Blog
Athletics Victoria has recently been forced to cancel its annual road relay from Harcourt to Bendigo. Traffic, and hence safety, concerns at three of the changeovers have led police and local authorities to ask for a new traffic management plan for the race. Organisers were not able to document such a plan in the time available, so this year’s race is off. Athletics Victoria remains hopeful a successful outcome can be negotiated for next year, either in the Bendigo Region, or elsewhere. If that hope is misplaced, however, this coul...
My last blog post was the day that I was notified that I had been selected to travel to Poland and run for Australia, from that day right up until the big race, I did almost everything right with some great sessions that gave me confidence going into the event. I travelled to Poland with a great group of people that bonded really well. It was great having the Ballarat Project guys Collis Birmingham and Brett Robinson on the team, also Liam Adams, a regular on the Australian team for World XC. They provided great advice going into the race with...
By Joshua Papanikolaou Welcome to Runner’s Tribe Shawn and congratulations on your selection for the World Championships in the marathon. Firstly, did you know it was a possibility that you could have been picked? My coach, Nic Bideau, told me that I should fill out a nomination online, so I did. You must be very happy to get this opportunity, how is the fitness at the moment, have you raced recently? I am building my strength at the moment; it is the beginning of summer here in North Carolina and we get ...
Runner’s Tribe: You recently finished 15th with 3:57.08 in the Bowerman Mile. Can you share your thoughts on this race? Did you go in with a race plan? Everybody likes to run faster. Both Collis Birmingham and I had a different lead in into this race and it obviously didn't work for us but we'll be looking to turn it around next race. RT: On June 13th you’ll be competing at the Oslo Diamond League in the mile. What are your expectations for this race? I love the Dream Mile. I'd like a...
It’s difficult to sum up the last 12 months into one blog. So I will focus on giving a brief insight into the college life, how I ended up there and how the season went after my first year. I had quite a successful final year of being a junior before I made the move. I had improved a lot since high school and finished it off with a win at U20 nationals in the 800m, albeit bittersweet as I hadn’t quite hit the standard for World Juniors to gain selection. With my junior career coming to a close, I was looking to what th...
Good evening, and here is the news. Usain Bolt has been beaten in a 100 metres race. The world and Olympic champion, and world record holder, lost to Yohan Blake at the . . . . Sorry; that’s last year’s news. Oh, wait again. It’s this year’s news, too. Bolt lost to American Justin Gatlin at the Rome Golden Gala meeting on Thursday night. Bolt lost to Blake at last year’s Jamaican Olympic Trials. Some believed that it was the prospect of losing to Blake that triggered Bolt’s false start, disqualification and ...
Hi All, At the time of writing I'm sat at home waiting to leave for my first race since the marathon in February. The race is a the New South Wales 4x4k XC relay and will be a good race to sharpen me up a bit and also tell me where I'm at. I feel training has gone pretty well in the past few weeks. Sessions were a bit up and down for a few weeks - I was taken apart a couple of times by James Nipperess - but they've become more consistent in the past 2 weeks. The past Tuesday we did 2 x 10mins hard off 5 mins steady and averaged 2.56/km ...
By Joshua Papanikolaou Runner’s Tribe: Since London what have you concentrated on to build back up and bring you to a great stint of training and racing in the US? Ben St Lawrence: 2012 was quite a disappointing year for me as far as top-end results were concerned. It had been a long time since I had run close to what I considered my best, and by the time I got through Zatopek at the end of 2012, it had been months since I'd run without some pretty significant pain (first with a metatarsal injury, then a hip injury). I had tr...
Australian Mountain Running Championships I have run Australian championships in distances ranging from 3000m (or 1500m as a junior) to half marathon, over steeples, cross country, track and road, but I have never run an Aussie mountain running championship. With the titles being held in Canberra and the course not quite as steep as it is most years, I wanted to give it a go. The course was three laps on the back of Mt Stromlo, starting at the top, dropping about 170m before climbing back up. It included two hills on Deek’s 22 mil...
The Hume Highway 1983 was nothing like the road portrayed in Cliffy. As depicted in the telemovie, the route linking Australia’s two major cities, Sydney and Melbourne, wound its way up hill and down dale through lonely countryside. Cattle and sheep gazed on with bovine and sheepish indifference as Cliff Young and the Sydney-Melbourne race laboured by. Once a large truck appeared out of nowhere to veer uncomfortably close to our hero – at that stage progressing in a zombie-like shuffle; but the threat receded and the highway revert...
