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One of the consequences – intended or otherwise - of the IAAF’s shortening of the qualifying period for this year’s world championships is that some events have an alarmingly low number of qualified athletes.

For those still unaware, the qualifying period for Daegu opened on 1 October last year, cutting nine months of the period athletes have to attain the entry standards. In effect, it was a whole season, as only the early part of the southern hemisphere season falls into the last three months of the year.

With many athletes spending a good part 2011 focused on the process of making their national teams, it leaves precious little time to actually post qualifying performances. The impact is more severely felt in middle and long-distance events where the tactics of getting in the first three can militate against achieving the time required to qualify.

Indeed, as the next phase of the Diamond League kicks in with meetings over the weekend in Paris and Birmingham, only a dozen men (on a three per nation basis) have so far achieved the A-standard of 3:35.00 in the 1500 metres.

The situation is not as stark in the 800. Nineteen athletes (again on the three per nation basis and assuming I didn’t go cross-eyed counting) have attained the A-mark of 1:45.40.

Of course, one athlete per nation can be entered with a B-standard, but it is an alarming thought that just over a month before entries close, the world championships 1500 could be run as a straight final if it were restricted to A-qualifiers.

As noted, the 800 is better, but there are still not enough A-qualifiers to fill the three semi-finals so mysteriously beloved of championships organisers these days.

The state of the women’s 1500 is not much healthier, in terms of A-qualifiers. Only 16 women (three per nation) have run 4:05.90 or faster. Around 20 have bettered the 800 standard of 1:59.80.

The US championships had close and exciting racing in the distances, but no US man has an A-standard in the 1500. No British runner is qualified and no Australian either. We expect that to change, of course, but the time constraints leave little margin for error.

What’s even more disturbing, is the paucity of qualifying races. Outside the Diamond League and a couple of other meetings, very few men’s 1500s are won in 3:35.00 or better. Yet in the orchestrated races of the League, almost anyone can qualify. Eighth place in Doha and seventh in Shanghai ran under 3:35.00.

Admittedly, these were Kenyan runners who won’t count on a three per nation basis, but is eighth in Doha any more worthy of a run in the world championships right now than the winner of highly competitive races in the Australian or US titles (neither of whom is yet qualified).

 I’ve written before about the paucity of 10,000 metres races around the world which produce qualifying times. A 3:35 standard appears to be pushing the 1500 the same way.

There are hidden ‘kickers’ in other changes announced for this year. The cost to fans of the decision to make the first round of the 100 metres a ‘qualifying round’, with a small number going through to join the qualified athletes in what used to be the quarter-final round, has already been noted. No longer is it possible to buy a ticket for the first session of athletics at a world championships or Olympics and see all the best sprinters.

But there will be a nasty surprise awaiting athletes, too, if the change means a more savage pruning from the new ‘first round’ to the semi-finals. Sprinters who used to be able to count on at least two races, with a third, in the semis, if they ran their socks off, will now find themselves getting just one. Lucky these blokes will be safely off the track when they find out they won’t be coming back the next day!

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Regardless of the qualifying standards, it’s been a good week for Australian distance runners, with Jeff Riseley and Kaila McKnight added to the Daegu team after achieving the standards in the men’s 800 and women’s 1500, respectively.

With Craig Mottram and Collis Birmingham racing over 5000 metres in the Birmingham DL on Sunday and Riseley, Tamsyn Manou (nee Lewis) running the 800, and Ryan Gregson and Jeremy Roff among those chasing the 1500 qualifier over the coming weeks, let’s hope several more join them in the team for Daegu.

Footnote: Matt Centrowitz, Leonel Manzano and Andrew Wheating, the US Daegu men's 1500 selections (Bernard Lagat, second in the trial, ceded his place to Wheating), all got the world championships A-standard at the Paris DL. Rather proving the point about DL races, trials winner Centrowitz finished 11th (3:34.69), Manzano sixth (3:33.66) and Wheating ninth (3:34.39).

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It’s been a while since I last posted a blog for RT. Since finishing my honours thesis at the end of last year I’ve been a bit slack on the typing front.

 

I thought it would be an appropriate time to put up a blog, corresponding with my first serious race of the Domestic season, being the Hunter Track Classic. After stringing together some good training over the last few months, I was looking forward to having a crack at a fast 3k, after bypassing the NSW 3000m Championships, due to a niggle. I was happy with my result last weekend, 4^th in a pb time by nearly 5 seconds in a quality domestic field. My main aim is to continue this pb form over the coming months and to improve on last years performances at the Athletics Australia Tour meets. The focus will be the same as last season, the 1500m, with the odd 800m race to supplement this distance.

 

I have approached this season slightly different to the last one, in that I decided against going away on a training camp and instead stayed in familiar surroundings in Geelong (last season I went up to Charlotte Pass (NSW) for two three week stints). Based on my training form and the 3km race, I think this has worked so far. This has also allowed me to stay around friends and family and a familiar environment with all the facilities and services that I require in my approach to training. It has also given me the opportunity to spend some time at my parent’s farm, which I always enjoy getting back to the country - because Geelong’s such a big city! It’s about 200 km west of Geelong in South West Victoria. Although going home is no holiday, it involves a bit of farm work which is varied and can be physically tiring at times; but I find it a great place to train with endless dirt roads and with my girlfriend on the bike, someone to keep up with me in training (most of the time).  

 

Enjoy the summer of racing,

 

Brenton

Q: What was your mileage like as a 17 year old?

 

RG: Skip stepped up my mileage gradually over time when I was younger so when I was 17 I was probably doing up over 100km, maxing out at around 110km

 

Q: How do you have both the speed for the 1500 and the aerobic ability for the 5k to nab all 3 records within a few weeks?

 

RG: I'm lucky enough to be naturally quite fast so I mainly work on my endurance which is my weakness. So I was able to train more like a 5km man.

 

Q: As a 17 year old how fast did you do your long runs/ recovery runs?

 

RG: All recovery runs very easy because it's all in the name, 'recovery'. Long runs harder, if I feel good, push it along a bit, but if I'm tired, I just jog easy.

 

Q: What was the biggest difference between your training from 2006 to 2007?

 

RG: Nothing. Just consistently getting it done for a number of years made everything click in November 2007.

 

Q:  As a 17 year old did you ever have rest days?

 

RG: Always had a rest day on Friday when I grew up. Skip thought it was essential to have a full day of recovery. But now I run much more, I need all the days of the week to spread the running around.

 

Q:  As a 17 year old how many days a week would you train on the track?

 

RG:  In winter never and in summer once a week. Reps still weren't short though. Always working on strength with an occasional shorter tune up session to get me ready for a race.

 

By Daniel Wallis

Simon Rogers, son of 1984 Olympic 1500m finalist Tony Rogers, has justfinished his first year at Purdue University in Indiana. Before leaving New Zealand Rogers finished 2^nd in the New Zealand Under-19 1500m, running 3:51.10, while that same year was 3^rd over 3000m in a time of 8:29.00. While struggling with injury over the cross-country and indoor track season, Rogers ran an impressive 3:46 1500m this outdoor season to earn a spot to the NCAA East-Preliminary round as a freshman. 

 

The Runnerstribe caught up with Simon to ask him about the season, adjustment to life in the US, and his plans for the summer. 

As the son of a 1500m Olympic-finalist, how did you perceive athletics growing up? Did you always want to run? 

 

I was always interested to learn about Dad’s running career and what athletics was all about. Growing up I took part in kids athletics but wasn’t really a stand out by any means. I was probably more concerned with my cricket or rugby games in the years before high school. But entering high school things changed a bit and I started to do some structured training for track and cross country, and by about 14 found that I wasn’t going to be an All Black so cross country became my winter sport. Then around 16 cricket was getting in the way of track, so that’s when I made the full-time commitment to athletics as my sport and to having Dad coach me.

 

How was it being coached by your father in NZ? Did running seem to fit in everywhere or was athletics left from the dinner table?

 

Running has always been a big part of my life, even before I even took part in it. A lot of family holiday’s were to running events around the country where dad was either in a coaching or organizing role, and I would love being immersed in the sport in any way possible. So when dad started coaching me, the only thing that changed was that I was now running as one of his athletes. It does become interesting when you leave the track after a workout and continue to talk about training or racing over cooking dinner on the BBQ, but it’s what I’ve always enjoyed about our relationship. It only been this past year that I have really come to appreciate how much knowledge Dad possesses as a high-performance coach and how much he has taught me over the years.

 

What prompted the move to Purdue?

 

The move to the States was always a goal of mine, and I feel I am very fortunate to be where I am. It was obvious that with so many of the young middle-distance guys my age leaving to the states over the past few years, that there is a huge advantage both in training and racing at a very competitive level. In my search for colleges I wanted to also take into account the academic side life, and chose a school that would allow me to continue with my degree in Sport Science and Psychology. Athletically being part of the Big-10 conference is a huge advantage as the level of distance running in our conference is very deep, with 25 guys running under 3.48 for the 1500 this season in our conference alone.

How was the initial adjustment? Does anything stand out as being difficult regarding the transition from NZ to the states?

 

Initially I guess I didn’t really know what to expect when I arrived last August, and this year has been huge in terms of learning a variety of lessons. The style of XC racing is very different from NZ in terms the aggressive nature of going out in around 2.40 for the first km in some races.

The big thing was just adjusting to a new program and the training over here, it takes some getting used to when suddenly you change aspects on your approach to training.

 

How is the training compared to what you were doing in NZ? What is a typical training week for Cross, Indoors, and Outdoors. 

 

During XC it took me a while to adjust to the heat and humidity of late summer and early fall in Indiana and as a result the workouts were pretty intense. One workout that stands out in mind was on a blistering hot day on our cross course where we did a 2mile tempo in 10mins then ran a mile to recover (7min pace) then into 5x1km at a fast pace with short recovery. We had lots of good workouts like this on our course which has some good hills in it, as well as intense fartlek sessions where the effort time is just faster than race pace, and the recovery portion is at steady run pace.

 

As for indoors, my training was just trying to get me fit as quick as possible after having around 6weeks out with an unfortunate ankle injury just 2 days prior to the conference cross country. So nothing really to spectacular indoors, just ladder workouts or 400s and 200s at goal race pace.

 

Outdoors I was finally feeling like I knew what I was doing, and felt somewhat normal again in terms of my fitness and consistency.  I had left off the year before in NZ at 3.51 for 1500 and just wanted to pick up from there. Typical training week this spring was around 40-45miles with 1 hard longer interval workout either Monday Tuesday, 1000s or ladders. A 7mile somewhere in the mid week, then some light 200s or 150s later in the week leading into the race for that week, with easy runs on the other days.

 

How have you found racing in the states different from NZ? How do you feel about racing three consecutive seasons? 

 

The volume of racing I did this year was defiantly greater than back home, and probably just so that I would be able to get as much experience in the first year here. With all those lessons in mind, I hope to race a little less next year so I can take my season all the way to Nationals in June. That will just take patience and consistency through cross-country and indoors.

 

Do you feel as if the deep level of athletes in the states has pushed you too a new level in performance?

 

Yea the depth here has pushed me to work harder and has defiantly led to me improving physical and mental toughness from where I was a year ago. Walking away from our conference meet last month after just missing advancing to the 1500 final by 0.02seconds, I realised that I will have to come back next year not only stronger, but with an even bigger aggressive and confident approach.

 

What do you like to do outside of training/racing? 

 

Right now I’ve been taking a summer class, which is a class normally over a whole semester squeezed into 4 weeks so that’s been keeping me busy. But generally when I’m not doing schoolwork I’m hanging out with the team - a great bunch of people. It’s really cool how we have such a range of people on our team, and both the men’s and women’s distance runners are coached by the same 2 coaches.

 

What are your training and non-training plans for the summer?

 

Once this class finishes up on the 11^th of June I’ll be hanging out in West Lafayette for a another week then will be heading home to NZ for 6 weeks of good solid training, where I hope to get some of my first ever weeks of 60+miles. I’m still a low mileage kind of guy, but hoping to set a much stronger base for next year.

 

Is your coach individualistic or is it very much a blanket training system for all the runners? Has your Dad played any role in your training since you have been at Purdue?

 

Our Coach takes great time and effort to individualize our training, and my mileage was slightly lower than my training partner for the mile/1500 so my coach realized that my background had yet to go beyond 50mile weeks. In cross the workouts are broken in to 3 or 4 groups according to fitness/ability level but the workout is still based on the same idea. But as we went through indoors and outdoors we became very individualized and by the 3.46 I was definitely seeing the benefits.

As for Dad’s influence, he has continued to provide great advice, especially in the way of helping me initially to adjust to changes and new approaches to training, as well as being there to bounce ideas off for training and racing. 

After missing the entire XC season, im back into it, ripping out some kms, pumping some weights, lining up a few local races trying to get into some race fitness.

Cameron is sponsored by The Runner's Tribe. Made possible by    

 

After missing the entire XC season, im back into it, ripping out some kms, pumping some weights, lining up a few local races trying to get into some race fitness. Training has been going pretty well, doing some solid session's including some tough sand hill reps in boudi national park. Winter training was pretty light , trying to get a toe injury better and stay injury free, during this time I did a fair bit of cross training including swimming, gym and underwater rock running which is a real lungbuster. I've also become a lot more serious in stretching and icing and getting on top of little injuries before it becomes a major problem. Most of my sessions are run in Bouddi National Park including beach running with 1 or 2 track sessions, a fair bit of swimming with a couple of gym session's a week and some recovery icing session's. One of the greatest things about living/training on the Central Coast is the national parks and the beaches, Bouddi has magnificent views, reefs, shipwrecks, pounding surf, beaches, scenic coastal tracks, its just a wonderful environment to run in, its spiritually uplifting, so when you're running along one of the many beaches in Bouddi and you�re hit with a spray from the surf you can just breathe the salt air and you can feel your chest expand and you can feel the muscles in your leg tingle, its just makes you want to run. A usual daily discussion of Steve Prefontaines "Without Limits" passes the time. I'm stoked on running after any sort of session in Bouddi. Most hard session's are usually done in the arvo with easier ones in the morning so recovery is maximised. After any sort of hard sess it's recovery time which usually consists of a dive in the ocean, some gentle kicking in the water, a good surf, and laying on the beach with some beverages.



However the price to pay for Bouddi's breathtaking beauty is the difficulty of the terrain, lets just say I'd take 'The hill' at Nowra any day over a run in bouddi, it has some hectic hills, best summed up by the infamous 'Goat Track', forged on a steep mountainous climb that could have only originated in hell itself. When your toes bleed, that's running, when everything bleeds, that bouddi national park! Bouddi is also home of Trevor the bush turkey, a likeable young bush turkey, who we found injured one morning and nursed back to health, he usually joins for a couple kms before dropping us. Another great thing is having a very supportive coach- Kevin Wills who has come up with some unique principles of training to follow which keeps it interesting. Also having a great group of central coast runner�s notably the BMDB- Bringing middle distance back guys including Geoff Arnold, Cale Bowd, david Mainwaring, Tim Page, Dom an Ed Perry and Ben Guest.

Hopefully in the next few months I'll have a lot more time to train and get serious, with distraction�s such as the HSC etc out the way. Training now is starting to get more race specific including more fast track workout's and shorter, faster runs in general. I'm hoping to race well in the NSW 3km champs and run a fast time there and race consistently well throughout the season, hopefully clocking some world junior qualifier's and focus on that as a main goal in the long term.

Cam

 

'Most hard session's are usually done in the arvo with easier ones in the morning so recovery is maximised'
Cameron Page

 In December, 1952, a young man stood on the starting line for a mile race at Melbourne ’s Olympic Park, unsure whether the rumbling in his stomach was pre-race nerves or emanated from the couple of meat pies and chocolate sundae he had wolfed down less than two hours earlier.

It's a gloomy summers morning, and as I look across the road, a sea of runners are making their way in either direction around the well known 'Tan' track in Melbourne. As I contemplate this scene for a second, my attention returns to my company, that of Australian 1500m runner Jeremy Roff. Having run the heats of the Victorian 800m titles last night, Roff and I have just finished an easy jog, and tuck into a coffee and muffin while we discuss all things running, and importantly, the running of the man opposite me.

For those who are unaware of Roff's exploits, it is a tale of hard work, determination and perseverance. While many of his junior age group counterparts were running mid to low 3:45's over 1500m, Roff wasn't. However, four years later, Roff was the one lining up on the start line of the Commonwealth Games 1500m final, a PB of 3:38.20 to his name, and a handful of senior medals in his possession. The final may not have been a PB run, but making it this far was a dream that every young athlete had dreamt of, and now Roff had achieved.


This year, Roff is taking a slightly different approach to previous years, focusing more on one or two main races, and training through the races in between. "Probably one of the mistakes Ken (Green) and I made was to taper for too many races last year, so this year we are going to make sure we keep the mileage up throughout the summer, instead of backing off every couple of weeks", Roff explained. "I am feeling good about how things are progressing so far. I have opened up the season with faster times than previous seasons. I am hitting better marks at training and also making sure I continue to do all the little things which over time add up."

 

His trip to Melbourne for the Vic Champs was all aimed at increasing his speed, whilst getting used to a Nationals program. Contesting the 800m involved running three rounds in four days, giving Roff the opportunity to get in plenty of race practice. One goal had set himself is to run a PB and break the 1minute50 mark, which he confesses is something that needs to happen to take the next step (Editors note: Roffy did indeed break the 1:50 mark, clocking 1:48.79).

"Most of the guys I am racing have run under 1:50, some as fast as 1:46, so I need to have that speed available for the back end of a 1500m if the pace turns out to be slow", states Roff. "The World Champs in Berlin will be a heat/semi/final affair, so I need to get used to that feeling of backing up as well. It's all well and good to be able to turn out good sessions on the track, but if you don't know how to put that hard work into a race, then you're not really achieving much".

One of the integral parts of Roff's development as an athlete is the yearly trip to Falls Creek, which he has been making for the last seven years. Being able to train with Roff and be part of Falls Creek in 2008/09, I was able to see just how much having time away from work and all other commitments can enhance ones running. "You basically train, recover, sleep, train, recover again, stretch and sleep", Roff describes. "You aren't tired from a days work. The only thing that tires you out is the work you are putting in. It's a fantastic way to get the most out of your body, and having nothing else clouding your mind."

From here, Roff will run the Sydney Track Classic, and the World Athletics Tour event in Melbourne, running in the 1500m in both. Following that, either a European or USA campaign will follow, based on how he is travelling. "We stayed in Wimbledon last year, and that was terrific", Roff revealed. "I would love to go back there, or somewhere else if a better offer comes up." Either way, Roff is doing all the right things, and with the careful guidance of Coach Green, and with his own steely determination, it seems anything is possible.


 

Editors Note: Jeremy fnished 3rd in the Final of the Vic Champs on Sunday, with a new PB of 1:48.79. Roffy then went on to place fourth at the Sydney Track Classic 1500m running a PB of 3:37.59 (World Champ B qualifier). The Runnerstribe team wish him all the best for the rest of the track season, and for the road to Berlin.

 

 

'It's a fantastic way to get the most out of your body, and having nothing else clouding your mind'
Jeremy Roff on training at Falls Creek

1500m - World Record

 

1500m - 99 Seville World Champs

 

1500m - Sydney Olympics Men's Final