If fortnights are all the same length of time is it correct to say that this was a big fortnight? Probably better to say it was jam-packed right? What type of jam was packed then? There was the Seville and Osaka Marathon flavours, Run the Bridge (a boutique one from Tasmania), a 1500m race that was better than Adelaide’s and finally some imported flavours from the USA (Lauren Ryan and Amy Bunnage). The jam factory doesn’t stop though so put your bread in the toaster and bring yourself up to speed with what’s about to go down (or pop up?) in what will be another jam-packed fortnight across events in Canberra, Tokyo, Nagoya and California.
Spiked Up
#00. Episode 0 was an introduction to this new series that is airing on the main FTK feed. Rose and Sarah highlighted their Maurie Plant results off the back of their Falls Creek departure and both highlighted their next race on the cards.
#01. Sarah had a calf niggle to manage, they introduced their new segment ‘Confession Sessions’ and gave an early heads up to an interview with Georgia Griffith’s so send through any Q’s for Georgia!
For The Kudos
#86. Brett makes some decisions with his coach to have a reset following, by his standards, a poor Run the Bridge performance. 116 km’s for the week though. Joel almost pooped himself, almost got hit by a discus and had his calf niggle return so a normal week just over 100 km’s again.
#87. Brett made a week of thirty minute runs for 49km’s in total very interesting with stories involving a cryo chamber and a dietician and delivered the best one-liner of all-time just after 62 minutes. Joel had another good week with a particularly hard Tuesday session and is racing today in Canberra! Don’t forget there’s the Sydney Marathon Run Club event this Sunday too.
Chasing Paris UK
#06. On one hand Phil nailed Seville Marathon with 2:08:04 making him the second athlete on a Chasing Paris series (and third FTK podcaster) to hit the standard and first to be officially selected for Paris. On the other hand Marc Scott told us what he really thought of being a personal pacer for some bloke finishing 13th in Barcelona and took two days off running for a cortisone injection.
Hot Takes
#07. Maurie Plant Meet. Don’t ask Collis for tips. Osaka, Sound Running and Port Fairy chat. Building on Riley’s Port Fairy stat, that event is easily the biggest regional marathon in Australia for towns that are further than 3 hrs driving time from a capital city. Something in the water down there.
#08. An Osaka review lead into a typical marathon selection wormhole. Riley and I got out of it by jumping to Cam Myers World before landing in the preview section of your TV guide for this weekend.
LLL&R
Number Twenty. The icebreaker episode with four hosts on the show. Joel’s undies situation, what’s Sarah’s Mum’s podcast about, and poor Paul (Rose’s Dad) was shamed for being too keen to celebrate Rose’s race before she’d even raced.
Number Twenty One. Ever heard the phrase ‘catch lightning in a bottle’? Well, Jack and Joel caught lightning on a podcast. Incredible.
That’s nine episodes or 435 minutes of content in the past fortnight. Add in the discount received on merch, early access to live shows and podcasts and the warm fuzzy feeling that you’re helping support future Olympians in their endeavours and there’s not much better value you could find for $16.50 a month. Two beers at the pub a month or around twenty episodes and all that other stuff? Y’know what, I'll even throw you this newsletter for free too!
It’s the situation you know is always possible but you hope never happens. Grim, cold, rainy weather for a big overseas marathon. For anyone in Osaka last Sunday, it was their turn to notch a s*** weather marathon onto their resume. Like a house with holes in its ceiling, it’s all fine and dandy when the weather’s nice, but if it rains, you’ve got a problem on your hands. The weather does the same to any weaknesses you may have in the marathon or your mindset and it showed in some of the results.
Ellie Pashley (DNF) and Lisa Weightman (2:24:43) were the two headline Australian acts. Both were on track for 2:23:low, which would’ve solidified Lisa’s spot amongst the top three Aussie’s in the selection period and maybe given Ellie a chance to usurp her. The leaky ceiling gave way in the Pashley house though and she slipped off the pace by the 30km mark before an eventual DNF just after 35km’s. Lisa finished third overall despite slightly slowing to 3:30/km over the last 15km’s from her earlier 3:23/km pace. Her result earned her third place but for someone who was rumoured to be in Australian Record shape (2:21) at Valencia, another 2:24 time isn’t hugely convincing for her in a bid to lock down that third spot for Paris. A 2:22 or faster would’ve been a phenomenal result for Lisa, won her the race and squashed any doubts about her position in the top three women on the Road to Paris.
From an Australian male perspective, Dean Menzies (2:18:48) followed Lisa’s trend by posting a time that was a minute slower than his 2023 effort in Osaka. Dean had the most even paced run by an elite Australian male with the difference between his slowest and fastest 5km splits being only 28 seconds. 2023 Melbourne Marathon winner Reece Edwards (2:24:37) and training partner Dave Ridley (2:20:37) did the opposite of even-pacing and regressed like most others in the race. Disappointing times for them yes, but one thing they can hang their raincoats on is at least they gave it a go.
To go with Lisa’s third place on the podium, Beyenu Degefa (2:24:37) finished second two years in a row and Waganesh Mekasha (2:24:20) crossed in first. The men’s podium had all the excitement though as 21 year old debutant, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (2:06:18) finished first in a new debut record by a Japanese runner (which is saying something considering his age and how deep Japanese marathon history is!). Around the 30km mark Hirabayashi and second place Stephen Kissa (2:06:22) caught eventual third placed finisher and 2023 Gold Coast Marathon winner Naoki Koyoma (2:06:33) who had broken free from the very large lead group. Hirabayashi himself then broke free, as a 21-year old I remind you, from the Ugandan Kissa and held on to finish only 17 seconds off course record pace, which highlights how if you have a good roof over your head, or you’re adequately prepared, you’ll be able to execute a marathon whatever the conditions… or maybe he just didn’t know you’re meant to run poorly in bad weather marathons! Shoutout to our own Elise Beacom’s performance as well. She too didn’t get the regression memo and finished with 2:50:23 (4:01/km), bettering her PB by almost 7 minutes.
The focus on Japanese marathons doesn’t end there. Tokyo Marathon, one of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, is this Sunday and surely there can’t be two rainy Sundays in Japan in a row right? We want to be able to see times on the board without any caveats of bad weather. Those putting times on the board include two of the biggest names in the sport, Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan. Along with those two headliners there’s 9 other women with sub 2:20 PB’s including the 2023 World Champion Amane Shankule, last year’s winner Rosemary Wanjiru (2:16:28) and Japan’s own Hitomi Niiya (whose PB is less than thirty seconds off the National Record). In the men's the storyline to follow, besides if Kipchoge can better his 2:02:40 course record from 2022, is will any of the Japanese elites run under 2:05:50 to steal the third spot from Suguru Osaka? The Japanese selection model, as briefly mentioned in Issue 19, awards two spots to the top two at their trial race while the third spot is conditional. Any male who runs faster than the arbitrary time (2:05:51) set by the selection committee at either Osaka or Tokyo bumps out the third place finisher, Suguru, and joins the Paris team.
Without derailing this whole article an interesting hypothetical Australian selection policy that is a slight variation on the Japanese model would be to award the top two spots based on the fastest times set in the selection period and leave the third spot open for the winner of a ‘trial’ similar to the NBL’s ‘play-in’ tournament. Imagine a marathon in April or May this year that had Lisa Weightman, Izzi Batt-Doyle, Ellie Pashley, Jess Stenson and Eloise Wellings all racing with their own personal pacers along for the show while Sinead Diver and Gen Gregson watch from the sidelines. That’d be better reality television than most things on free-to-air!
Enough digressing though, there’s another marathon on the horizon in the land of the rising sun to keep an eye on with Eloise Wellings racing in the Nagoya Women’s Marathon on Sunday March 10th. In 2022 Eloise set her PB of 2:25:10 here, a time she almost came close to breaking at Valencia (2:25:47) last year despite losing her eyesight temporarily. Good luck Eloise and good luck to the Athletics Australia selectors who have to deal with working out our top three female marathoners…
Besides the federal election, this weekend could possibly be the biggest Canberra weekend of the year. It’s the cross country election and the Canberra Track Classic.
Firstly, on Friday, at the officially titled Robert de Castella Cross Country Running Track, the tier of elite domestic runners just below the top will be racing over 10km of perfectly manicured XC. Caitlin Adams and Andre Waring are the only returning members from the senior teams who competed this time last year at Bathurst in the World Cross Country Championships. It means this race presents a great opportunity for someone to nab one of the top two automatic spots for a position on the team to compete at this year’s World Champs in Belgrade, Serbia on 30th March. With our National Track and Field Champs being only a fortnight later in Adelaide, it’s no wonder none of the top tier have put their hand up to compete and Athletics Australia isn’t forcing them either, with their decision to not send a team to defend our Bronze medal in the relay a sad but acceptable fate in an Olympic year.
So who will take this opportunity then? The great thing about XC is that the course itself is a terrific leveller. In a 5000m or 10,000m race PB’s and recent results can be intimidating but on ‘the cross’ anything can happen. Full entry lists are available here and in my view it’s really anyone’s race except for Riley Cocks (2nd and 4th at two previous National Champs) who’s unfortunately a late out. Ranking the top contenders from who is there though, Seth O’Donnell has won a national championship before, Liam Adams is always hard to beat, Andre Waring finished 7th at the trials here last year, Tim Vincent’s last national XC result was way back in 2019 for 6th place, Zach Facioni raced a fair amount of XC in the US but hasn’t raced on a national level in the past few years if ever… you get the picture. Throw a blanket over them in the men’s but call me a genius if its a Vincent-Waring-Adams podium.
I know I said 5000m results don’t count but in the women’s field I can’t go past Paige Campbell’s recent time of 15:44 at the NSW Champs to highlight her as one to watch. Her sister Holly will be running at The Ten event and if they’ve been training together you can bet Paige will be hard to beat going off Holly’s Maurie Plant result. Caitlin Adams was 3rd at this course last year in the trials but looked off the pace at the Maurie Plant Meet, Sarah Klein ran well at Run the Bridge while Melissa Duncan has represented the green and gold on the track and the cross so is not to be brushed over lightly (she also ran 15:52 at Maurie Plant). Again for a prediction I will bring up if I get it right and probably edit later if I get it wrong, it’ll be a Campbell-Klein-Adams podium.
Depending on your background the XC event is either the main event or the warm-up for the track meet the following day. Kicking off in the afternoon a tick over 3pm is the Men’s and Women’s Steeple’s. If you’ve been listening to Hot Takes you won’t have been surprised that Jude Thomas’ name is on the start list in the Men’s. He joins Ed Trippas who won in Adelaide and Matt Clarke who DNF’ed in their pursuit of points and an 8:15 qualifying time. Adding extra intrigue to that qualifying mark is that Canberran Shaun Creighton still holds the national record of 8:16 from 1993. If you’re going to break a record, best to do it with potentially the record breaker cheering on from the sidelines. Joining the Aussies in the race are also three Japanese runners who have PB’s either in or below the 8:30’s. The women’s field has only 4 athletes in at the time of writing so if I were a budding young female athlete I’d say skip the congestion in all the other events and take on the steeple!
In the other events, Bendere Oboya and Claudia Hollingsworth line up again in the 800m. Can Bendere hold on to that lightning pace of hers from Maurie Plant for two laps this time? Spiked Up host, Sarah Billings is in the 1500m against Maudie Skyring and local lass and former Olympian rep Zoe Buckman. The 100’s are sure to excite as always while like it was in Adelaide, the Men’s 800m finishes off the program. Peyton Craig beat a similar field in Adelaide and with 9 men having PB’s listed under 1:46.5 it’s sure to be fast. The action will be on 7plus from late Saturday afternoon meaning you can watch it all arvo and then chat about the results over dinner with your nearest and dearest.
Phil Sesemann’s 2:08:04 was the headline result from the Seville Marathon from our perspective. From an outsider’s perspective though they might say it was the fact that it’s now the sixth fastest marathon event in the world due to Deresa Gelata’s course record winning time of 2:03:27. Or that Frenchman Morhad Amdouni’s second place in 2:03:47 was impressive considering it wiped almost two minutes off his PB.
Like Seville, Run the Bridge was over a fortnight ago so hopefully you’ve seen this by now, but Aynadis Mebratu and Robin Hendrix got the W. Something you mightn’t have seen is that Logan Janetzki (3rd male), Adrian Potter (4th) and Tasmania’s own Bailey Murzecki-Hince (5th) were only separated by a second each in a big sprint finish. Janetzki and Potter do battle again in Canberra today so watch for that little subplot too.
Lucky I celebrated about how fast Adelaide’s 1500m was in Issue 25 because the NSW Milers 1500m last Thursday has now taken its place, unofficially, as the best 1500m race in the country in the last few years. Cam Myers (3:33.3) finished first in a field that was so deep it had Matt Ramsden down in 11th place in 3:38.77! That time would’ve grabbed him at least 6th place in Adelaide a few weeks earlier. As impressive as the times were the crowd and atmosphere might have been the highlight from the night.
Lauren Ryan and Amy Bunnage ran 14:57 and 15:11 in the US. Lauren is entered in The Ten in a few weeks time and a result of 30:high or 31:low looks to be a possibility, however anything under her PB of 32:09 at last year’s event will boost her Road to Paris score. Not only was Amy Bunnage’s time a new U20 Record, it is also the second fastest time of the year so far for that age bracket. Good signs to come for the rest of 2024 and hopefully her career.
This helpful article has all the details you need for the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow. Summarising it for you because I know many of you don’t click these links, the finals for most events are around 6:30-8:30am AEDT. Jess Hull’s 3000m race against Ellie St.Pierre (and others too) is on Sunday at 7:15am AEDT. In recent months the H2H battle between them is split at one a piece. Bragging rights would be nice before another anticipated battle in Paris.
Keep your eyes peeled for a job advertisement for a new CEO at Athletics Australia headquarters. Peter Bromley is stepping down after Paris and has played his cards pretty well as the sport continues to rise in participation numbers and elite performances. If the next CEO can sort out some more funding available to elites while continuing to increase the amount of eyeballs tuning in to athletics I’ll be a happy critic but I know we can’t have our cake and eat it too.
This fortnight’s fact is less a fact and more ‘story time with Fraser’. With the loss of Kelvin Kiptum last fortnight the hope of a sub 2-hour marathon showdown with Eliud Kipchoge was put on the back burner. Have we ever had such an anticipated race with a time factor on it in distance running?
Yes, running and racing has been around for a bloody long time! Long before we had the sub 2-hour marathon hysterics, there was the sub-4 minute mile barrier. The first two people to break it, in 1954, were Roger Bannister followed closely by our own John Landy (who the Mile is named after at the Maurie Plant Meet and is where the inspiration came from for this fortnight’s fact). After they independently broke the barrier, they were pitted against each other a few weeks later at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, much like how Kipchoge and Kiptum were likely to race each other at Paris this year.
The ‘Race of a Century’ had Landy, who was more of your Stewy McSweyn character, a relentless pace setter, against Bannister who had a fearless kick à la Jake Wightman perhaps. Who won out of these juxtaposing styles in what was also called ’The Dream Mile’? With both men eventually recording sub 4-minute miles, the first time in a race that two men had broken the barrier once thought to be impossible, Bannister kicked past Landy at the end while Landy looked the other way (think Jack Rayner a fortnight ago). What was not known at the time however was poor Landy had cut his foot earlier in the week so maybe we never even got the best of both of those racers either.
That race was almost 70 years ago so to think we’re due for another ‘Race of the Century’ is probably about right. I don’t want to live in a generation that was too young for the 4-minute mile but too old for the sub-2 hour mark! The 2-hour race we were hoping for mightn’t be as soon as we hoped but given the legacy that Kiptum did leave on marathon running, it won’t be far off. And neither is cryogenic freezing so there’s that option too if I’m about to kick the can before it happens!
This Sunday marks six years since Roger Bannister passed away.
March 1st: XC Trials. That’s TODAY! Entry lists. 7pm AEDT start time.
March 2nd: Canberra Track Classic. Entry lists. First ‘A’ grade track races start from 3:05pm AEDT.
March 3rd: Tokyo Marathon. Elite entry lists are here (which also includes a few 58 min half marathon PB pacemakers which would be handy if you wanted to break 2 hours…).
March 3rd: Sydney Marathon Run Club. 8am. Gilson, Domain Road. 75 minutes of running with pace groups of 4:30/km, 4:50/km, 5:20/km, 5:45/km. Online registration here.
March 10th: Nagoya Women’s Marathon. Elite entry list. All finishers receive a Tiffany & Co. pendant. If any Japanese runner breaks their National Record (2:18:59) they will steal the third spot for Paris.
March 16th: THE TEN. Sound Running. Jack Rayner, Morgan McDonald, Lauren Ryan, Holly Campbell. Keep an eye on how many finish under the Paris qualifying standards of 27:00 (men) and 30:40 (women).
This division of Grattan House welcomes any and all reader feedback. If you want more or less of something, want something investigated, or Jordy Williamsz hasn’t dealt with your complaint in a timely manner, please enquire at theblueline@grattanhouse.com. If you want to tell people how good The Blue Line is then use the button below and if you want to rag on someone then my name is Fraser Darcy and unless otherwise specified I’m responsible for the written content.