It’s technically an energy rebate for only the home owners among us but it’s the closest thing to free supershoes in this year’s Federal Budget. In other, more important news this fortnight, the marathon teams were selected but not yet announced, every man, woman, dog and cat was off racing overseas and every other man, woman, dog and cat, will be racing in either Launceston or at Albert Park in a week’s time. Here are the details you should be across, enjoy!
FTK
#98. Starting with the lows first, Joel’s return to ‘k reps’ at the Tan resulted in him feeling very dejected by the end. Liam Adam’s situation, as mentioned in Issue 31 was then another low point. Brett received a cortisone shot in his groin which didn’t seem to make too much of a difference. And finally, Brett’s return to Ferny with Logan Janetzki was also a bit of a struggle. Despite these all big ticket items appearing to be quite disappointing elements, Joel and the barrel chested monster Buh-buh-buh-b…Brett were in very good spirits chatting about Shapes (if you enjoy Cheddar or Savoury, you can absolutely never listen to FTK according to Joel) among other things.
Andy Buchanan #99. Brett wore odd shoes on Tuesday, Thorpey’s shoes on Friday and trail shoes on Sunday (not really but he was at Ferny again) in a week of 177km’s. Joel ran 104km’s for the week and cracked the shits on Friday this time not Tuesday like last week. The Chinese farmer story Andy alluded to probably should be replayed to Joel almost weekly. If you’re after some Bendigo Bats kit to look as cool as the ‘Mona-of-Bendigo’/Andy head to Verve Running.
Spiked Up
#11 The main takeaway from this episode was that anytime you go too fast in training, think of your inspirational leader, Rose, who brushed it off in her threshold with ‘oopsie, sorrryyy, I don’t think my watch is connecting…’. Sarah meanwhile notched a hip thrust PB, prepared a Key Lime pie and ran some fast splits in front of Coach Rambo. Big week.
#12. It took 36 episodes of FTK for Brett to set an Aussie record but it’s only taken 12 for Rose to claim the 5000m record! And she’s done it without ever getting her HSC! To answer Sarah’s question about how often the NR is set in a winning race, Joey Deng’s 800m, Jess Hull’s 3000m and now Rose’s 5000m records are the only two distance events where that has happened. Sarah also won her first ever ‘A’ category race at the same meet making this episode arguably the most successful in Grattan House race recap history.
Live, Laugh, Love & Run
#25. This episode could be best described as what it’s like to sit at a cafe and go ‘that’s Jack Rayner and JTW, they must be talking about something sooo interesting’. You try to eavesdrop and all you hear is Jack and Joel discussing the difference between Manuka and Raw honey for the most part. You forget the other parts you heard because there was a gas leak and you have amnesia. But you do remember Kirsty Rayner’s name getting mentioned again at least so it can’t have been too off script for a LLL&R episode.
#26. Back on script for LLL&R, Joel’s hyena laugh returned at the mention of the Andygo Bats on the Yarra Trails. There’s a dissection of a very hard workout, some questionable ‘threshold’ from Stuey (which probably makes sense after his race in LA) before closing out with a list of Jack’s next races starting with a 10km at the Great Manchester Run on May 26th.
!!!NEW PATREON SHOW ALERT!!!
An announcement on the new Patreon series will be dropping today or over the weekend. If you are a smart cookie you may have worked out it has something to do with the selections for the Australian marathon team that haven’t been announced yet either. Like that Chinese farmer said… maybe.
It felt like every man, woman, dog and cat was overseas racing last weekend. The law of averages dictates that across all the performances, you’d expect there’d be an equal number of stinkers and stonkers, but really, there were hardly, if any, stinkers. Has the collective expectation on Australian athletics risen as a result from this weekend? It’s probably due to Brett and the rest are just jumping on the bandwagon right? With a few more weeks of evidence from the Northern Hemisphere season to come it’s probably too early to tell. Just so we’re clear on what happened in the last fortnight for when that judgement call is made here’s a wrap-up in order of shortest to longest events.
800m:
Peter Bol ran 7th (1:45.87) at the heavily contested USATF LA Grand Prix.
Friend of the show and also former World Champion Jake Wightman ran 3rd (1:44.10) in the same race behind the first place getter, US’s Bryce Hoppel (1:43.68) in what was the second fastest race of the year.
1500m:
Jess Hull finished 2nd (4:00.84, SB) at the Doha DL in a very strange race where she effectively ‘won’ the pack race behind Freweyni Hailu (ETH) who was off the front of the whole race in a personal time-trial. This is the second time Jess has finished second in a DL race. Abbey Caldwell was also in the race and posted a 4:12.36 which could be placed in the stinker category from this past fortnight given Abbey’s lofty standards. A full replay of the race starts at 33 minutes.
Sarah Billings and Georgia Griffiths went 1-2 at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix (4:04.66 & 4:05.35 respectively). It was Sarah’s second best ever WA points scoring race too, only behind her sub-4 at Xiamen last month while it was her first ever 1500m victory over Griffo in 11 races!!!
Olli Hoare ran a SB for 1st place (3:34.73) in LA and had Jesse Hunt (5th, 3:35.38) and Cam Myers (8th, 3:35.59) for company in the back straight but not on the finish line. After American, Matthew Centrowitz placed 3rd (3:35.16, SB) in the same race US fans would’ve been forgiven for thinking he couldn’t surely make the Olympic team, could he? Video replay.
3000m SC:
Our National Champions, Amy Cashin (9:26.85) and Matthew Clarke (8:24.37) both ran SB’s and both finished in 8th place in their respective races at LA. Uncanny. Where they can be split though is in the respective adjustments to their Road to Paris scores. Amy is just within the quota at number 35 on the list (they take 36… or at least, they say they’ll take 36… who knows what universality places they dig up…) while Clarkey still has plenty of work to do to jump another 16 spots to get within the quota.
5000m:
In what was arguably an Olympic final field, Stewy McSweyn ran a PB, Olympic Qualifier and a mighty fine 10th place with 12:56.07 at the LA 5000m. Behind him in 12th place with a slightly bigger PB run was Morgan McDonald in 13:00.48. Watch a full video replay here. A dissection of the lap splits from the race shows the pack held together fairly well until the last lap where the Ethiopians and Ugandans in the race dropped 54-55 second laps and Stewy and Morgs could only (tongue in cheek of course) run 57/58 seconds.
The final result of the weekend and one that has already had much dissection on Spiked Up is Rose Davies’ 14:41.65 for 1st place and a NR. Every time this year Rose has stood on the start line of a 5000m race, she has either won it or set a PB or accomplished both. Not only was her time a 6 second PB but it was also the 16th fastest in the world this year and when you do a little bit of ‘Olympic filtering’ of the multiple amounts of Ethiopians and Kenyan’s to a maximum of 3 only per nation in the top times for 2024, Rose is actually the 9th fastest currently. With her fast kick on top of a 14:40-ish race, who knows what might happen if Rose makes it to the 5000m final in Paris if selected. Also in the same race was Izzy Batt-Doyle who got stuck in no-woman’s land to record her third fastest time of the year (15:08.67) for 3rd place. Given it was an ‘A’ category meeting, Izzy’s result was good enough to bump her into 25th position on the Road to Paris scores which moves her to within the quota as it stands (there are 42 spots in the 5000m).
As the race for the Women’s 5000m selection heats up it’s worth mentioning Nat Rule ran 15:17 at LA to go with her 15:07 from the week before to be the 4th fastest Australian woman over 5000m this year. The 2nd fastest woman this year, Lauren Ryan, was off setting a 1500m PB (by 4 seconds) of 4:08.15 in LA adding further speed to her already impressive base.
Phew. Take a breath.
That was a lot of news and times to absorb or refresh your memory on because they all happened in the past fortnight. It won’t be that busy next fortnight but there’ll still be plenty of high-end action. The Prefontaine Classic/Eugene DL’s Bowerman Mile has arguably the field of the year with maybe the 5000m at LA it’s only rival. Cam Myers will be better for his first run overseas this season amongst the sea of big dogs while it’s surely Olli Hoare’s best chance for 3:50.40 Mile qualifier for the 1500m.
Rivalling the men’s Mile field at Eugene is the Women’s 1500m field. Hull, Hall and Caldwell are all listed on the start list as is Ellie St.Pierre fresh off her own 24 second PB of 14:34 in the 5000m at LA. The main contender in their field however is Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji who at this same meet last year posted a 3:53.93!
As they used to say on The Price is Right, ‘that’s not all folks’! Also in this week’s showcase at Eugene there’ll be a Women’s 5000m involving Lauren Ryan who owns the slowest PB in the field at 14:57! Besides the 13 Ethiopian’s, Sifan Hassan is the other big name to watch along with evergreen Japan-yeezy Nozomi Tanaka. It’s fitting that their race wraps up the preview of Eugene as they’ll be the first major distance race of the meet at 6:18am AEST (perfect pre-long run watching). Everything else will follow them and will be shown on the Wanda Youtube channel.
So, after this fortnight gave us one NR and another result that was very very close (Stewy’s 5000m was less than a second behind the Big Mazungo’s 2004 record) there’s another equally impressive one on the cards next fortnight it seems. I know I said it’s too early to call, but it appears there is very very strong evidence that the standards and expectations of Australian athletics are rising fast in 2024. Read along next fortnight to see if I’ve grown a pair and made the call on the new standards of Australian athletics.
Away from the track this upcoming fortnight also brings the first big road event on Australia’s winter calendar. There’s been a few races this year such as Ballarat, Sydney Half & Sydney 10 and the Adelaide 10 (geez we’re creative with our race names) where locals have raced locals respectively but on June 2nd athletes from all corners of Australia will spend a large amount of dollars to hop on big jet planes (or even catch the ferry maybe) to race on an island away from mainland Australia. It doesn’t make any logistical sense to me and nor will it to international readers but I guess that shows what effort Richard Welsh has gone to too create a world class event in a very blue collar town of Launceston, Tasmania.
In the 2024 edition of the McGrath Launceston Running Festival athletes will be rewarded with World Athletics certified results. Everything else is about the same from 2023. There’s $2,000 in prize money for the winners in the Half-Marathon and 10km along with a bonus $2,000 if a new Allcomers record is set.
Last year in the Men’s half, Ed Goddard ran 63:11 to break away from a pack containing Andy Buchanan, Joel Tobin-White and Riley Cocks to win first place. Given Ed’s Sydney Half win and 2nd place at the Sydney 10 on the weekend his form looks just as good but his competition this year will be a little bit stiffer. Brett is racing and so is Kenyan James Rungaru (59:37 PB) who finished less than a minute behind Brett at Fukuoka in 2022 and hasn’t raced since. With a gap between races that long it makes you wonder if Rungaru has been secretly waiting for his revenge on Brett since then? Whatever he’s been doing, Richard Welsh must’ve been looking down a fair few Japanese alleyways to find him that’s for sure.
But that’s not all folks! Liam Adams is also in the half marathon and will have smoke coming out of ears after his quota controversy. Reece Edwards has sharpened his speed since his Osaka disappointment and will be around the mark while there’s the perennial dark horse of Riley Cocks who commented last year he needs a bit more power in his (little) legs for the hard moves. He logged one of his best long runs in a while a week ago so there’s certainly some form on the board but of course, we’ll see what happens on Sunday June 2nd at 8am.
In the ladies event, Ellie Pashley had it mostly all to herself last year and that might be the same story just with a different main character in 2024. Sinead Diver is racing and holds a comfortable almost 2 minute gap with her PB to the next best in the field, local Tasmanian Milly Clark. The race for the podium will be interesting between Milly, Tara Palm, who keeps nipping at the heels of the top tier and will be busy again going for a PB (71:27 currently from Melbourne 2019) and the inform Abigail Nordberg who won Sydney10 on the weekend to go with her Sydney Half win a few weeks ago. The women race alongside the men in Launceston so expect Sinead to jump on the sub 70-minute men’s backs while PJ Bosch, partner of Tara Palm is also entered in the race too potentially as a personal pacer? We’ll see what happens though on Sunday June 2nd at 8am…
Also on Sunday June 2nd, are both the 10km at the McGrath Launceston Running Festival AAANNND Athletics Victoria’s XCR series equally high quality Lakeside:10 event. Outrage I hear you say, how can they be on the same bloody weekend! Well before you feed the high horse you’re on with some hay and oats, consider that in the Top 20 Men and Women at the 2023 Lakeside event, only three men and four women from those fields competed in Launceston a few weeks later across the Half and the 10km. So boo-hoo for those seven out forty people who can’t do both while the rest of the fields will be cheering that there’ll be less people to beat at either Launny or Lakeside.
With that in mind, anywhere you look on Sunday June 2nd for 10km results will impress you. Brett and Ed Marks ran 28:12 (CR) and 28:14 respectively at Launceston last year with 9 other men (11 in total) going sub 30 mins to match the 13 men who went sub 30 at Lakeside which was won by Archie Noakes in 29:06.
The same sentiment applies to the female fields. 10 women went sub-35 at Launceston last year led by Leanne Pompeani’s $4,000 winning effort of 31:37 (PB, CR and Australian Allcomers record) while 9 cracked the 3:30/km measure for 10km’s at Lakeside which was won by Sarah Klein in 33:27. Leanne was recently a DNF at the Night of the 10,000m PB event in the UK so it’ll be interesting to see if she’s racing. Tune into the livestream on Youtube or Facebook for coverage of Launceston’s event while on a separate device or tab, have the Athletics Victoria ResultsHub page open.
Because of the rising expectations and standards within Australian Athletics for 2024, now’s a good time to refresh yourself on the Australians selected for the Oceania Athletics Championships which kick off on June 1st and run until June 8th. Personal favourites to keep an eye on are Luke Boyes and Peyton Craig in the 800m, Matthew Clarke in the 3000m SC (another good points scoring opportunity) and a trio of contenders in the Women’s 5000m of Holly Campbell, Maudie Skyring and Jenny Blundell. If you’ve forgotten what federations make up the Oceania’s it’s Australia as the big dawg, New Zealand as the second big dawg and then a whole stack of island nations who grow rugby players and shot putters/discus throwers on trees.
The person replacing Peter Bromley as Athletics Australia CEO after the Paris Olympics was named to be, for the first time ever, an ex-Olympic athlete himself, Simon Hollingsworth. *Streamers rain down computer screen*. Positives of this news is hopefully Simmo (can we call him that already? Or big Holly? Please write in Mr.Hollingsworth which you’d prefer) will use his experience as a past CEO of the Australian Sports Commission and his athletic knowledge to continue pushing the sport to new heights in an administrative sense. The only question marks on Simon’s resume are his time serving in the Victorian Government’s financial departments (the state is currently facing a budget crisis because they spend too much money, a problem athletics has never had because there is no money to spend) and he’s a Tasmanian so hopefully he doesn’t have that chip on his shoulder about ‘mainlanders’ like some Tasmanians do. It’ll be a watch and see if Tasmania gets any preferential treatment…if Nick Earl somehow switches alliances and represents Australia at the 2028 Olympics don’t be surprised!
The nation with the most Gold medals (Ethiopia, 6) in the Olympic Marathon announced their team as well this past fortnight. The still-yet-to-be-ratified WR holder Tigst Assefa headlines the Women’s side with Amane Beriso (2nd ranked in the period) and Megertu Alemu (who hasn’t finished lower than 4th in her last 5 marathons) joining her. The men’s headliner is 2:01:48 & Valencia ‘23 1st place man Sisay Lemma. Or is it really Kenenisa Bekele, who returns to the Olympics for the first time since 2012 where his brother pipped him for a medal in the 10,000m. Even if Kenny B reverts to his hot/cold marathon performances of the past after two hot ones in a row, it’s a pretty good cat amongst the pigeons for Kipchoge and other nations to worry about. The third man selected is Deresa Gelata who hasn’t run a Major or Olympic Marathon before but has podiumed at 7 of his last 8 races.
For those readers sacrificing their dollary-doo’s for Netflix, news dropped that the first season of the track and field documentary Sprint will be airing in July and has a second season, focusing on the 2024 Olympics, also in production. It’s not really a track and field documentary though according to my intel, it’s just track and just the sprint events so the show should only last like what, ten, twenty seconds right??? Still, it might be cool... maybe.
Final tidbit, in the trail world Australia’s biggest trail event UTA was completed last weekend. Full results are here but essentially a host of Aussie favourites performed as they should which isn’t always the case in the trail world. MVP of the weekend was Mikey Dimuantes in the Men’s 100k who had a winning margin of 54 minutes. Despite the level of high-end racing on offer there was some frustration amongst runners when word of unequal financial support to elites got out. Put that against the fact that the only prize money being offered was $1,000 to the winners of the 100km event in an event where almost 7,000 entries are sold that cost up to $1,000 each while there are also minimal traffic management costs… essentially, questions are being asked of the organisers… where does the money go?
There’s been a run of facts lately in this segment and this fortnight’s issue was heavy in results so it’s time to bring back a personal favourite… The Blue Line Crossword!
May 26th: Eugene DL. The Prefontaine Classic. This will be big from a 1500m/Mile perspective and Australian-focused results will be dropping from 6:18am AEST.
May 26th: Great Manchester Run 10km featuring Jack Rayner.
Wednesday May 29th: 100th Episode Live Show.
June 1st - 8th. Oceania Area Champs.
June 2nd: McGrath Launceston Running Festival.
June 2nd: Stockholm Diamond League
This division of Grattan House welcomes any and all reader feedback.
If you want more or less of something or want something investigated then please enquire at theblueline@grattanhouse.com with an email starting with ‘Dear Fraser Darcy,’. He’s the guy who writes this.
Remember too, The Blue Line serves as both an extended show notes of Grattan House podcasts while also broadening the profile of Australian distance running. Send it to your mates, co-workers and your next door neighbour so you can start preparing them for athletics chat at the Olympics which is in less than 100 days time!