It can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to talk about Seth. Seth who? Seth being on the Milers program only once a year. O’Donnell that’s who.
O’Donnell’s latest exploit came a couple of days ago – 13 November, to be precise – when he broke the Victorian Milers Club record for 3000 metres. So far, so humdrum. It wasn’t a well-developed record, the standard stood at 7:57.81 to steeplechase specialist Ben Buckingham.
Nor was it close to O’Donnell’s personal best. That’s the 7:34.03 he ran in August on his way to the world championships in Tokyo. What was very Seth O’Donnell was the fact he had run another 3000 just 20 minutes earlier, winning that race in 8:16. By way of a postscript, his warm-down after the second race incorporated three rather quick reps over 300 metres.
Come to think about it, O’Donnell capped off his previous Milers Club foray, the now-notorious ‘lights out’ 3:36 1500 last March, with four reps over 400 metres. Nothing too new here, then.
There have been quite a few ‘come-from-nowhere’ athletes make their mark during Australia’s recent middle- and long-distance boom. Claudia Hollingsworth emerged while still competing in school athletics, others – Olli Hoare, Jess Hull, Ky Robinson, Lauren Ryan – you’d only have known about if you were a close follower of US NCAA competition.
O’Donnell, on the other hand, really did seem to be an overnight sensation. He did win a national cross-country title in Adelaide in 2022, but then he seemed to settle back into being an ‘ordinary good’ runner. He was around, however, competing and quite often winning Victorian titles on the road and over the country during the winter.
By now you might have discerned a broad competitive streak. If you hadn’t already, you certainly noticed it as O’Donnell won his second national cross-country in Launceston last year. With not much more than a kilometre of the 10km to run he appeared to be heading for a bronze medal behind Ed Marks and Haftu Strintzos, who had finished 22nd and 23rd in the world cross-country in Belgrade earlier in 2024.
O’Donnell clawed back the deficit to Strintzos. But he still seemed destined for a minor medal as Marks led by 10-15 metres with under a kilometre to run. Think again. O’Donnell somehow dragged himself out of the muddy ground to surge past Marks and win by a second.
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The Zatopek 10,000 saw O’Donnell a solid but not spectacular fifth in 28:42.71, before he smashed his 1500 personal best a week or so with a 3:41.47. Then came an eye-catching 13:22.30 for 5000 metres, a solo run at Box Hill where O’Donnell left the opposition and the pacing lights alike struggling unavailingly to keep up. In Melbourne’s Continental Tour Gold meeting he characteristically took on Ky Robinson over the closing stages before going down narrowly, 13:13.17 to 13:14.57.
At the nationals a couple of weeks later, O’Donnell tempered his aggression, but only slightly, waiting until the final lap to take control and win in 13:39.40 ahead of Cam Myers and Robinson. He ran 3:37, 7:34 and 13:18 in Europe before the worlds but a post-nationals leg injury saw him short of full fitness in Tokyo where he ran well in his heat before falling away in the last few laps. Even so, O’Donnell showed his competitiveness by hanging on through the first 60-second lap when the decisive move came.
There’s something special about an O’Donnell race, just as there was something special about a Ron Clarke race. If it’s not happening already, you always feel something is about to happen. It has garnered O’Donnell a following, as has his presence on social media.
Throughout the Milers Club meeting the announcer was calling on spectators to come onto the track to get closer to the runners. No such encouragement was needed during O’Donnell’s two races, nor to get a “Seth, Seth, Seth” chant going
Again, this happened with other athletes ‘back in the day’. As John Landy chased the 4-minute mile in Australia there was an at times unhealthy obsession with what he ate for lunch, doubly so when it was a pre-race meal. Herb Elliott’s diet got more media attention than any Herb Elliott opponent. Likewise, both pulled fans through the gate though watching distance races from on the track was not encouraged.
But modern social media spreads the trivia at the speed of light and across the entire planet. It seems likely that Seth O’Donnell ai pulling first-time spectators through the gates, as are Hull, Myers, Robinson and the others riding this wave.
All of which brings us back to where we started – Seth’s night at Victorian Milers Club. It was something of a tour de force: race, rest, race, train then, presumably, home to eat, rest and sleep. It’s impressive, as long as you keep in mind that training is meant to point towards one thing only – fast racing.
Everything else is secondary. Another by-product of the ‘connected’ age is that training sessions are spread far and wide almost immediately the clock is punched on the last rep. Train to race, race to impress can too readily be compressed to “train to impress” which can lead to a consequent drop in performance.
As another of our sayings from the pre-social media age went: “Beware the super session.”