Road: A Column By Len Johnson

By Len Johnson.

When Tirunesh Dibaba ran a world record 46 minutes 28 seconds for 15km road recently, one thing stood out for me _ apart, that is, from the fact that it was fast.

Very fast. Dibaba would have split Ben Ashkettle (46:20) and the ageless Steve Moneghetti (46:32) in this year’s Victorian men’s 15km road title. And, from her constantly accelerating 5k splits _ 15:58, 15:25 and 15:05 _ it would appear the Ethiopian track superstar had a bit up her sleeve.

But the thing that really caught my attention was the fact that this was Dibaba’s first road race for over four years, since the 2005 Carlsbad 5k, in fact. Some reports said it was only her second ever road race, but the 25-year-old Dibaba also ran Carlsbad in 2002.

Dibaba (b. 1 October, 1985 and a world champion on the track at 5000 metres in 2003 in Paris at the age of 17) may well have run a few other road races as well. The point is, however, she has done so sparingly, and between April 2005 and 15 November, 2009, did not race on the road at all while becoming Olympic 5000/10,000 champion in Beijing in 2008, world champion at 10,000 in Osaka the previous year and 5000/10,000 champion in Helsinki in 2005, and world cross-country champion in 2005 (both long and short races), 2006 (long race), and 2008.

Which brings up the point of whether road racing and track racing are compatible. It’s a conundrum facing Australian distance runners as they confront a fortnight which brings both the Great Australian Run 15k road and the Zatopek 10,000 within 12 days.

Each is prestigious. The GAR has been granted Australian road championship status, while the Zatopek ‘10’ carries the national title as well as being the selection race for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Alberto Salazar, who has just won a US coaching award for his work with Galen Rupp, Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher, among others, had an apt comment on this back in his running days. Actually, he endorsed an observation originally made by Marty Liquori: “Road racing is rock ‘n’ roll; track is Carnegie Hall.

Salazar said this around about the time he had finished second in the world cross-country, won the Boston marathon in a sub-2:09 and lost narrowly to Henry Rono in a track 10,000 _ all within a couple of months.

For all that his best Olympic gold medal chance was held to be in the 1984 Olympic marathon, Alberto Salazar also raced sparingly on the roads. He never strayed far from his track and cross-country background; nor did his great rival Robert de Castella; nor did Steve Moneghetti. Lisa Ondieki was no fan of cross-country, but she raced on the track every year. Kerryn McCann excelled in track, road and cross-country.

Andrew Lloyd was another versatile distance runner who excelled in all three disciplines, winning numerous road races, a couple of national cross-country titles and a Commonwealth Games gold medal at 5000.

While it’s obviously possible to mix road and track running, too much of the former seems to have a negative impact on the latter. ‘Lloydie’ may be a case in point. He was fearsomely hard to beat on the track because of his kick, but occasionally his speed and rhythm suffered from too much road running.

Pat Clohessy trained numerous ‘victims’ of Lloyd’s finishing sprint, but he used to have a fine eye for those occasions when Andrew would get into what ‘Clo’ would call his road rhythm, characterised by a longer, more loping stride. “He might have him,” Pat would say of Simon Doyle, Pat Carroll, Sean Creighton or whichever of his athletes was trying to run the kick out of ‘Lloydie’ on this particular day. Usually, he would be spot on.

It might be possible to say when an athlete has done too much running on the roads to fulfil his or her potential on the track, but how much is too much is another matter entirely. A balanced preparation, too, can allow you to combine the two even in a relatively short time. Steve Moneghetti won a couple of his four Zatopeks coming off a track 5000, followed by racing for Australia in the Chiba Ekiden.

One thing for sure, though, if you want to play Carnegie Hall, you can’t spend too much time indulging yourself in rock ‘n’ roll. The best don’t, so you can’t afford to do otherwise.