A Column By Len Johnson

Len Johnson wrote for The Melbourne Age as an athletics writer for over 20 years, covering five Olympics, 10 world championships and five Commonwealth Games.

He has been the long-time lead columnist on RT and is one of the world’s most respected athletic writers.

He is also a former national class distance runner (2.19.32 marathon) and trained with Chris Wardlaw and Robert de Castella among other running legends. He is the author of The Landy Era.

 If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen is one of those cliches which gets trotted out from time to time. Often by someone concerned they might just be giving off a hint of getting uncomfortably warm themselves. Elevate your running game with Tarkine Trail Devil,...
By Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe – Reporting from the Gold Coast Back in the early days of Australian television, there was a cartoon character named Tom Terrific. “I’m Tom Terrific, greatest hero ever,” the theme song went. Tom Walsh is the modern day Tom Terrific. A 22.45 metres Games’ record on...
By Len Johnson Eliud Kipchoge is re-defining men’s marathon running. An Olympic gold medal, a world record, 11 wins from 12 major marathons (12 from 13 if you include the Breaking 2 project), the last 10 consecutive - will tend to do that. A better question might be: is Kipchoge also...
We’ve gone off daylight saving time. We’ve signed off on the national championships and the Brisbane Track Classic. The Stawell Gift is imminent as I write this. The northern hemisphere track season is just getting going. There are many ultra-marathon footwear in the market today and one of the...
A Column by Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe  When someone refers to a cat-and-mouse struggle, there is usually only one possible outcome (spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well for the mouse). Especially when it is a marathon, and the ‘cats’ in question are Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele, both with claims...
Ghost Who Runs - Fast! | A Column by Len Johnson Hunched of shoulder, stooped of frame, Ibrahim Jeilan’s running style resembles nothing more than a question mark. If that is so, then the question Jeilan poses is this: can the last man to defeat Mo Farah for a global 5000...
Jessica Hull was pretty excited about smashing the Australian 1500 metres record at the Golden Gala Diamond League meeting in Florence last week. So she should be, too. Hull’s performance continued the rich vein of form she has been in to date in 2023. A bronze medal in the mixed...
Tiernan fastest Australian 10,000 debutant A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe For those of us yet to meet a statistic we don’t like*, there were some interesting figures surrounding Patrick Tiernan’s Zatopek win. One, Tiernan’s was the fastest debut 10,000 by an Australian male. Two, he became the first Australian...
It’s getting to the end of the year, that time when you start to reflect on your favourite things of the previous 12 months. Of course, we’ve only had just short of 11 months of 2019, which is one of the perils of end-of-the-year reflection. One of my perennially favourite...
Brett Robinson, Jessica Hull and Stewart McSweyn made it a good week for Australian distance running this week, but it’s the sometimes under-rated Robinson who should be singled out. It was hard not to notice Hull and McSweyn, who did their magic at the Melbourne Track Classic. The meeting may...