At 35-years-of-age, Lauren Reid is an impressive athlete. From 2:03 over 800m, to a 72 minute half marathon, her range is legit. Recently, Lauren won the NSW 10,000m champs; so we caught up with her for a quick yarn.
RT: Lauren, congrats on your win at the NSW 10,000m champs. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Who are you based and who is your coach?
LR: Thank you! That was a fun, rainy night out at Bankstown! Good to have a longer hit out, something a bit different. Disappointed with the time, I always hope for a PB but hey, not every race is a great race.
So I live on the beautiful Northern Beaches with my husband Matt & our little daughter Ruby who is almost 2. I train with The Sydney Track Club and the Delta Running Project and I am coached by Nick Bromley.
We train at Narrabeen Athletics track for track sessions and around Narrabeen Lake for threshold and long runs as well as lots of other good spots across the Northern Beaches, like Manly and North Head.
RT: Your range is impressive. From a 2:03 800m (set in 2018) to a 1:12.38 half marathon (set in 2019). This is pretty rare to see. Is your training speed and endurance focused all year round to pull this off?
LR: Aw, thank you. Yeah, it’s taken me a while to figure out what I enjoy and what I’m best at. I haven’t been running for very long so I’ve enjoyed trying out different distances.
Training focuses a lot on having a really solid fitness and endurance base and then tweaking it closer toward races, be it adding in some more speed specific work or longer threshold efforts depending on the goals and plan.
RT: What’s going to be the focus in coming years?
LR: Well I’m 35 so I think realistically my time is quite limited in terms of getting faster over the shorter distances – 800 & 1500m so I will focus on them for now. I have a lot to learn about training and racing.
After that, I don’t have a plan. I don’t have any interest in the marathon but I’d be keen to work on my 5000 & 10000m times. Maybe the half marathon.
Outside of running, we’d love to have a second baby and we plan to move out of Sydney for a few years.
RT: Favourite session?
LR: I love anything with shorter reps so 200s, 300s, 400s. I like running fast and feeling sharp! I enjoy sessions which descend in distance but increase in pace and I also like the bread & butter k reps session as it always gives me a good bit of feedback about where I’m at.
RT: We interviewed you in 2018 and you gave us a weekly run down of your training, has much changed since then and what sort of work do you do in the gym these days?
LR: I can’t remember what I said back then. So much and changed, mainly becoming a mum!
Currently my training is generally 3 sessions a week (Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday) and a long run. One session will be on the track or grass oval, one a threshold or tempo based session and one including hills. Then yeah, a long run on a Sunday and the other days just easy jogging. One day off running. Gym is 2 x a week for strength work.
