Did you hear about Elise’s performance on the Great Ocean Road last weekend? 2nd in the half marathon. Wild scenes.
Anyway, we’re back with another fantastic issue for you. We’ve got The Night of the 10,000m PB’s (name needs changing asap), 100km world record, Fraser takes a tumble, and more.
Did we include Fraser’s crossword in the last issue? I don’t think we did. Whoops. We’ll put it in this one. It’s great.
Hey let’s go.
by Fraser Darcy
Listening to Gen and Jordy discuss their training weeks on the last Gold Coast Diaries episode had me thinking ‘oh yeah, mishaps come and go but they’ll be right, this’ll barely rate a mention come the weekend of their races’. Each of them were dirty or frustrated with themselves but not with the other. How weird are we as humans for cutting each other slack but not ourselves sometimes? And yet, realising this myself on Thursday morning last week I thought I was fucking Ghandi for believing I too would not get sucked into falling into an immediate negative thought spiral if a controllable or uncontrollable fate fell my way.
*In narrator voice*: Later that day.
Cruising down a local trail on an easy arvo run I was thinking of how much of a guru trail runner I am. Brett and Joel were even giving me kudos on the pod this week in the Ask Me Anything episode! Turns out those fuckers blew my head up too big because smack bang, I hit the deck when my foot hit a rock.
Full slow motion, arms windmilling type hit the deck.
Onto more rocks. Ones with sharp edges.
The guru trail runner I was supposed to be copped some grazes, yeah nothing unordinary there, some cuts, whoopdy-de-doo, and a fucking CHIPPED TOOTH! I didn’t sign up for this shit! Who the fuck chips a tooth running! AND WHY THE FUCK AM I IN A NEGATIVE THOUGHT SPIRAL WHEN I SAID I WASN’T GOING TO BE IN ONE.
Oh how the world likes to test us.
I dusted myself off and only had one option due to my location. Get on with it and keep moving. The intensity of the run dropped off and my tail was definitely between my legs but by the time I was back in the car I had settled a bit. Back home, still cursing myself, it was only when I had processed what actually happens next (booking a dentist appointment) that I realised the important lesson one must learn when dealing with a running setback that Gen and Jordy and of course our messiah of setbacks Joel has displayed.
As soon as a setback happens the only thing you can do is bloody get on with it and keep moving (in a way that doesn’t injure you further obviously). As long as you’re moving in the right direction, away from the setback causing issue, your training progression will sort itself out and no amount of extra stress you put on yourself will do you any good. I can’t stress about trying to grow back my fucking tooth just like Jordy couldn’t turn back time and fit in his Thursday workout. Several hours later, with my rant now over and a lot happier, I now even realise that it’s merely a flesh wound in the words of the Black Knight and can laugh about it. So if the overall lesson hasn’t sunk in an auditory format this past fortnight and you need a reminder in running or life about how to deal with setbacks, please bookmark this Issue and save it for some unsolicited advice. I have my own visual reminder of this lesson (until my dentist appointment) and I do not wish the embarrassment on anyone else…
ICYMI, the ‘Night of the 10,000m PBs’ was recently held in the UK. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind, often imitated but never duplicated type of event - a festival atmosphere with several innovations to enhance the racing and viewing experience, it’s exactly what a lot of athletics fans wish the sport was.
You can actually watch the stream here - it’s not like a normal stream, it’s a *cool* stream - with a camera on a scooter in lane 4. There’s also a bar, the barriers are brought in to about lane 5-6, there are wave lights, and more.
If you’re interested in the results, Paul Chelimo won in 27:12.73, while Mizan Alem Adane won the women’s in 29:59.03. Very, very tidy running.
We will see something like this in Melbourne later in the year - The Night of the 10,000m PBs (seriously change the name) was sponsored this year by On, who have also taken on sponsorship of similar style events in the US (we told you about Sound Running in the last issue). They’ve lightly teased a Melbourne event for later in the year.
By Elise Beacom
Rhonex Kipruto is the latest big name to be provisionally suspended for suspected doping. The Kenyan long-distance runner is the current world record holder in the 10k on the roads (26:24) and the 2019 World Championships bronze medallist in the 10,000m.
The Athlete Integrity Unit (AIU) announced Kipruto’s provisional suspension last week after irregularities were identified in his athlete biological passport between 2018 and 2022. Now it’s up to the 23-year-old and his management team to provide an explanation that proves his innocence.
Kipruto posted (an almost haiku!) on Instagram, “I don’t cheat or dope! The truth is on my side. This is all I can say.”
Kipruto’s coach, Brother Colm O’Connell, is a well-known figure in Kenya with a clean doping record in his group. Since the late 1970s, Brother Colm has coached many top-level athletes, including David Rudisha to his 800m world record.
In a statement released by management agency Ikaika Sports, Kipruto’s agent Davor Savija said, “We are fighting against doping, we have zero tolerance for cheating, and we support development of the athlete biological passport.”
Kipruto has not been accused of using a particular banned substance or method of performance enhancement but is required to explain why there were inconsistencies in the blood values of his athlete biological passport if he is to avoid a full ban.
“Unfortunately, the “guilty until proven innocent” principle rules the life of an athlete in these cases,” said Davor.
So, what is this athlete biological passport, you ask? The World Athletics Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) describes it as “a powerful anti-doping tool that monitors selected biological variables over time to reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself.”
The passport is currently comprised of two “modules”. The first module considers biomarkers of blood doping, including blood transfusions and EPO. The second module uses urine samples to monitor patterns of natural steroid production and see whether any nasty banned substances have been introduced. This year, WADA is working to introduce a third endocrine module which will detect the use of human growth hormone.
The passport doesn’t replace traditional anti-doping tests but can support anti-doping agencies to make decisions on who to test and when, including targeted testing of individuals or groups, or further analysis into samples that have already been provided. The two-pronged approach is proving to be quite effective.
There are currently 66 Kenyan athletes on the global ineligible athlete list, according to the AIU. Will Kipruto join the list proper? Or will he be let off only to see his reputation in tatters? Time will tell.
OK some biggish news out of World Athletics this week with regard to time qualifiers at World Champs and Olympics.
To bring you up to speed, in some distance events there are a number of heats and semi’s before the final. The current system takes ‘the 4 fastest in each heat, then the next 4 fastest’ (for example). Meaning that everyone in the second heat knew exactly what time they had to run to make a final, a huge advantage compared to those in the first heat who were just racing.
World Athletics have now announced that it will simply be the fastest times from the combined heats that will progress through to the final. So you could come 9th in your heat, but if that’s faster than the winner of the other heat you’re still through to the final.
This is actually a great change and will result in more honest racing in the semi’s and also better finals. Major shoutout to World Athletics for this. Note that it applies to the 1500m, steeple, and 5,000m.
by Fraser Darcy
Straight to the facts first. Aleksandr Sorokin ran 100km in 6:05:35 (3:39/km) a couple of weeks ago to set a new record at the distance. To the majority of people this is as incomprehensible as it is to think about what life (and running for that matter) would’ve been like back in the 1300’s. Imagine rolling through on your 43rd lap of the 1.6244km looped circuit he was on, peering down at your watch and seeing you’ve clocked 69 km's but your pace was dropping to 3:41/km… better pick it up for the remaining 30 km's! Or, next time you’re doing mile repeats, think about doing 61 of them in a row with no rest. Impressive to say the least.
Someone doesn’t stroll in from the wilderness and set a new World Record though. Sorokin earnt his stripes as a high performance athlete competing for Lithuania in kayaking and canoeing in his 20’s so had gotten used to the monotony of punching out reps of something hour after hour (as you do when you’re training for kayaking and canoeing events). Shoulder issues put him out of those sports, time passed, he got pudgy, he got sick of being pudgy so started running, more time passed and now he’s an endurance beast in his early 40’s. Returning back to the mind boggling stats, he went through his first marathon split in 2:32:20 which is only seven minutes slower than his PB. Sorokin is also the record holder for the 100 mile, 6 hour, 12 hour and 24 hour distance and has set all of these records in his 40’s. Aleksandr ‘The Fine Wine’ Sorokin.
Having pushed the sport a little bit further along with this record performance, do we now set our alarms for another big effort from Sorokin in a year’s time? All of his previous record performances have happened in April/May of each year and he hasn’t announced his retirement yet so we can only hope he’ll try and nudge the bar a little higher. Imagine that though, you set a new PB by 6 seconds in a 100km, and the nice old couple at Parkrun (AKA the running community) start pestering you about what your next race is. Do you plan another big training block to squeeze 8-10 seconds off your 100 mile time next? Or do you go for ultimate running supremacy and try and nab the 1000 km and 1000 mile records off our very own Greek-Australian running king of Yiannis Kouros from the 80’s. Hopefully he’s been using all his thinking time running to come up with his next plan, be a shame if it was just a monkey clapping cymbals in there… or maybe that’s his secret mental strategy??!
The embed code isn’t working so here’s a link. It’s very good. Well done, Fraser.
New York’s Bandit Running just dropped their summer collection (7 months late, or 5 months early, or right on time depending on where you live) this past week. We’re loving the imagery and a different way of presenting running. Check them out on IG if that’s your vibe.