6am Monday morning and its peak hour at Newcastle foreshore.

It’s probably my favourite part of the day and one of the reasons I love the place I’ve been living over summer. There’s this real upbeat and positive vibe when you head out for a run in the morning, and you can’t help but feel refreshed as you get caught in the ocean spray and watch the sun come up. And as I dodge around packs of lycra-clad cyclists and old guys in speedos, I am reminded of why I drag myself out of bed to run. No stopwatches, no track markings, no one to notice your splits. Shuffler or superstar, we’re all out here doing the same thing.

2012 has started off pretty well for me. I finished off an 11-day stint at Falls at full training volume after a few weeks of light load due to injury. Back on the flat, I turned my attention to the 1500m at Hunter Track Classic on Jan 21^st. I was hoping to pick up some speed, having built a solid winter fitness base.

Training felt quite different for me as I tried to tap into my lactic system more. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed some of the sessions with my favourite being series of 200m sets at different paces and recoveries. Surrounded by the awesome atmosphere at Hunter, I had high expectations for myself to run a PB. However, I just did not seem to be able to find any leg speed despite the fast-paced race and ended up pretty disappointed with my time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the following week at training when I finished a tough threshold/ hill reps session with a 1500m along an undulating gravel track in roughly the same time as my track race! So much for my well-planned taper, spikes and race conditions!!

Over the next few months, I’m looking forward to watching and racing the track classics. I have decided to focus on the 5000m to hopefully race in Melbourne. Along the way, I will get a few track races in but I’m wary of doing too much on the synthetic surface as I tend to develop niggles quickly this way. Although I’m a cross country tragic at heart, there’s a certain sort of buzz at track meets which is unrivalled. It’s awesome to watch the tactical races play out and I admire the rapid turns of speed.

I’ve also just commenced work at a gym so I am stepping into an unfamiliar world of weight machines and group fitness.  Learning heaps every day and might even start to mix up my training with some more strength work and pilates. Perhaps even embarrass myself at zumba!

For now, I’m just enjoying soaking up the gorgeous summer sunrises and the feel of running barefoot on a grass track.

“Don't work towards freedom; let the work be the freedom." - Dogen Roshi

Watch more video of 2012 Penn State National Meet on flotrack.org

This time last year I was just getting back from a pretty nasty injury that had caused me to have four months off running. To be honest when the injury was diagnosed I was ready to throw in the towel and call it a day. The last few years for me has had some great moments in running, but I just felt like any time I got to a reasonable level of fitness another injury would strike and I’d had enough. I stopped doing any form of training and started living like a normal person. It was great for the first couple of months, going out and not having to worry about sessions, travelling without stressing where I would be able to train. But soon enough I got over it, realized that I was really missing training and that I probably wasn’t cut out for the party lifestyle!

So began the tough battle back to fitness. It was not pretty to say the least; I couldn’t remember ever being that unfit! But it actually made me realise how long it had been since I took a break, and appreciate how tough full training is on the body. All through my junior years I had cross trained madly when I got injured- which can be more tiring than running half the time! Having those few months of complete rest left me really fresh and excited to come back and race again. Together my coach, Ted McLean and physio, Craig Purdam, formulated a new running program which I am still following and has worked really well for me over the past year. It’s focused on quality running, lots of strength work in the gym and a bit of cross training to complement my running sessions (see below for my current weekly program).

My first race back in 2011 was the Leonora Golden Gift, where I placed 4^th in the mile behind Kaila McKnight, Georgie Clarke and Lisa Corrigan. This was a big boost to my confidence as I had really just entered it for a bit of fun. I then had a few more months of good training before racing in the City to Surf, where I placed second behind Jess Trengrove who ran a really great race to claim the win. A week later I backed up for the Australian Cross Country Championships, which I won from my good friend Lisa Corrigan. After this I travelled around Australia doing a few road races including the Burnie Ten, which I was lucky to win after being hit by a motorcycle at around the 6km mark… I think the bump on my head was sufficient enough for me to not be able to thing logically and I decided to get up and keep running….probably not the smartest idea as I had to take a week off after due to a corked calf and bruised head- however I did get a very handy cheque at the end! (It was worth it). Next up I travelled to Japan for the Chiba Ekiden, which was a heap of fun in a great team managed by Sarah Jamieson. My last race for 2011 was the Zatopek 10,000m in which I won the Australian title….I won’t say I loved the race because 25 laps around the track in pouring rain is never fun, but it was a great way to end a year that had started on fairly shaky ground!

I took some time off after Zatopek and freshened up, before heading to Falls Creek for a couple of weeks. I stayed up there with Georgie Clarke, and I’m not sure if Georgie and I did more sun baking or running! But it was a good trip, I met heaps of really great people and I feel like I benefited a lot from the training I did up there. My next race will be the Adelaide GP, where I will run a 5000m. I’m really excited about the year ahead and hope I can continue to build on this past year. Although there will definitely be more setbacks along the way, it’s a part of elite sport, I’ve got a great team around me and I’m especially grateful to my coach Ted McLean who has stuck with me through everything over the past 10 years, the awesome group of guys in Canberra that help me out in every session and New Balance who have been terrific sponsors since 2009.

Here’s a sample of my weekly training program:

Monday:              AM- Gym (60min)
                                PM- Easy bike ride

Tuesday:              AM- Core strength or yoga
                                PM- Track session (eg. 4-6x1km reps)

Wednesday:      AM- Easy jog (60min)
                                PM- Gym (60min)

Thursday:            AM- Core strength or yoga
                                PM- Grass session (mix of intervals, usually shorter and fast)

Friday:                  AM- Easy bike ride or swim
                                PM- Gym (60min)

Saturday:             AM- Grass/Dirt session (mix of intervals, 500m-1500m, and hills)
                                PM- Rest

Sunday:                                AM- Long run
                                PM- Rest or yoga

On 7 September, 1960, Dixie Willis lined up in the final of the women’s 800 metres at the Rome Olympic Games. Almost 52 years later, it’s about time she was told she finished the race.

An inexperienced 18-year-old from Western Australia, Willis had run fastest time in the previous day’s heats. For the first 700 metres of the final, she was either in the lead or contesting it with the eventual winner, Lyudmila Shevtsova of the Ukraine/Soviet Union.

From that point on, it’s not exactly clear what happened. Nor does the available evidence provide a complete picture of Willis’s run up the final straight. But it does present a compelling case that she crossed the finish line and should be regarded as a finisher, rather than the non-finisher she is universally reported to have been.

In summary, the evidence is: host broadcaster film shows Willis crossing the finish line at a jog-walk some 20 seconds after the winner; the official Australian Olympic report lists her as a finisher; further host broadcaster film shows Willis off the track with around 70 metres to run after either stepping on the plinth, or being contacted or baulked by other runners and slumping briefly to hands and knees; finally, a picture of the finish in the official Games’ Report shows all nine finalists on the track as the winner crosses the line.

The film (which you can find at YouTube, ‘Brenda Jones (Carr) Silver 800m’) shows four women in contention for the medals in the final straight– Willis and her Australian teammate Brenda Jones, Shevtsova and Germany’s Ursula Donath.

With 70 metres to run, Willis loses the lead and is then tightened for room as the Soviet runner and Jones press past. A stride or two later, she loses balance, throws an arm in the air, and steps onto the infield.

It is not obvious what caused Willis to step off the track. Perhaps she was clipped as the others moved past or trod on a heel as they moved in, perhaps she trod on the track border, perhaps she just lost concentration. In any case, her reaction indicates it was not intentional. Another excerpt (‘Rome Olympic Games 1960 Women’s 800m’) shows her slump briefly to her hands and knees just after stepping onto the infield.

And there Dixie Willis’s Olympic final appeared to come to an end. In any case, her fate was submerged by Jones’s silver medal less than a step behind Shevtsova’s world record-equalling win in 2:04.3.

There is no unanimity about the reporting and recording of Willis’ result, either in contemporary reports or compilations since. Among the annotations are: “fell 90 meters from the finish”, “fell in final”, “fell in final and did not finish”, “with 150 meters (sic!) to go, she suddenly threw her hands in the air and staggered off the track,” “scratched” and “tired badly and fell when she tripped over the track border”.

Not even the IAAF World Record Progression book gets it right, stating in the description of Shevtsova’s equal world record - “led at the 700m mark, then fell over and did not finish”.

The ‘historical results’ section of Athletics Australia’s website records “did not finish (fell).”

The official report of the Rome Olympics lists Willis as ‘scratched’. Clearly this does not have the meaning we assign to it (i.e. did not participate). From other middle-distance results in the report, however, it would seem to mean ‘did not finish’.

As for Willis, she just assumed she had been disqualified and took the matter no further. 

And there it seemed destined to rest, until Athletics Australia statistician Paul Jenes was sent the YouTube footage by Trevor Vincent as part of research he (Jenes) was doing on Jones (now Brenda Carr). To his astonishment, he noticed Willis jog/walk across the line more than 20 seconds after the medallists.

So Willis had got to the finish.

Further evidence emerged. A picture in the Games official report (Vol. II, p.190), taken as the first two crossed the line, clearly shows nine runners on the track. Given that the eighth finisher – Zbikowska of Poland – recorded 2:11.8, 7.5 seconds slower than the winner, the depth of the picture must have been at least 45 metres, indicating Willis had come straight back onto the track then jogged slowly to the finish.

Finally, the smoking gun: the Australian National Sports Museum unearthed a copy of the official Australian 1960 Olympic report. Willis’s performance was recorded as “ninth in final, no time taken.”

The athletics section manager in Rome was Judy Patching – subsequently secretary-general of the Australian Olympic Federation (now AOC) and the team manager was Syd Grange, subsequently AOF president. They were hardly likely to have got it wrong, which seems to take care of the (admittedly remote) possibility Willis may have been disqualified.

After all these years, then, it seems the only possible conclusion is that Dixie Willis did finish the 1960 Rome Olympic women’s 800 metres final. It’s long since time to acknowledge that fact.

Dixie Willis went on to set world records for both 800 metres and 880 yards in 1962 and to win the gold medal in the latter event at the 1962 Commonwealth Games.

Trevor Vincent, who has been the driving force in digging out the facts of the 1960 race, was the 3000 metres steeplechase gold medallist at those Games.

Men

Michael Shelley delivered a surprise to Australia’s track and field team at the Commonwealth games in Deli last year when he streaked to silver in the marathon. Buzzing after his medal, Shelley continued with his success by posting two sub 2.12 performances, running 2.11.38 in the London marathon and 2.11.23 (PB) in Amsterdam in October. Other contenders for the available spots for the marathon include 2011 World champion representative Jeff Hunt. Driven to prove critics wrong after finishing his 2011 season on a low note, Hunt is a true contender. Making his debut at the marathon distance in 2010, Hunt posted a 2.11.00 performance at Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon (JPN), which saw him come 3rd, running the fastest marathon on debut and breaking the NSW record. This season, we should once again see this aspiring Olympian run another sub 2.12 Olympic A qualifier.

Lee Troop made the switch to marathons, after representing Australia in the 5000m at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and at the 1999 World Championships. He has also represented Australia in the marathon at three Olympic Games. Troop is one of only five Australian marathoners to have broken the 2:10 mark (2:09.49 at Lake Biwa marathon in 2003). 

Other contenders looking to book themselves a ticket to London in this event is Shaun Forrest, Marty Dent (2.13.27), Scott Wescott (2.12.56) Clint Perret and New Zealander Paul Martelleti who already have B Olympic standards.

Women

For the first 5 months of 2011, Commonwealth bronze medalist Lisa Weightman had a significant amount of time away from training due to injury. Moving forward again Weightman achieved in October 2011, an Olympic A qualifying standard of 2:29:23 well under the 2.32 mark set by Athletics Australia. Shy of her personal best of 2:28:48 which she set in winning the 2010 Nagano International Marathon, Weightman will have to wait for confirmation from selectors to see if she will make her second Olympic team. Others in a hunt for a place in the Olympic team include 2008 Olympian Kate Smythe (2.28.51), Lisa Flint who burst onto the Australian running scene in 2009, running 2:34.08 to win the Melbourne Marathon and secure a Commonwealth Games A qualifier and three time Olympian Benita Willis (2.22.36) who finished 21st in the marathon at the 2008 Olympics.  Kim Smith New Zealand’s national record holder over the 3000m, 5000m, 10,000m, halve marathon and marathon (2.25.21) smashed the Olympic qualifying time in finishing 5th at the recent New York marathon and looks to make her second Olympic games team for New Zealand this coming year.

It would also be great to see Anna Thompson in marathon shape once again trying to lower her 2.33.20 PB and also 2006 Commonwealth games representative Lauren Shelley running again close to her 2.33.42 best.

Do not discount possible marathon debutants and World half marathon representatives Nikki Chapple, Jess Trengrove, Cassie Fien and World university half marathon representative Clare Geraghty who made her marathon debut in Melbourne in 2011. 10,000m runner Lara Tamsett also has aspirations to become a marathon runner and has been quoted saying  “I’ve had a few thoughts about if I’m not fast enough for the 10,000m in London and should I just bite the bullet now and try a marathon early next year and see what happens?”

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