I stubbed my toe on a rock: By Len Johnson

I stubbed my big toe on a rock. It’s purple now, maybe tomorrow it will be black, blue, or a bit of both.

Two days into a stay at Falls Creek, I decided to run Spion Kopje, the brilliant 24km run the ‘out’ section of which ends with an undulating climb to the summit of Spion Kopje. Tough, but widely regarded as one of the best runs at Falls.

I wasn’t expecting a ‘pb’. I was prepared to pepper my run with judiciously-timed walks. Having survived all the hard bits, I was back on the dirt road up the back of Mt Nelse. It is one of my favourite sections of the run, a steady, not-too-steep climb on a good surface.

Good until I encountered the rock, that is. Smooth, round, about the size of a volley ball, buried in the dirt. Like an iceberg, its bulk – and menace - was below the surface. I could have stepped clean over it, could have scuffed it with my left shoe and merely stumbled: instead, I caught it flush on, stubbing my big toe, rolling over, and ending up staring into, and cursing, the clear blue sky.

After a few minutes’ limping, I was able to run again, albeit painfully. Oh, and also not downhill, because that jammed my throbbing toe into the toe-box of the shoe. Seeing about 70 percent of the distance left was downhill, that was somewhat of a problem.

Still, as the only member of our group to attempt Spion Kopje, with a multi-coloured toe to show for it, the silver lining of the cloud over my big toe has been having bragging rights without the necessity to back up with another epic run. This period of barely-earned respect and admiration will probably have expired by the time you’re reading about it.

 It also offered the perfect excuse to watch the next day’s session of 400s out on the Langfords Gap aqueducts. With over 120 runners taking part, both the logistics and the spectacle were formidable. Falls at Christmas-New Year is a great time to be a distance runner.

Most of Australia’s top runners are here, together with a far bigger number who either want to reach the same level, or simply get better. It is a time for building bases and relationships, a sound foundation of aerobic fitness and the realisation you are not alone in what is often referred to as a solitary sport both being valuable assets.

Inevitably, it is also a time to reflect on the year just past. Australian middle and long-distance running had a mixed time of it in 2011, memorable achievements balanced by disappointments.

In May, after Ben St Lawrence had broken the national record for 10,000 metres, Eloise Wellings had qualified for the Daegu 10,000 and Kaila McKnight had got the A-standard for 1500 in Korea, I wrote a column titled, “we’ve been here before”. It pointed out that we had been producing distance championship qualifiers for a few years now without any of them breaking through to perform on the bigger stage.

Some apparently viewed this as a negative sentiment, or as criticism. It was neither. Instead, it was an expression of hope that one of our distance representatives would make the same impact in Daegu as Craig Mottram had in Helsinki 2005 and Melbourne 2006.

In any event, it didn’t happen and distance running copped it in the neck somewhat in post-world championships reviews for under-performing. One obvious response is, “at least they got there” – unlike sprinters, 400m runners, high jumpers, hammer throwers. Our track and field team in Daegu, as in Delhi the previous year, had more holes than a Swiss cheese.

Most of these athletes are beginning their Olympic year at Falls, and you’d imagine one of their stronger motivations at the moment is to do better at London 2012 than Daegu 2011. Falling short of expectation one year is always a strong motivator to do better the next.

Not all of them will do better, of course. That’s the nature of athletics. No-one ever prepares to fail, but, inevitably, some do. One minute you’re flying, the next you’re flat on your back, staring into the blue sky, cursing your throbbing big toe.