a talented young athlete in my area “was now being coached by his father”. Traditionally it is frowned upon for parents to get too involved in coaching their kids. But maybe the success of firstly the Ingebrigtsens and now Jake Wightman and Eilish McColgan is changing the perception.

Seb Coe was also famously coached by his father. Who else, after all, is better placed to guide an athlete than their ownn parent?

So I wonder if we will now see a growing trend of young athletes coached by their parents and, if so, whether it will lead to faster athletes.

Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad (Getty)

Athletics waves goodbye to controversial competitor

After Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad decided to hang up his spikes this week aged 37, European Athletics tweeted that the Frenchman “won titles at five successive European Championships from 2010-18 and medals at three Olympics from 2008-16”.

The governing body added: “And he has held the European 3000m steeplechase record with 8:00.09 since 2013!”

What they didn’t mention, though, was his infamous trackside punch-up with Mehdi Baala in Monaco in 2011. What’s more, he famously pushed the event mascot after winning the 3000m steeplechase at the 2010 and 2012m European Championships and was disqualified at the 2014 Europeans for taking his singlet off in the home straight as he charged to victory.

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It was a relentless, strength-sapping endurance test, but an action-packed 2022 was precisely what athletics needed, says Katharine Merry

What’s the first thing I think of when I look back on 2022? Outside of being incredibly busy in my professional life, the memories of some truly outstanding athletics moments – the kind that made me think “wow, this is a great sport” – come flooding back. 

There was Jake Wightman’s unforgettable world title win and witnessing Eilish McColgan being roared to Commonwealth 10,000m victory in Birmingham, but also moments like Germany’s Niklas Kaul coming from behind to win the European decathlon title in Munich. At one point he was orchestrating the whole of that crowd in the Olympic stadium and it was so uplifting to see. 

Niklas Kaul (Getty)

For every major championships this year I can think of at least two or three moments which made me feel privileged to have been able to see these back-to-back sporting feasts.

And, oh, how the sport needed a year like this. For one reason or another, athletics has taken a battering over the last few years and understandably there has been a substantial amount of negativity around. 

It has not been all sunshine and roses this summer, either, but it has been made abundantly clear that there is so much to be positive about in track and field. Were those Russian athletes really missed, for example?

The sport is undoubtedly in a better place at the moment, both internationally and in British terms. This past 12 months has seen extraordinary changes at our governing body. It feels simultaneously like five minutes and also years ago that I was interviewing the former UK Athletics chief executive Jo Coates about her plans for the sport and how she was going to shake things up. 

She certainly did that but perhaps not in the way many had hoped and, of course, there has been huge upheaval since then. The dramatic way in which things have changed has felt like a bit of a soap opera. 

What a difference a year makes. There is clearly a feeling of far greater stability at the top, with Ian Beattie and Mark Munro working through the transition before the arrival of Jack Buckner as chief executive during the summer. I know British Swimming were very sorry to lose him and you can appreciate why – in the short time he’s been in charge there has already been a huge amount of work done behind the scenes, which marries nicely with the excellent performances from British athletes on the track and in the field. 

Jack Buckner (Getty)

Are we out of the woods yet? Of course not, but there is just a far greater feeling of balance and being able to look forward, rather than the constant firefighting of old. 

The athletes just got on with it and many produced the goods but now is the time of year when the reset button is hit and the process of trying to do it all again comes around. 

I was never a fan of this time of year, but that’s probably to do with me being a sprinter. We’d have had at least three weeks off at the end of the season and then coming back to do three-mile runs was never fun. Everybody knows how hard it is to gain peak fitness and you lose it twice as quickly!

What I did like, though, was getting back into the routine, knowing what my training week looked like and working to my plan. The old adage that you get out what you put in really is true, folks, but seeing the pictures on social media of athletes stuck to the track or getting back into training brings a rueful smile to my face. I don’t miss those days. 

The differing approaches of each athlete serves as a reminder of just how individual a sport this is, though. For some, they’ll have needed a complete break and done absolutely nothing. For others, continuing to tick over is what works best. 

It’s a hard balance to strike, especially if your season has gone well, because when you’re on a roll or you get any form of consistency you don’t really want it to stop. 

Part of you is thinking “I might never be able to do this again” and you want to hold on to it. 

You look at someone like Eilish McColgan, for example, and I don’t know how she does it. 

She has her different phases of training, of course, but she just never seems to really stop. 

What she’s doing is clearly working, though, and each athlete’s motivation comes from a different place. Here’s hoping the groundwork being laid just now will bring more reasons to be cheerful in 12 months’ time. 

Yulimar Rojas (Mark Shearman)

Mondo and Yulimar get my vote

My athletes of the year? When it comes to the Brits, it’s a pretty simple choice for the men. No one else comes close to Jake Wightman winning a world title. Picking a winner on the women’s side, however, is infinitely harder. 

I can narrow it down to a top three of Laura Muir, Keely Hodgkinson and Eilish McColgan but I really do find it impossible to choose between the three of them. I think that in itself tells a wonderful story, though, and perhaps underlines just how good a year it has been. 

For the international awards, my vote would go to two field eventers who showed incredible longevity in 2022. Both Mondo Duplantis and Yulimar Rojas set world records at the World Indoor Championships in March but were still winning gold at the World Championships in July and picking up Diamond League titles in September. 

Mondo, of course, broke his world record three times this year and I really do hope the athletics world doesn’t get complacent about what he’s doing right now. Just because no-one can get anywhere near him should not detract from the fact that he is reaching an extraordinary level.

It’s the same for Yulimar. I think she’s really underrated and the field eventers really do deserve to be shown a bit more appreciation. 

» This article first appeared in the December issue of AW magazine

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Verity Ockenden admits her results in 2022 have not been as she would have liked but the mental strength she’s been able to develop is a cherished prize

These days, both of my parents have long given up attempting to keep track of my precise whereabouts, while my friends have asked me to document my adventures in a novel so they may catch up at their leisure that way.

In general, I try keep my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon rather than losing myself in the tangled wake I’ve created. Occasionally, however, it is worth looking back and taking the time to appreciate all of the wild leaps life has taken and, during the festive period, it always seems like an apt time for stock-taking.

Zooming out on the year to appreciate its ups and downs in all their glory can be a useful tool as long as you always remember to value the invisible gains made and leave the comparison game aside.

Whenever I have had depressive episodes, it has always been an awareness of life’s unpredictability that kept me going. Depression makes everything seem hopelessly, irreversibly, unbearably awful no matter what the reality is, but what usually helps me is asking myself how I could possibly imagine exactly what is going to happen next. It might just be something very good. Something not worth missing. At the end of the day, it’s curiosity that keeps this particular cat alive. 

Our own perspectives also change with time and experience, allowing for greater understanding of our previous selves and, consequentially, the wisdom to make better future decisions. For example, when I look back at my greatest athletics achievement to date, the bronze medal that I won at the European Indoor Championships in Torùn in 2021, I am still incredibly proud of it, but I would not pursue the same path that led me to it again.

Verity Ockenden (Getty)

In retrospect, it’s blindingly obvious to me how unhealthy I was mentally at the time and I can see that I won the medal because athletics was the only thing I had left that I felt vaguely in control of. Negative energy can be a very powerful tool ­– and when it is present sometimes the best thing to do is acknowledge and make good use of it – but it is an extremely unsustainable source. It’s like burning a fossil fuel; sooner or later it will run out, and it will also leave a dirty great scar behind it.

Now that I am almost two years the wiser, and looking back at the material results of 2022, I’ll happily admit that they were nothing to write home about, but I wouldn’t swap the choices that I made that led to them.

Some people gently ask if I’m “still” running as if the trail of unremarkable results means that I’ve given up trying, or perhaps the outward semblance of the dolce vita since I moved to Italy makes it seem as though I’m on perpetual holiday.

There were plenty of days in which I, too, questioned whether the decisions I had made were the right ones to lead me to the Paris Olympics of 2024. These kind of things are a gamble at the best of times, and often, the best thing to do is to stop wondering where the grass is greenest and start believing in (and walking) the path in front of you. 

Thankfully one of the best things that I did for myself this year was to begin working with a psychologist. I chose carefully, finding somebody I felt comfortable talking to, with a background in elite sports performance and also a first-person understanding of expat life.

At first, the hour-long zoom calls used to knock me out emotionally. I found it difficult to juggle tiring training sessions with the mental fatigue of processing the psychological work we were doing. I didn’t see results immediately and, in fact, things often felt worse rather than better to begin with.

Twelve months down the line, however, and I am a changed woman. It took work to learn to believe in myself and in what I was doing with the confidence required to compete at the top, but I finally found that towards the end of the summer.

Verity Ockenden

Both my spring build-up and my outdoor track season had been plagued with injuries, but once I got healthy and started racing some relatively insignificant road races, I began to realise the effects of the psychological work we had been putting in behind the scenes.

I might not have made any outwardly visible gains this year in terms of times and medals, but the invisible gains made mentally were huge. I had rediscovered the childish instinct of racing that brought with it a refreshed desire to win and enough self-esteem to believe that I could.

One race in particular proved all this; I won, but even better than that, I won by racing with an aggressive tenacity I hadn’t experienced in years.

While it might have been a relatively fruitless year for me in terms of tangible achievement, I’m finishing it confident that the seeds sown will come right with just a little more time and patience. The disruptive months of moving, settling and planting roots have passed and already I am happier. Bring on 2023. 

» Verity Ockenden is a British international athlete and European Indoor 3000m bronze medallist

» This article first appeared in the December issue of AW magazine

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Running events have an elephant in the room when it comes to the climate emergency, says trail runner Damian Hall in his new book, and it’s the participants who need to take the greatest action 

My first running race, the 2011 Bath Half-Marathon, was a life-changing moment for me as it is for many. I took real pride in that first finisher t-shirt and medal, oblivious to the unnecessary environmental costs (more anon). I felt a little uncomfortable with the fields of plastic bottles and gel wrappers scattered down the road in our wake. It all gets collected for recycling by the lovely volunteers later, right?

As well as creating some 40,000 medals and 40,000 t-shirts, the 2018 London Marathon used 920,000 plastic bottles. That’s not far off one million plastic bottles. For just 40,000 runners. Post-race the City of Westminster collected 5200 kilograms of rubbish and 3500 kilograms of recycling from the streets, including 47,000 plastic bottles – hopefully the other 873,000 were collected by race staff? Things have improved since, but London Marathon acknowledged a stunning 118.86 tonnes of waste.

Around 10 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the oceans each year in what Sir David Attenborough has described as an “unfolding catastrophe”. Race bibs are usually plastic, timing-chip paraphernalia too, course markers and then there are those plastic goodie bags. They’re not good. More stuff no one wants. More waste. More CO2e sent skywards, heating our planet, making it potentially unliveable for our children and their children.

I used to take the free t-shirt offered to me at race finish lines without even thinking, stick it in a drawer and forget all about it. A total of 75 per cent of UK runners often or very often receive a post-race t-shirt and 60 per cent own 10 or more, says research. A few unused tees aren’t a big deal though, are they? Unfortunately running has an XXL t-shirt waste problem.

“All those discarded bottles, half-eaten bananas and cheap t-shirts … Are running events an environmental disaster?” asked Kate Carter in The Guardian. 

“It is hard to think of a better formula than a global sporting event for causing maximum environmental damage,” said author and activist George Monbiot. And we haven’t even got to the elephant in the room.  

The London Marathon is making progress. In 2019 it used 215,000 fewer plastic bottles and along with hundreds of UK and US races, London Marathon Events (LME) has partnered with Trees Not Tees, offering runners the option to plant a tree instead of taking a t-shirt or medal. 

“It’s often just so much stuff and a lot of it isn’t needed,” says Kate Chapman, a sports sustainability consultant who’s worked at the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, the London Marathon and many other mass-participation events. 

“Things like leaving the date off a product if the event will happen again the next year. If you give out less stuff, you create less waste.”

Elsewhere, the Bath Half is the first running event to win an AGF Run Award and the Cardiff Half Marathon has been working with Cardiff University to reduce its impact. Other UK races making efforts include the Oxford Half, which has gone plastic-free, as has Royal Parks Half Marathon.

Other races use biodegradable tape to mark the course, environmentally friendly loo roll, reusable wooden signs and separate out waste for recycling. The Manchester Half Marathon has taken the bold move of doing away with t-shirts altogether. 

Of course, it’s great to cut down on waste, which is tangible and emotive. But plastic bottles, t-shirts and medals are just a tiny fraction of most running races’ CO2e. Regrettably, the real harm comes from us, the runners.

At running races, food, beverages, waste, merchandise, generators and staff trips can collectively amount to less than two per cent of event emissions, according to 2022 analysis of 29 US mass-participation running events by the Council For Responsible Sport. 

“Participant travel is the elephant in the room,” says the report. “It’s necessary to get to events, but it’s also the largest source by far of climate-changing emissions.”

In the limited number of other studies we have, most concur that over 90 per cent of a running event’s CO2e emissions come from participant travel. 

Big city marathons can have up to 50,000 participants, not to mention thousands of event workers, volunteers and spectators hugely inflating that number and therefore emissions. The New York City Marathon hosts participants from 150 countries, with 37 per cent of runners coming from overseas. Such a huge volume of people travelling to a city may be great economically, but it’s terrible environmentally.

London Marathon

“Even sports such as athletics that are inherently harmless cause major environmental effects, thanks to the transport of spectators,” wrote George Monbiot in The Guardian. Yet few events seem to be aware of the participant travel problem, publicly at least. It’s a tricky one.  

Ultimately it’s up to individuals to take responsibility for how they travel. Trains in most cases are the lowest-carbon option, with flights the worst. Single-occupant car journeys can be nearly as bad as flights, but four in a car makes the journey roughly equivalent to a train trip.

The CO2e impact of a big running event is way bigger than I expected. The Paris Marathon, with some 57,000 runners, is independently audited at a whopping 26,500 tonnes of CO2e. That’s the equivalent of harmful GHG caused by the entire lifetimes of 34 people, or driving around the Earth 2600 times. We can only assume other big city marathons have a similarly epic and destructive footprint on the planet.

“Marathon event organisers must reconsider the dynamics surrounding attracting international participants if they genuinely want to lower the carbon footprint of their events,” concluded the 2021 study, The Carbon Footprint of Marathon Runners: Training and Racing.

In a normal year, some 3500 runners come to London from overseas and the event does offset elite travel, though that’s controversial in itself. “Offsetting isn’t a long-term solution. It’s a really difficult one,” sighs Kate Chapman. 

“There is an issue with people coming from overseas,” a mass-participation event insider told me. “At some point it’s going to mean having conversations about participant travel and what the event does there.”

The act of saying “no thanks” to a medal and t-shirt and carrying your own water round the course is hugely overshadowed if you fly or drive to the race. Most races are tidying up the five per cent and ignoring the 95 per cent.

London is part of the World Marathon Majors, a concept that encourages runners to fly round the globe clocking up some 34,360 miles to reach Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York – oh and soon Chengdu in China and Sydney, too – emitting huge amounts of GHG. It’s woefully out of step with the zeitgeist.

“I wouldn’t want to comment on how you should solve that one,” says the insider. “Discouraging people from participating isn’t really on the cards at the moment. Will we see quotas for international runners at some races? I think it’s probably gonna have to be.”

As for the World Marathon Challenge, where (very rich) competitors run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, spending at least 52.5 hours in the air … I can’t even bring myself to calculate the unnecessary harm done to the planet from that one. It needs to stop.

Parkrun tourism needs some reflection, as well. The Facebook group has 8000 members, yet the point of having so many parkrun locations is surely to make it more accessible for local areas and stop people travelling long distances for it.

And parkrun itself? Tens of thousands of people driving, hopefully only a few miles, but just to run 5km, every week? As much is it’s a wonderful initiative in many ways, those 773 parkruns have a regrettable carbon footprint. 

Trail and fell races are taking a lead, by incentivising low-carbon travel. The Original Mountain Marathon encourages all competitors to use public transport – but with real action: they provide coach travel from railway stations to the event, which is often fairly remote. 

Rathfinny Half Marathon & 10km offers free shuttle-bus pick-ups from two local train stations and start the races at public transport-friendly times, saving 54 car journeys in 2022 (they also charge for car parking, except if there are three or more runners per car, in which case it’s free, and offer secure bike storage). 

For the Lake District’s Dunnerdale Fell Race, cars with one or two people in pay to park, vehicles with four or more park free and get a free beer, while, brilliantly, cyclists and walkers are paid £5. Most other races should take note. 

It’s common for races in Switzerland to offer free public transport as part of race registration. The popular Swiss City Marathon offers free transport within the whole country. 

Damian Hall (inov-8)

Away from running, the Racing Collective’s GBDuro is probably the first sporting event with a no-flight policy.

Some races have made significant changes towards greater sustainability, but people need to be along for the ride or they won’t work. 

“Organisers can place signs telling you where to put your banana skins, but a lot depends on the behaviour of the participants as well,” says Chapman. “These important changes need runner pick-up too.”

Ultimately, while events can help us significantly to make better decisions, it’s up to runners to play their part, too. 

We’re running out of time. 

» We Can’t Run Away From This: Racing to Improve Running’s Footprint in Our Climate Emergency by Damian Hall (Vertebrate Publishing) is out now – see adventurebooks.com

» This article first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine

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Recent doping cases are not a great look for athletics, writes Katharine Merry, but there should be pride taken in how proactive the sport is in punishing those who break the rules

Plenty of headlines have been created around our sport lately in relation to doping and, whenever one of these stories comes out, it produces a complex melting pot of emotions for me. 

There’s the concern around how this news – whether it’s the spate of Kenyan distance runners testing positive or 2012 Olympic 400m hurdles champion Natalia Antyukh being set to lose her gold medal – makes the sport look, plus there’s that sinking feeling of “here we go again” and a deep sadness of, unfortunately, not being surprised. You want to be shocked, you want to be appalled but, with Russian athlete Antyukh, that wasn’t the case I’m afraid. 

There are encouraging aspects to it all though, too. I’m disappointed for the sport but I’m also very proud that we’re the ones being so proactive with these issues. The more you test, the more positive cases you are going to find and the better systems you have in place, the more people are going to fall foul of it.

I still think we could do more when it comes to anti-doping and it would benefit massively from more funding, but athletics does deserve a lot of credit for being on the front foot when some other sports perhaps don’t do enough in this area, simply because they don’t want to. 

There’s no doubt at all that anti-doping is a lot different from when I was running. The whole process seems a lot more relentless, which is a very good thing and obviously the reason why more athletes are being caught. 

We did have to do the whereabouts process and tell people where we trained, where we lived and when we were going away, but it has stepped up in terms of how regimented that is and being narrowed down to specific hours in the day. 

Natalia Antyukh pips Lashinda Demus (Getty)

I was a very organised athlete and I’m still a very organised person – I’d be the one sorting out all the details for our training camps, for example – but the more lackadaisical athletes out there soon discover there really is no margin for error.

I have no sympathy for anyone who doesn’t take this side of the job – and it is a key part of the job if you want to be a professional athlete – properly seriously. Ultimately, the responsibility has to sit with the individual. 

In years gone by, if you’d written a job description for being a full-time professional, time management and ticking all the right boxes when it comes to anti-doping protocols probably wouldn’t have been the first thing you’d have put on your list, but it’s right up there now.

CJ Ujah’s case has been a prime example of how easy it can be to come a cropper in the current climate. He put his failed test – which saw the British 4x100m team stripped of their Olympic silver medal – down to having taken a supplement which he ordered through Amazon.

The AIU deemed his error wasn’t deliberate and his ban will now come to an end in time for him to start competing again this summer but, when CJ does get back on the track, it is going to be a big test in a number of ways. 

He knows what he’s done, he’s accepting what he’s done and the consequences of that will now follow him for the rest of his career. It’s not something you get away from and he will face questions about it when he starts racing again. I hope that he’s strong enough and prepared enough for that.

UKA technical director Stephen Maguire has said he will come under consideration for selection for the British team again, should he be running quickly enough, but there will still be challenges in bringing him back into the fold. 

CJ Ujah (Getty)

It has been made easier by a couple of his team-mates from that Tokyo line-up publicly providing him with messages of support, but not everyone will feel that way and that’s completely understandable. 

With the Antyukh case, I have a lot of sympathy for American Lashinda Demus who will become Olympic champion 10 years later than she should have done. It’s too late. It’s not just that she’s missed out on the winning moment. The money, the improved contracts and sponsorship that goes with it is gone, too. 

What are the interest levels going to be like in a 45-year-old Olympic gold medallist compared to one who was at the peak of her powers? The answer to that question is a short one. 

As an athlete, you do have a sixth sense that someone you are competing against might not be playing by the rules. You can ask any athlete at a top level that and you’ll find very few that will say “yeah, I’ve looked along the line and thought ‘look at all these lovely nice people I’m going to be racing against’”.

I raced against people who came back into the sport after having been proven as cheats and I raced against people who I know would have been cheating but never got caught. 

However, as obvious as it may sound, you have little choice but to block that out of your mind and get on with your own performance. If you don’t, it will drive you mad. 

Also, don’t always believe that the cheating comes down to who the coach is or the make-up of the training group. Every athlete is an individual, is their own person and has a choice. I just hope that, with the ever improving systems in place and the increasing cost of falling foul, more athletes make the right choices.    

» This article first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine

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Verity Ockenden considers the individuals she would put centre stage – from the star names to those who laid the foundation from which she has been able to dare to dream

I remember vividly my first day of middle school as a small, unshaped person in an oversized uniform. I inscribed my name voraciously in my most perfect handwriting on every crisp new textbook we received. Best of all, I was asked to go home and decorate my Physical Education folder with the image of a person who inspired me. I knew immediately who it would be. 

I had watched her from the floor of my grandparents’ living room that summer, my boggling eyes mere inches from the screen because sitting on the sofa was too far from the heat of the action.

I knew nothing about running, and everything about ponies and ballerinas, but every time Kelly Holmes set foot on that Olympic track in Athens, I just knew she was going to win. Perhaps it was my naive kind of childhood belief in such things or perhaps her determination to do so was just that palpable even through the television, but win she did. Twice. After that, the image that splashed across so many front pages of Kelly, arms aloft, braided and rippling with disbelief and delight, remained fried in my brain forever more. 

I joined the school cross-country club which met every Friday after class, and when sports day came around and I begged my teachers to let me enter more than just three races, I finally felt “cool”. Here was something I was really good at, and even those outside of my small friendship group began to cheer me on as I brought point after point home for the Eagles. 

After I set a school record of something like seven minutes over a grass mile, they began to nickname me ‘Paula’ after Paula Radcliffe, and even though I seemed to be the only person that knew that a mile was a lot less than a marathon, I let it stick because, for me, it was the ultimate compliment.

Paula Radcliffe (Mark Shearman)

It was those kinds of women who inspired me to join clubs and go to races long before I realised that I could really be a professional athlete like them. Nowadays, the level of athlete I used to look up to has become my competition and social media brings us ever closer to the person behind the medals, I tend to find my inspiration more in the journey behind the headlines than in the results themselves, knowing that the process of getting there is never as easy as it looks from the outside on race day. 

For this reason, as we enter the glitz and glamour of awards season and celebrate the multitudinous athletic achievements of the summer past, Dame Kelly remains No.1 on my list of all-time heroines.

She shared this year, in a courageously personal documentary, the reality behind her Olympic dream. The pressure of being the perfect role model and people’s champion, the depression, the self-harm and the repression of her identity for fear of public judgement. In coming out, not only did Kelly free herself but she will have shown so many others what is possible in contexts extending so much further than that of the 400m track. 

Fortunately, we are spoilt for choice for further famous sporting role models in this golden age of athletics superstars, but it isn’t always those on the big screen who leave the largest impact. Having been inspired to join a club and to represent a team however big or small, it is who we find in that team to support us and to believe in us that often makes the difference between staying in the sport and succeeding or not. 

Rupert Pepper, my childhood coach, came to watch me race at the Night of the 10,000m PBs this year. He was surprised after so many years of independent growth at an elite level, that 10 minutes before the gun, I still ran over to ask him his opinion on whether I should wear socks or no socks inside my spikes. This was a decision that, had he not been there, I would have happily made alone… but Rupert’s familiarly sage and considerate counsel was a valuable settling influence that also took me back to that simple childhood version of myself who just believed in winning without really thinking about it too much.

Verity Ockenden, Eilish McColgan and Jess Judd (Mark Shearman)

In that moment, even the memory of his mentorship was enough to trigger the adjustment in my mentality that I required to motivate myself and perform well. 

Likewise, the appointments made with my physiotherapist Kyle Pepperman-Hackett, a founding member of the Blandford Schools Cross-Country Club, have always served a dual purpose. The primary goal of massage and re-alignment at Kyle’s clinic was always to keep me physically running smoothly, but since Kyle happens to have been on my team like a bossy but benevolent and extremely over-achieving older brother since I was 13, I always managed to leave with my head screwed on a little better, too.

Kyle is a person who knows me well enough to give a blunt opinion where necessary and to hold me to the kind of high standards that he has always set for himself in whatever he does, with a strong work ethic and keen eye for detail. He refuses to let me settle for less than he knows that I am capable of, and in return I am motivated to honour his level of investment in my performance by always giving my best in competition. 

READ MORE: Verity Ockenden’s previous columns for AW

Thus, over the years I’ve learned to absorb and appreciate the motivation and inspiration I receive from every angle of life. Witnessing the incredible achievements of stars such as Dame Kelly Holmes who have fought their own battles ahead of us opens our imagination to what is humanly possible to achieve.

Being supported in your own battles by those close by you, by friends, coaches and therapists like Rupert and Kyle, give us the kind of foundational strength and belief in our own journey that is necessary to aim for such heights ourselves. 

» This article first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine

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Being an athletics coach can be a hugely rewarding pursuit but it can also be costly and undervalued with a culture desperately in need of change

This year I coached at the European Championships, went warm-weather training in Portugal with England Athletics, guided English Schools winners, national age group champions and top-ranked athletes in the horizontal jumps and multi-events across all age groups. I had athletes from the USA and Singapore come and train with me while, on my social media channels, I have close to 60,000 followers and my YouTube channel gets thousands of views every day. On the face of it, I appear to be pretty good at coaching, yet the reality is that financially it can be a real struggle.

I often say to myself that I shouldn’t complain – after all I am being paid to teach people to jump into sand and run faster. I’ve done what I call much harder, “proper” jobs in my life. The trouble is, though, I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Coaching athletics is a proper job and it needs to be rewarded and acknowledged as such.

Is coaching valued?

I’m probably one of the few “professional” coaches in the UK who isn’t working for a governing body or tied to a university. The majority of coaches in this country receive little or no financial reward – in fact, the likelihood is that coaching actually costs them.

Those who are “hobby” coaches are expected to turn up to sessions come rain or shine and often go all over the country, sometimes abroad, to watch their athletes compete for little, if anything. We value what we do, but is the coach actually valued?

The athlete always takes centre stage. Governing bodies support the athlete and, if they become good enough, they are placed on to funding programmes. These programmes don’t exist for coaches, however, when it’s safe to say that a talented coach puts in as much, if not more, effort than an athlete. 

It’s also worth considering that it’s unlikely for that athlete to have made it on to funding without their coach’s intellect and experience. 

“In that case, a funded athlete should support their coach,” I hear you cry. Yet herein lies another problem. In that scenario, if the athlete loses their funding then so too does the coach. 

However, the coach may have more athletes in his or her pipeline and have a strong record of producing, yet this is neglected. Isn’t that a better investment? 

What exists seems a soft foundation on which to try to be a professional or even amateur coach.

John Shepherd’s group

The funding of coaches

I’ve often thought that coaches could be funded, or given bursaries, for their successes.

Consider that an elite coach is not someone who just develops elite senior athletes. Our sport’s judgment gets clouded with that. In what way? It’s often said that the “best” coaches should work with young athletes – as only then will those athletes be physically, technically and emotionally ready for optimum development at senior level. 

Yet, it is often the pervading mentality that the best coaches are the ones who coach only great senior athletes. Coach ego gets in the way here a bit and moreso the lack of renumeration, so it’s not surprising that coaches usually go where the money is.

Going by my own personal experience, to me it’s of much more value – and indeed a harder job – to develop an under-20 long jumper to reach over 6.20m (female) and 7.50m (male), than it is taking someone already at that level to the next. 

Yet, due to cherry picking by certain universities – and particularly in the States with its collegiate system – the coaches who pick up these already ripe athletes are getting the plaudits and the money. 

I have coached around 20 athletes to a level that got them into the US collegiate system, as well as UK scholarships, yet much of the work I did went unrewarded. 

Knowledge is being given away

I’m probably relatively unique as a coach in that I have been involved in our sport as an international athlete before then having written about and researched a range of sports for over 30 years.

I have both a substantial practical and theoretical experience of sport yet, like so many other coaches with so much knowledge and experience, I am not truly professional. 

You can be a master builder or a master mariner but there is little recognition as a master coach. 

Try getting your plumber or electrician to fix your house for no renumeration. It’s not going to happen, yet coaches are often expected to give their “trade” away.

Do clubs stunt coach development?

Perhaps the culture of some athletics clubs doesn’t help. Athletics does not have to be the charity sport. Clubs in swimming, gymnastics, martial arts, as well as football, rugby, tennis or golf, have an entrenched pay-to-be-coached policy. Those clubs don’t seem to be short of members. 

Where I coach there is a tumbling club which is packed with paying children and adults. Adding an extra amount to athletics club fees could enable some coaches to be paid or, as has happened in some parts of the country, a suitably qualified coach development officer to be appointed. That officer can oversee the club’s coaching and can also go into schools to gain greater membership (and funding).

Yet many clubs seem to be living in the past. Am I right to say much of the old guard does not want change? Indeed, an AW survey earlier this year indicated that 51.3% of respondents disagreed when it came to whether athletics clubs should charge more for membership and training. I wonder how those people make their living?

John Shepherd

Coach education

I see all standards of coaching on my travels and I hear from many coaches through social media who are in a similar position to me or are fully amateur. Most want to see some change and to receive better coaching education. 

In my opinion, what’s being offered really does not enable coaches to become professional or, dare I say it, even enable them to become good coaches. 

I have to say that there are many plausible reasons for this but, because I am someone who has seen the potential, more use could be made of accessible social media to provide real information which will actually help coaches working at club level and beyond. 

It’s of little use showcasing information that will shave milliseconds off the 100m sprint when a club coach needs to learn how to teach sprint technique and structure training for fledgling sprinters.

Jahisha Thomas (Getty)

Is change coming? 

In a post I wrote on my own blog earlier this year I explained how I had to crowdfund to get to the European Championships in Munich to support Jahisha Thomas in the long jump. People were incredulous. 

You only find out a couple of weeks before the championships that your athlete has been selected and therefore all the travel and accommodation prices will often be at a premium. 

I did not have the spare cash lying around but of course I wanted to go.

I required more than £1000 and it would have had to have gone on a credit card, had it not been for the contributions I so gratefully received through a go-fund me style campaign. 

I even had to buy tickets to get into the stadium and then had the worry of: “Will I be able to actually get out of my seat and coach Jahisha?”

Thankfully all worked out but it’s an instance which highlights why it all seems so difficult to be a good coach sometimes. 

Could there be a fund established to at least partially support non-governing body coaches financially in these kinds of situations? 

I enjoy coaching and it is a hugely rewarding pursuit. I have managed to just about make a living from it yet, despite my achievements, there is very little stability. It’s through my own efforts that I have reached some level of professionalism and I am helping others to do so. 

Change, however, really is needed.

» This article first appeared in the October issue of AW magazine

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Paul Freary reflects on a short visit to Barbados to experience a running event that embraces the sport and manages to create an atmosphere so welcoming runners return year after year

At just 21 miles long, Barbados is a small island with a surprisingly deep history in road running. This year saw the 39^th edition of the race weekend and after just a short visit it’s easy to understand why visitors from around the world flock annually to this beautiful jewel situated in the Caribbean Sea.

From the moment you touch down on the island you are welcomed by people so warm and engaging they eclipse even the sun.

Sir Austin Sealy and Carl Bayley first conceived the idea of ‘Run Barbados’ and it started out with the Bridgetown 10km and marathon. Since then it’s grown and grown to become a highly anticipated event of the islands calendar.

Familiar names such as Ron Hill, John Treacy, Geoff Smith and Catherine Ndereba have all competed here and the marathon course record is still held by Hugh Jones with 2:22:33. It’s not the fastest of times by marathon majors standards but then no ‘big city’ race offers such a scenic route, passing tropical palms and the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Kim Goff of the USA is an 11-time winner in the women’s marathon and has raced on the island 20 times, so clearly knows the secret charm of the place.

Being the largest running event in the Caribbean it attracts visitors from far and wide, with over 2500 runners coming from more than 27 different countries.

The weekend consists of events from 3km up to the marathon distance, as well as walks making it accessible to everyone. This accessibility draws islanders to the event as well as overseas visitors giving the races such a welcoming feel. Many athletes take part in races on both days of the race weekend simply to soak up the atmosphere.

Having now moved to the more rural east coast of the island the routes for all the events take an ‘out-and-back’ nature from Barclays Park so there’s opportunities for spectators, family and friends to keep track of runners progress.

The initial part of each race progresses south along the east coast providing spectacular views of the ocean, popular with surfers and adventure seekers alike. This coast of the island is more rugged than the beaches of the west, with their coral sand but it’s no less stunning. After the turn around point the courses head in-land a little, giving of glimpse of local communities and the lush green countryside.

Barbados Marathon medals

It’s not a perfectly flat marathon course but at the same time could only be described as gently undulating and perfectly manageable even for first timers at the distance.

The shorter races of 3km, 5km and 10km take place late in the afternoon on the Saturday of race weekend and although the temperature is high, the day is beginning to cool off a little, making things bearable.

An early start of 5:30am for the half and full marathon ensure the runners are on their way even before sunrise but this way they do get to avoid the heat for around 90 minutes until the sun rises high enough to start to make its presence felt.

In the men’s marathon, Kenyan Alex Ekesa was an easy winner, cruising around in 2:34:04 with the first women, Felix Herimiarintoa of France, clocking 2:54:29 in second overall. Ekesa also had an easy win the previous evening in the 10km in 34:29.

Felix Herimiarintoa (Barbados Marathon)

Local man Joshua Hunte won the half marathon event in 1:16:15 while again, the leading woman made the overall podium with Cecilia Mobuchon (France) third overall in 1:17:33.

Natasha Wodak of Canada was first woman home in the 10km (35:55) where she finished third overall.

Alex Ekesa (Barbados Marathon)

What made this race weekend so special was the warmth of the people and the weather. Locals and visitors embraced the occasion and simply came together as one to enjoy the running as well as the rum. The island offers so much to anyone that can take a little time to explore it, from the hills to the beach and the green countryside to the turquoise see it oozes appeal, the running adding that small essential detail we each embrace as athletes to make Barbados a perfect island getaway.

Given the recent cold spell here in the UK there could be no better reason to plan ahead for a winter break next year.

The 2023 races are currently scheduled for the weekend of December 9.

Barbados Marathon route

You can find more details at visitbarbados.org

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Most athletes don’t choose when they get to retire, writes Katharine Merry, and it can be an incredibly difficult transition to make for many reasons

Retirement has felt like a recurring theme across the sporting world lately. Roger Federer and Serena Williams saying farewell to tennis have of course been the most high-profile examples but, even a little closer to home, Tom Bosworth and James Dasaolu have stepped off the track for good, while Mo Farah’s late withdrawal from the London Marathon in October heightened the discussion around how much longer he can keep going for. 

Former British Lion Brian O’Driscoll made a TV documentary this year, speaking to a number of former sports stars about how difficult it is to move on from that purpose which defined your identity. I can completely relate to that. It really isn’t easy. 

In my experience, I’ve found that most track and field athletes don’t choose to retire on their own terms. Jessica Ennis-Hill is probably the last one I can remember who was able to decide her retirement plan and not be forced out through injury. 

Tom Bosworth (Mark Shearman)

For most it’s a really, really hard adaptation. Your mind’s willing to keep going but your body’s not able to and I think a lot of people, myself included, find that a very difficult period. 

Athletes have spoken to me over the years and said: “What do I do? How do I approach it?” Jason Gardener was one. He was on the verge of retiring and he said: “I’m worried about how I’m going to replace the highs of track and field. How do I replace it?”

I said to him the key was not to try. You have to take it for what it was, take it for what it is, box it up, be proud of what you’ve done and do not try and replace it with something that you know is not going to come close in terms of highs. 

I know I will never have anything in my lifetime that will replace the whole experience and complex emotions of my Sydney Olympic final. Life moments have been amazing but they are different. Utilise the skills and disciplines sport has taught you and channel them into a new area as those skills and disciplines cross over from sport to real life very well! Find something else that you enjoy and potentially that you’re good at. 

I would still stand by that advice now. 

Katharine Merry (Mark Shearman)

I was really lucky because, towards the end of my career, I started doing broadcasting work while I was still trying to compete so I had that transition. I had a path but most athletes don’t and that is a horrible situation to be in.

That’s why the sport has to encourage people to think about what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it in terms of retirement because it’s a massive transition, absolutely huge. You completely lose your identity for a while because it feels like “If I’m not an athlete, then what am I?”

We do have brilliant role models who are showing that it is possible to do more than one thing. Laura Muir qualifying as a vet while competing at the top level is an outstanding example. But you have to work out what you’re like and what works for you.

I do think you always have at the back of your mind what might be next and I think athletes nowadays are better at that. This is where social media is actually playing a very positive role. 

Athletes seem much proactive, whether it’s Lina Nielsen with her yoga or Harry Aikines-Aryeety with his fitness stuff, in terms of thinking about what they are going to do after their sporting careers are over. 

Most people are not like Usain Bolt, Linford Christie or Roger Federer, they will have to make a transition to a different line of work. The majority of athletes have to do something else with their lives because they can’t afford not to. They haven’t made enough in the sport to do nothing.

I’m not sure there is enough support out there for people going through that – but that’s sport in general, isn’t it? It can be ruthless when you can’t do that job any more. 

All this talk of retirement brings me back to Mo. He’s been in that transition, coming towards the end of his career, for a couple of years now. If Mo had announced he was retiring after pulling out of London with injury then nobody would have been surprised, but it says a lot about him that he hasn’t stepped away yet. 

Let’s face it, he does not need to run again but he wants to, and that’s a big thing to me. 

Mo Farah (Mark Shearman)

You can have all the money, but there are those who want to keep going purely because of their love of the sport. That is why we all started in the first place.

Sadly, age catches up with everybody and he has had a wonderful career. The window of opportunity when he was at his peak was open for quite a long time, allowing him to become one of the best ever. 

I am hoping he will run London in April and maybe that will be his last hurrah. We will see. 

There is always a danger that the longer an athlete goes on, people might start to forget just how good an athlete was, but actually I feel with Mo this isn’t the case, such was his career. 

I feel though that whichever version of Mo hopefully turns up on the start line in April, we all know it will still be a decent one. He deserves a fitting send-off, from the public and for himself too.   

» This article first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine

The post Why it’s so hard for athletes to hang up their spikes appeared first on AW.

The lockdown running boom has not translated into a rise in entry levels. In fact, a number of events are starting to struggle

If you cast your mind back to the pandemic, you may remember the significant number of people who took up running during lockdown. 

These were individuals that, before Covid-19, hadn’t really engaged with the sport and the hope was that, ultimately, they would take the next steps with their new hobby and sign up to mass participation events when life returned to something approaching normality. 

However, that didn’t quite turn out to be the case. The current trend actually shows that entries are significantly lower than the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. According to Find A Race, events earlier this year were seeing an average of 26 per cent fewer submissions in comparison to three years ago. The two disciplines which have suffered the biggest downfall in participation – a decrease of 30 to 35 per cent – are half marathons and 10km events. 

Participation figures for parkruns, viewed as the gateway event into mass participation races, are also down by around 23 per cent in relation to 2019. 

Find A Race also states that interest in half marathons online has plummeted between 2019 and 2022. Between January and May, when people usually map out which events they want to sign up to in the summer, searches on the internet dropped between 30 and 52 per cent. 

What’s the reason for this? Firstly, the market to host mass participation events in running is saturated. There are myriad options for various distance races next year, often with a number of events taking place on the same day. 

The prime suspect, however, is the cost of living crisis. At a time when people in the UK are concerned about energy bills and mortgages, there is an understandable desire to be more selective about where they spend their money. 

Events such as the London Marathon, which saw 410,000 people enter the ballot for a place in the 2023 edition, appear to have maintained their popularity – though the majors are not entirely immune. 

London 2022 (London Marathon Events)

Organisers of the Boston Marathon recently announced that, for the second year in a row, everyone who qualified and applied for the event will get to run – a far cry from the pre-Covid clamour for places. However, it’s undoubtedly the medium and smaller scale events which are feeling the biggest impact. 

There was the worrying recent story of the Brighton Marathon organisers struggling to pay prize money while race directors of local events who have been in touch with AW point out substantial drops in entry levels to their events.

Interestingly, cross-country races – involving a different demographic and where clubs will usually pay entry fees – are tending to hold up better in terms of numbers. 

One person who knows this industry well is former 1500m world champion and world record-holder Steve Cram. 

As well as being a commentator and coach, he also runs Extra Mile Media + Events alongside his wife and former international sprinter Allison Curbishley. The pair have put on events such as Fast 5k and Durham City Run Festival to name just two. 

Fast 5km (Paul Freary)

“There are a lot of events out there,” says Cram. “We have seen a massive growth in the last 10 years, where the choice for the consumer is huge. The market hasn’t grown in size necessarily but the outlets for that market have grown, so inevitably things get a bit thinner. 

“I think what’s now coming out is that the Covid period of the lockdowns, happening in 12-18 months, has changed people’s habits in a way which we haven’t yet fully understood. Things like the economy are a factor and although this [mass participation entries dropping] started before that, it will still have an impact.

“What’s also fairly obvious, and you could argue this was always going to happen, was that there might not be a situation where just more and more people run any more. We may have topped out around the percentage of people in society taking part in mass participation and organised events.” 

One initiative, inspired by Chris Evans, that tried to buck the trend was RunFestRun, which combined music and athletics in a family friendly way over a three-day period. 

The 2022 edition was cancelled back in May but in previous years it hosted races ranging from 2.5km to the half marathon and involved Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson and Cram to name a few. After a long day’s running, the people at the festival then got to watch live music. If an event is to be successful then there has to be a consistent positive trend of entries every year. It’s a tough balance to figure out whether to be more creative or traditional. 

RunFestRun

“You have to be creative about giving people a wider experience than before,” adds Cram. “But we have to make sure it’s affordable and that we aren’t spending money on things people don’t want.

“Once you have the best half marathon time you think you can get then you could go and do a trail run, a marathon in a city that you’ve never been to before or even a triathlon.

“We’ve just got to work really hard in understanding what people want, who are the people taking part and making them figure out what we have to offer. Then we hope they choose to take part.” 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic we now live in a world of working from home, digital dominance and rising costs. Persuading runners to part with their money has never been harder and it would appear there is no definitive answer as to why numbers have dropped. 

Finding it could be the difference between events being able to thrive – or struggling to survive. 

» This article first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine

The post Where have all the runners gone? appeared first on AW.

Verity Ockenden writes about her experiences of paying tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth by doing what she does best … and going for a run

When I made my first tentative footholds as a resident in Italy, my foundations felt rocky. I’d waited so long and worked so hard to make my emigration possible that, once ensconced, I clung to my small house like my life depended on it.

I felt a sense of trepidation with every repatriation that had to be made in order to race in the UK, as if everything I had gained might disappear again by the time I returned. I was so busy imprinting myself on my new home, that I didn’t miss my birthplace at all.

And yet, as the months went by spent on the road between altitude camps in Font Romeu and St Moritz, and I returned sporadically to my trusty Tuscany to find everything just as I had left it, my confidence grew. Little by little, with every national championship that beckoned me, I began to enjoy all the small elements of quintessential Britishness that I had taken for granted previously. 

This time, as I touched down in Edinburgh through gold-rimmed grey clouds illuminating the surrounding hills, I dreamt of proper tea, golden syrup on my porridge, small dogs, hedges, marmalade on toast, rhubarb and shortbread.

The first person I saw at the baggage carousel was wearing a kilt. My aunt’s familiar voice greeted me as she waved from the right-hand side of her car, as did the lowing cows that lined mossy dry-stone walls as we sped through the glens of southern Scotland toward her cottage. She had been gathering spring onions from the garden when the Queen’s death was announced on the radio, and when she came in I couldn’t think of anything to say, except “It’s happened.”

I had been planning on racing the inaugural British 5km Road Championships in Newcastle on the Friday prior to the Great North Run, before lining up for the famous half marathon with whatever I had left in the tank afterwards.

We had considered the 5km a far more competitive distance for me at this stage of the season, considering my modest mileage. The Great North Run was to be raced conservatively, as it would effectively be the first long run I would have completed since February.

Verity Ockenden (Mark Shearman)

Instead, when the news dropped that the championships were to be cancelled as a mark of respect to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II following her death, plans had to be modified on the spot.

I called my coach, squeezed a few extra miles and some hill reps into my easy run and decided not to abstain from a toast raised in the Queen’s honour that evening. Messages flew back and forth between organisers and competitors, some of whom were already en route to the race or even in Newcastle, having paid for train fares and hotel rooms.

For many, the lure of the championship prize pot was what made the expedition a worthwhile investment. Most of the athletes from whom I heard personally and who didn’t have Sunday’s Great North Run as a backstop strongly objected to the cancellation, regardless of their general stance on the monarchy.

There was by no means an absence of sentiment and patriotism from those who took pride in representing Great Britain in competition, in wearing the flag and singing our anthem… but rather a sense of lost opportunity to pay respects as athletes striving to do their country proud by means of giving their best performance.

As we waited a suspenseful 24 hours for an official announcement on the status of the Great North Run itself, a far larger event hosting not only elites but a total of 60,000 runners all raising money for charities, all pre-race preparations were to be re-organised.

Though many lamented the potential loss of an opportunity to pursue a personal endeavour, the general consensus was that it would be a greatly wasted opportunity to gather as a community and do something good en masse. We all felt capable of doing so respectfully. Thankfully, the event did go ahead as originally planned and black ribbons were offered to all elites on arrival at the event hotel. There was to be the national anthem and a moment’s silence and prayer before the start of the race before all would proceed as usual. 

Personally, once I had rearranged all of my training and travel plans, I came to the stark realisation that I also needed to tend to my race plan. I now had no excuse not to race the half marathon with all guns blazing, despite not having put any of the appropriate training in.  I would be lucky not to hit a wall, let alone run fast.

READ MORE: Verity Ockenden’s AW columns

Thankfully, despite the sombre mood pervading the country, the ever-reliable crowds of the North turned out and they cheered like hell. That’s the beauty of road racing; it’s for everyone. The rigid lanes of the track only allow for so many, while the roads never divide but bring together. 

While a nation in mourning felt alien to all who had never known life without the Queen on the throne, the history interwoven into the very fabric of the streets, in our architecture and in our landscapes, older than the hills and outliving us all, remained present as we ran through it, being it and breathing it. For me that day, it felt right to be in my home country, continuing to do what I do best alongside my compatriots, keeping calm and carrying on. 

Verity Ockenden is a British international athlete and European Indoor 3000m bronze medallist

» This article first appeared in the October issue of AW magazine

The post Keeping calm and carrying on appeared first on AW.