Issue 41
You get it when you’re breaking CR’s, you get it when you’re breaking NR’s
In fact, I’ve got it now for the record. A hard earned thirst that is. Australian athletes have been working up one this past fortnight. Between the Sydney Marathon, City Bay/Australian Road Running Championships and Run Prix there’s been another fortnight of excellent results to dig deep into.
FTK
#114. A tired Brett and Joel recapped the success of their biggest shakeout run ever and the disappointment of having no generator. Kieran Ryan featured as a guest from Movember talking about how FTK are getting involved this year and the relationship between Movember and the Point to Pinnacle.
#115. A disappointed Joel and Brett turned up for what turned out to be one of my favourite episodes. The interview with Blake Norrish and his work with Movember was great as was the discussion between Brett and Joel about Brett’s Valencia prep and Joel’s result at Runprix. Both could’ve easily given dry, heavily censored media response about their plans/races but instead some frustration in their own recent attitudes or efforts at doing everything they can to be the best they can be shone through as a bit of a wake-up call.
Spiked Up
#26. Nina Kennedy came on the show as the first ever Olympic Champion to appear on Spiked Up! Nina educated Sarah and Rose about the finer details of being a pole vaulter including what it’s like to transport her poles, navigate big competition days and the perils of sleeping in your DL provided accommodation. For the hosts, Rose ran some 60 minute runs and Sarah was glad to be home. Spiked Up is on holiday mode as the girls take a well deserved rest from serious training and serious podcasting.
Race to the G
#5. Tess and Alice special. The girls bonded over their dad’s connection through the Hawthorn Football Club with Tess having grown up hearing Peter Bacquie this, Peter Bacquie that. Alice Bacquie did this, run 20km’s, after having done that, been hit by a bike rider. In Tess’s week she actioned a bit of feedback from Coach Joel, celebrated her birthday, ran 106km’s for the week and superbly dealt with some sad news. And the Hawks lost too.
#6 Alice continued recapping her travel experience for a week of 41km’s which was an improvement on last week. Jack spoked about his ‘k on k off’ session the week prior in hurricane force winds with Kirsty on the bike, his City Bay race weekend received some air time and sewer rats and American Psycho were the episode’s best side quests.
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As alluded to in Episode 114 of FTK and Issue 40 of TBL, I was on the scene in the name of Gonzo journalism at Sydney Marathon. In search of a happy ending to a dream PB (which I did achieve in 2:21:35) I also learnt a few things about what it’s like running with the bulls at the front of a hopefully soon-to-be Major…
The elite athlete briefing the day before is very official. Elite international athletes have their shoes and their singlets inspected by several different clipboard waving officers. The official course measurer stood up and introduced himself. There was no roll-call though or ID checks so any random runner with the details could’ve slipped their bottles into the bottle drop facilities. Despite a well drawn diagram of how our bottles were going to be laid out none of the officials knew how to interpret the diagram besides Tom Do Canto. Seems he can run well and officiate on behalf of the Sydney Marathon.
Training yourself to be good enough to enter as an international elite is the only way you’ll be able to ensure proper toilet access before the start line. As an Australian elite runner I either had to fend off World Age Group runners in a bid for the toilet, dodge the security to sneak into the international elite area or drop a knee and do some *stretches* on North Sydney Oval to alleviate myself. If the grass is a bit yellow next time the Big Bash is at North Sydney don’t blame me, blame the toilet organisers.
The first couple of km’s down to the Harbour Bridge is some of the fastest marathon running you’ll see off a start line. Dropping approximately 40m per kilometre it’s a very easy way of getting up to marathon speed.
Running with the elite women for the majority of my race I was personally able to get a feel for how they were travelling. A language barrier meant I couldn’t get all personal with their training but what I did notice is that just because they’re elite runners doesn’t mean they are elite at picking up their bottles. They also weren’t too friendly or apologetic about any accidental arm brushes. At one point, whilst I was running in the gutter, I clipped an arm of someone and got a very aggressive response from the lady patting her head in international body language for hey, are you stupid or something?! Stop hitting me! Hence, why I had to run off the front for the rest of the race to escape further ridicule.
The crowd atmosphere from last year to this year was different. An earlier start and having more runners participating and not spectating were probably the key factors. It was still a great and motivating atmosphere for 95% of the course. The out and back section to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair around 40km’s was the quietest part of the course though and to be honest, kind of added something to the overall spectre of the race for me. You went from thousands of people cheering you on at the 38th kilometre to about seven people in the 39th kilometre in what felt like a graveyard. To make it out of there and run on to the finish felt like a great success and gave me personally a kick to get home.
The event was recognised as the Australian Marathon Championships and I very much capitalised on that. There was a stronger field at the Ballarat and Gold Coast marathons this year while Melbourne’s field promises to be even stronger. I personally like the idea of having a Championship on a tough, hilly course so long as it still has a deep enough field to be worthy of a championship. Perhaps marketing if there is prize money would help too. At time of writing I still haven’t officially heard of any prize money so maybe there is none this year!
Overall, as an event itself, I’d highly recommend running the Sydney Marathon at one point in your life. For a city that cops a lot about its poor running, why not take advantage of the one day a year they hand the roads over to runners in Sydney and you can traipse your way around the major landmarks without car traffic. Consider as well if you ever race overseas in a Berlin or New York Marathon and an international based marathoner finds out you’re from Australia they’ll hit you with something along the lines of ‘oh, have you done the Sydney Marathon, what with the Bridge and the Opera House and the Harbour, it looks amazing!’ To which you can whip out your boxing kangaroo flag, put your Akubra on and reply with ‘crikey mate, of course I’ve run the Sydney Mara’, great to hit the frog’n’toad over the ol’ coathanger before ducking out to where the Swannies run around and then back again to the big ol’ Opera House, bloody terrific, sure gets you a hard earned thirst’.
Those also working up a hard earned thirst were the athletes competing in City Bay and Runprix over the past fortnight.
First off, City-Bay was celebrating it’s 50th year and the weather gods got in on the act. A slight crosswind/tailwind situation set everyone up for fast times. Just about the whole of Adelaide set PB’s in the 12 km distance. Leading from the front was Seth O’Donnell in the first couple of km’s but he couldn’t hang on to the magic of his 62 minute Burnley Half. Jack Rayner couldn’t hold on to the lead either and Isaac Heyne snuck through for his second sprint finish victory, after Launceston, this year. Isaac and Jack both snuck under the previous CR with Haftu Strintzos not far behind. The previous CR holder was Mizan Mehari in 1998!
The Women’s race wasn’t as exciting strategically but a new CR for Izzi Batt-Doyle meant Isaac couldn’t take the chocolates for run of the day. Izzi’s 37:20 was more than thirty seconds in front of Sinead Diver’s CR. Jess Stenson and Gen Gregson all ducked under the previous CR but were not in the race between Izzi and Riley Cocks for the line. For someone who hasn’t hit her usual high mileage since returning home from Paris, this CR from Izzi was quite impressive.
Which meant that when she followed it up with a 31:12 at Runprix a week later, were we expecting anything different from the woman who hadn’t run a legal 10km road race in a long time? Her previous PB at the distance was from a few years ago in Launceston. Still not to take away from her result over the weekend, Izzi has raised the bar for Australian females and international females on Australian soil. Not only was her 31:12 a National Record but it also took out Leanne Pompeani’s All-comers record too. With more training and years under her belt it won’t be long before we see IBD dip under 31 for 10k.
The men racing the 10km Grand Prix race last Sunday didn’t set a National Record so can’t claim as much kudos, however, there was another exciting race for the 30 or so people watching the Facebook livestream (including me, I loved it!). Seth O’Donnell went out like a bat out of hell once again going through 5k’s in a tad over 14 minutes and not far off his 5k PB. Just like in City Bay, he couldn’t hold it and the two pronged attack of Haftu Strintzos and Ed Marks, compatriots at World Cross earlier this, worked their way towards and then past him. Haftu went clear in the end to win in 28:09 by three seconds over Ed Marks. All three gentleman set PB’s. Some context to help discern how fast this result was is that Ed’s previous PB of 28:13 was set in that Launceston 10km last year where Brett held him off to win in 28:11. Hence, Haftu now holds bragging rights over our/my/your fearless leader Brett Robinson. So no, not a NR for Haftu but still a terrific run.
The Diamond League final happened. There’s too many results to cover them all so if you’re interested check them out here. Australians wise we had Stewy on the front in the 5000m as a pacing job, Olli ran 3:34 in the 1500m showing some improvement in the final event which is great and Jess Hull and Georgia Griffith finished 3rd and 6th respectively in the Women’s 1500m notching more sub 4minute efforts under their belt.
In other DL news, the money on offer will be significantly increased next season. The amount has essentially tripled with $30-50k USD on offer per discipline at each series meeting while $100k USD will be reserved for the winner. This is a response to the competition from Grand Slam Track which promises to award $100k USD to the winner of each Grand Slam meet. In my books the Grand Slam Track competition has already improved the sport as it’s caused the Diamond League to find a whole lot more cash to keep athletes engaged with its competitions.
The Melbourne Marathon fields and start list haven’t been released yet but there is a notable disparity in the strength of the Women’s and Men’s fields. In the Men’s we have (we think); Liam Adams, Thomas Do Canto, Ryan Gregson, Jack Rayner and Andre Waring all running but in the women’s, in a year in which 6 qualified to run in the Olympics, it appeared none of them were running until the news that Gen Gregson was entered broke. Sarah Klein, who is a multiple Australian representative is also entered. Next on the list could be Gemma Maini who won last year and was a late entry at Sydney a month ago (where she won the Australian Champs), could she be backing up? Or Milly Clark who won Sunshine Coast earlier in the year, is she another possible starter?
Speaking of marathon fields have a suss of Berlin’s field. No Kipchoge or Bekele for the first time in ten years. Tara Palm is an Australian to get behind when it kicks off on Sunday night.
Another Kenyan has received a ban for doping. Faith Chepkoech, a 21 year-old 29:50 10km runner, is banned for 3 years for using EPO. As of 2024, 82 Kenyan athletes are banned from competition due to doping violations. That’s probably the amount of Australians we had competing overseas this year. Or another way to think about is pick 5 runners from every state and territory, ban them all and you still wouldn’t have the amount of athletes that Kenya has had banned.
With the Diamond League wrapping up we say goodbye to having access to some wonderful ‘flash quotes’ post race from some of the world’s best athletes. To celebrate, can you guess who is behind these quotes?
The crowd was amazing, so I’m grateful for the support today. It was cold, very cold. But losing was not an option today, so very happy with win here in Brussels.
That took a lot more from my body that I expected…Now It’s time to celebrate my beautiful season: I will drink some good Belgian beers tonight that’s for sure.
This is my fourth trophy, or only my fourth trophy. I hope to win many more.
Hopefully I will finish my season in New York in a good way. It will be my last race of the season. I am still looking forward to racing. I started my season very late because of a small problem and I still feel strong.
I am not really sure how many personal bests I broke this season, but it was a lot of fun. It was cool to test my range across some shorter distances.
Your options are; Armand Duplantis, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Jess Hull, Faith Kipyegon and Berihu Aregawi.
It’s Marathon season boys and girls. Look at this line-up of events over the next month.
September 29th: Berlin Marathon.
October 6th: Perth Marathon. $10,000 Prizemoney.
October 13th: Melbourne Marathon.
October 13th: Chicago Marathon.
October 27th: Valencia Half Marathon
October 27th: Burnie 10.
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,’. If you want a full race report from Sydney Marathon please head to my personal website.
The answers to the quotes are (in order): Berihu Aregawi (doesn’t like the cold and I wonder what would’ve happened if he did lose?), Armand Duplantis (sounds like a good bloke to quench a hard earned thirst with), Jakob (who else would have that confidence wanting to more than four trophies), Faith Kipyegon (small hamstring problem and still dominates), Jess Hull (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was double digits worth of PB’s broken…)