Still Running (weakly). Issue 143

PAST – inspiration – "Never mind, I’ll take the gold in the 800 metres,” said Ann Packer, as she left the commentary box in tears, having watched her fiancée, Robbie Brightwell, come fourth in the 400 metres at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.  She herself had been disappointed with only a silver in her 400 final.

Nobody gave her much of a chance in the 800 as she was very new to the event and had already raced four times at those games.  But…… “Ann Packer back in fifth place, blocked at the moment.  She’s got a lot of running to do.  But she’s doing it.  Now moving up on the outside.  Tremendous sprint.  Oh, she’s going to do it.  Oh, fantastic run.”  Thank you, David Coleman, for some marvellously biased commentary!  She did indeed do it, setting a new world record of 2:01.1, and running into Robbie Brightwell’s arms at the finish, as he and the other 4x400 boys were preparing for their relay heat.

Brightwell himself achieved some mighty consolation at those games, anchoring the British team to a surprise silver medal behind the all-conquering Americans in the 4x400 final.

Ann and Robbie married in December of that same year and had three sons, Gary, a 400 runner, and Ian and David, who both played professional football for Manchester City.  Robbie died in 2022.

2:01.1 was also the time that Briton Jane Colebrook clocked to win the European Indoor title on 13th March 1977, equalling the indoor world record, the day before Sebastian Coe claimed his first major title, winning the 800 at the same games.

As Tommy Hampson, 1932 Olympic 800 gold medallist, wrote: “For some reason, Englishmen have always excelled at running that group of distances which come between the very short sprints and the very long races over two miles and upwards………… If we may be permitted to be patriotic, they are perfectly suited to the dogged British temperament which refuses to be hustled and doesn’t know when it is beaten; and that is probably why Britons have always been so good at them.”

PRESENT – perspiration – Whilst I normally try to draw your attention to something that you may not have seen online or in the papers, I must talk this week about Keely Hodgkinson’s indoor 800 world record.

It was only her second race of the indoor season, the previous one being an 800 heat in the British Championships the weekend before, where she set a British record but did not contest the final.  This gave her a feel for the distance, as well as confirming that she was in superb form.

The previous record of 1:55.82 was set by convicted doper (using EPO) Jolanda Ceplak on 3rd March 2002 – the exact birthdate of Keely Hodgkinson!

Keely took almost a second from that time with 1:54.87.  (It is interesting to note that she went through 200 in 26.80, while Dave Wottle of the US hit 26.40 on his way to winning Olympic gold in 1972!)

This of course only increases speculation that Keely could break the longest standing world record in men’s or women’s athletics – the 1:53.28 outdoor mark by Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova which has stood since 1983.

There has long been rumour that the muscular Czech’s record was set with the aid of drugs, though she never failed a test.  In 1984, Runner’s World despatched 1968 Boston Marathon winner and East Coast editor, Amby Burfoot, to interview her and her coach and watch her train.  I have the resulting article in front of my now.  All he witnessed was a lot of hard work: 16x200 metre 12-degree hill sprints and 8x60 on a steeper hill, followed by 45 minutes of bench presses, squats and toe jumps in the gym, constituted the first of two daily sessions.

Kratochvilova took a long time to mature as an athlete, only breaking 53 for 400 when she was 27, and setting her world records at the age of 32.  This may be because of long years of hard work, or long years of judicious doping.

Whatever the truth, Keely has shown that she can right one wrong by obliterating doper Ceplak’s record.  I think the athletics world would have a similar feeling were she to take down Kratochvilova’s mark this summer.

FUTURE – suggestion – “It’s absolutely brutal as you spike your legs with lactic on the hills and then have to do a tempo,” said Keely Hodgkinson. “It takes about an hour to complete!”

Keely was talking about what she cites as her killer session, something she only faces once a year in the build-up phase.

It’s 6x30sec hill sprints with a jog back recovery in roughly one minute, followed immediately by a 6min tempo run – with all of that repeated three times.

Funnily enough, it’s very similar to the session I gave my daughter when she was staying with me once.  6 all-out hill sprints of about 20 seconds with a strict jog down recovery, followed by a half-mile time trial round the pond at the bottom of the hill.  I think I only prescribed two sets of that little lot though.

As Keely pointed out, the hills do one thing to your legs, and then you ask them to cope with an entirely different – though complementary – sort of demand.

But this reminds me that a hard session need not be one-dimensional.  You can add a tempo run to hills, or a mile time trial to 400s.  Somehow, the variety makes the workout not quite as intimidating as if it were all of one type – 20 times 400 with a 200 jog, say!