how then to assess athletics in 2021. There were good things and bad things to be sure and good and bad monarchs still run the sport. But was 2021 a good year, a bad year, or a first taste of some new normal.
This year I helped pace a friend at the Nike Melbourne Marathon festival, and honestly, I was more concerned about when and what drinks to have than I was about how far I had to run. Most of my worrying stems from Sian Welch in the ’97 Iron Man...
In this edition of 4 Key Sessions, I want to talk about the kind of sessions I was doing to prepare for school championships and U/18 events – way back, last century.
These sessions – particularly the track sessions – are ideal for the schoolboy athlete, who is around 16/17,...
Standing on the outside, looking in
The ACT Cross-Country Club grew organically from a handful of runners gathering for cross-country races in 1957 to an entity which nurtured and managed distance running in Australia’s capital city. Nurtured because club members planted the seeds, managed because, in an early example of...
Olli Hoare is a key figure in a very elite group of Australians who are challenging the very best runners in the world. Along with the likes of Stewart McSweyn, Linden Hall, Jessica Hull, and Peter Bol - Australia now finds itself with multiple Olympic finalist calibre middle distance runners.
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Olli is a pro runner who is paid to train, sleep, eat and win. Fresh off a 13:09 indoor 5000m (an Australian indoor 5000m record) in Boston last weekend, we caught up with Olli to see where he is at....
Perseverance - persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success (Oxford Languages Definition). Perseverance is a great character strength to develop as an athlete. No one succeeds without failing, so perseverance is crucial. This is especially true in long-distance running, where you consistently test your physical...
For over three years a team of Australians based out of Fremantle, WA has been developing one of the world's most eco-friendly high-performance shoes. A high mileage runner that doubles as an everyday lifestyle shoe. Tested by Olympians, made to last well over 1000km, lightweight, bouncy, breathable, comfortable, and...
Olli Hoare has turned heads, again, this time smashing the Australian indoor 5000m record in Boston. Hoare knocked a whopping 24 seconds off the old mark clocking an astonishing 13:09.96 for the win. The time also slashed 12 seconds off his old pb of 13:22.16.
The first time I went to Japan to run the Fukuoka marathon my feet didn’t touch the ground until the five-kilometer point of the race.
On December the 6th, it will be 40 years since we saw one of the great performances in Australian distance running history, when Robert de Castella won the 1981 Fukuoka Marathon in Japan, in a world record of 2.08.18. De Castella – known worldwide as ‘Deek’ – beat the 12 year-old record of fellow Australian Derek Clayton by 16 seconds and launched a marvelous career. At the time, however, de Castella’s time was not recognized as a world record. More on this later.
