Gatlin

Quoted message said:

Gatlin breaks record in 100 with time of 9.76.

"This was a perfect race," Gatlin said. "I am a competitor and I
promised I would get the world record and I have done it. I don't go
for world records. They come to me."

-

Love the approach & attitude.

"Tell Justin (Gatlin) congratulations (but) the record is only on loan,"
Powell was quoted by his agent Paul Doyle as saying shortly after the
American clocked 9.76 seconds in Doha, Qatar on Friday.

---
Powell has been going great guns, especially his last couple of runs
in the past 2-3 weeks or so where he went 9.95 even with a bad start
and another one where he shut down his jets 40m from the end.

It'll be very interesting to see the two meet later this year.

jobs

I love reading these guys talk about their game. Here's some up to the
moment on Mottram and his up coming race this weekend in NYC. Damn I
wish I could run...I enjoy being in the same event as these
superstars....I guess it's the kid in me. Donovan's gonna probably
line up within a foot or so of Mottram at the start. I'm betting on
the Aussie.........you know which one, lol.
___

An Interview with Craig Mottram prior to NY 10km

15 May 2006 | 11.10am

Craig Mottram will attempt to defend his title at the Healthy Kidney
10K in New York, New York on May 20. Mottram won last year?s inaugural
event in 28:28, the second-fastest 10K ever run in Central Park. This
year, Mottram will try to break the Central Park course record of
28:10, set by Paul Koech in 1997. Mottram also won a much shorter road
race in New York last year, September?s Continental Airlines Fifth
Avenue Mile.

Mottram has already had a busy 2006. During the winter, he won the
Reebok Boston Indoor Games 2-mile, set an Oceanic record for 2000
meters of 4:50.76 and placed second at 5000 meters in front of 70,000
hometown fans at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.

Mottram, 25, was third at last year?s world championship 5000 meters in
Helsinki, and placed 8th in the event at the 2004 Olympics. His
personal bests include 3:48.98 for the mile, 7:37.30 for 3000 meters
and 12:55.76 for 5000 meters, all of which are Australian records.

MensRacing.com: Out of all the road races in the world you could be
running, why are you returning to the Healthy Kidney 10K?

Craig Mottram: I had a good experience there last year. I liked being
in New York?it was a lot of fun. And the race worked out well last
year?two weeks later I won in Seville [in a world-class track 5000
meters], and this year I?m starting to get going again after the
Commonwealth Games. So if it isn?t broke, don?t fix it.

MR: You?ve said that you want to break the Central Park course record
this year. Last year, you ran 28:28, and Hendrick Ramaala and Meb
Keflezighi were in the race. Who do you think can help push you this
year to breaking 28:10, the course record?
CM: Last year, I wasn?t after the course record. Last year, Meb and
Hendrick weren?t in the greatest of shape?Hendrick was coming back from
the London Marathon?and we just kind of rolled through 5K, and I didn?t
start pushing until the second 5K. I?ll probably have to do it myself,
but I can do it.

MR: What do you have planned for after the Healthy Kidney race?
CM: I?m running the 2-mile at the Pre meet a week later, and then it?s
straight off to Europe to race the mile at Oslo. That?s all I know at
this point. After those races, we?ll sit down and consider whether to
keep racing or to have a bit more training before more racing in
Europe.

This is a different year than the last two years. For Australians,
we?ve already had our major championships. The rest of the year is more
about meeting personal goals.

MR: So your training right now isn?t planned so that you peak at a
certain time this summer?
CM: Not at this point. By the end of the European summer, I intend to
have run fast at every distance this year?1500, 5K, 2K, 3K. But like I
said, we?ll get through Oslo and then sit down and decide whether I
need more training or to keep racing. I?m going to concentrate more on
racing the 1500 and 3K, because that will complement my 5K the next
couple of years.

MR: Have you set time goals for those shorter events?
CM: I want the Australian records in all of them. In the 1500, that?s
3:31.6. [Mottram has run 3:34.80.] I have the mile and 3K records, so
in the 1500, I want as close to 3:30 as I can, and in the 3K as far
under 7:30 as I can. I might have a go at another 5K in Europe, but
it?s not a priority for the rest of this year.

MR: How did you change your training this year compared to the last few
years, so that you would be in sub-13:00 5K shape for the Commonwealth
Games in March?
CM: The Commonwealth Games were the major focus of the year for me and
most Australian athletes. To be ready for it, I did more stuff on the
track than I normally do at that time of year. But to be honest, if I
need to be, I?m never more than six weeks away from being in sub-13:00
shape. So we just moved that time frame forward. That doesn?t mean I
can?t do it again in the same year.

MR:I was going to ask about that. It seems like you?re ready to run
good races at a variety of distances no matter what time of year it is.

CM: Yeah, I?m fit pretty much all year round. At the end of the
European season, I rest a bit, but I still run every day, because I
like going out for a run and I just like feeling fit. There?s no point
in the year when I?m not fit or I?m putting on weight or anything like
that.

Your observation that I?m in good shape for several distances
throughout the year is because my aerobic fitness is good all year; the
base is always there. The basic principle is a lot of running, longer
reps and pace runs. There are maybe only six weeks in the year when I?m
not at 150 to 170 kilometers for the week. I don?t go much below 140
kilometers a week even when racing in the European summer. Our year
runs 12 months?we have commitments in the Australian summer, when it?s
winter here. So I?m not someone who lets the volume drop much
throughout the year.

MR:Right now you?re in Boulder. What training are you emphasizing
there?
CM: Mostly base work, getting stronger. It?s difficult to do quality
stuff on the track up here [at 5,000 feet of altitude], so we?re doing
a lot of pace runs and longer hill reps.

MR: By "pace runs" do you mean threshold work?
CM: Yeah.

MR:What?s an example?
CM: The other day we did three times 15 minutes, with a one-minute jog
between.

MR:On what? Road? Track? Trail?
CM: It was on a pretty flat dirt path, soft surface. Each one, the
first five minutes were at a heart rate of 165, then the next five
minutes at 170, then the last five minutes at 175. That, of course, is
very individual, what heart rates you run at. But the amount of work is
pretty standard for pace runs, somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes of
work.

MR:What?s your max heart rate?
CM: That?s a good question. I haven?t had it tested in awhile. I know I
can keep it in the mid to high 190s for a long time. After awhile, the
pace runs are as much feeling that you?re working at the right effort
as opposed to looking at a number on a piece of paper.

MR:Your biggest races are mostly of two sorts?the time-trial type of
meets where you?re trying to run as fast as possible, and the major
championships, where place is most important. In the championship
races, you have to be able to surge and counter moves and things like
that. Do you practice those tactics in training, like purposefully
getting boxed in during a track workout?
CM:That is very difficult to simulate in training. The key is to be
super fit and ready to deal with whatever happens in the race. A lot of
people say you have to super quick to medal in championship races. But
in Helsinki, we ran the last lap in 53. That?s not super quick. The
fitness and strength have to be there so that you can get through the
first 11-and-a-half laps. I don?t care how quick you are if by the last
lap you?ve lost your ability to sprint. So the basic thing is to be fit
and strong. The races give you that little extra quickness.

MR:What about altering the pace of repeats in a workout to simulate
surging and recovering?
CM: Not in the middle of repeats, no. But say we?re doing kilometer
repeats on dirt. We?ll do eight or ten, and maybe do the fifth and
seventh ones 15 seconds faster than the rest.

MR:Who?s in your normal group?
CM: Benita Johnson, Andrew Letherby?that?s where I am now, at his place
in Boulder. And we have a good group back in Melbourne. You wouldn?t
know their names, but they?re guys who are always fit. When we?re in
London, our coach tries to bring a couple of them over to keep us
company and bring some normality to things.

MR:So how much running do you do on your own?
CM: None. I have a guy who rides his bike with me, Gary Henry, a
retired runner. He lives with me when I?m in London and Australia, and
he rides his bike alongside me and tells me stories and makes me laugh.
I don?t mind running by myself, but we?re trying to do things no one
has ever done before. It can be a grind. It?s good to have someone
there to give me a kick in the ass or tell me I?m doing the right
thing.

MR: How much of the year are you at altitude?
CM: I probably spend about four months out of the year at altitude. In
Australia, there?s a place called Falls Creek?that?s my favorite place
in the world to train, and I try to spend as much time there as I can.
In April and May, I?m usually at altitude for four weeks, like I am
now.

MR: I?ve been to Iten, Kenya, and have run with Augustine Chore [who
defeated Mottram at the Commonwealth Games in March]. I couldn?t
believe how slow we were going on recovery runs. Do you do that?
CM: We always run slowly. That?s why you have your [hard] sessions.
Recovery runs are just that?recovery runs. I train a lot of the time
with girls, and they drop me some of the time. They?re just able to get
rolling sooner than I am.

MR: Not a lot of people here in the States do that.
CM: Not a lot of them are doing 110 miles a week for most of the year,
either. Do that, and you?ll get sore and tired and fatigued. It becomes
more of a survival thing. You usually feel better at the end than at
the start.

MR: Tell me a little about your background in triathlons.
CM: I was doing them starting in 1993, for five-and-a-half years. I ran
when I was a lot younger, in what in Australia is called Little
Athletics. I stopped doing that after my family moved a couple hours
away from where we?d been. So when I started doing triathlons, I was
sort of a runner first. I wasn?t the best in the world, but I was
pretty good at it. Then, in Australia, year 12 in school is when you
take exams for university, and I started running into time constraints
with training for triathlons?getting up at 4:00 or 5:00 to swim, riding
before and after school, and running was too much. But I could find
time for running. In that year, Nic [Bideau, his coach and manager]
came back from London and saw me run and said, "You want to make a go
of it?" That was at the end of ?98.

MR😄o you ever miss swimming and cycling?
CM: I still do some occasionally. After the 2004 Olympics, I went back
to Australia and was taking a break for five weeks, so I trained for a
triathlon in Australia, the Noosa triathlon, an Olympic-distance
triathlon and the second biggest triathlon in the world. I won the open
category. I petitioned to compete in the elite category, but they
wouldn?t let me, I reckon because they thought I would win that, too.

MR:Was how active you were pretty normal for an Australian of your
generation?
CM: I was probably more active than most, especially with the triathlon
training. We were always encouraged to be active and participate in
sports. I did runs with my dad when I was young, and I tried every
different sport.

MR:You come out of a long Australian distance-running tradition, and as
with most other countries of European descent, there?s not the depth in
Australia that there used to be. Why do you think that is?
CM: Well, that?s the million-dollar question everybody wants to know,
isn?t it? I?d say part of it is that there are so many opportunities to
earn money besides running. Running is probably the most difficult
sport in the world to be at the top of, because everybody does it.

In Australia?and maybe it?s that way here, too?a lot of the funding
goes to the younger athletes, and they tend to forget that the junior
athletes are going to become senior athletes. So there?s funding for
the youngest athletes, but then when they?re 15 or 16 years old,
there?s no support, and they go off to other sports. But I don?t really
know. We have better facilities, better knowledge, better access to
what we need to succeed. We should be doing a lot better than they were
20 years ago or whenever.

MR: Was there a specific incident where you thought, "Hey, I can run
with these guys, the very best in the world"?
CM: You mean the Africans, right?

MR:Sure.
CM: Yeah, when I was born. I?m lucky that I wasn?t running in the ?80s
and early ?90s when the Africans started dominating. I never learned I
was supposed to be intimidated. I always assumed when you line up, you
line up to try to win the race. A lot of people weren?t?maybe they were
trying to be the first of non-African descent across the line. It was
definitely not bred into me that I couldn?t compete against them. I
didn?t even know I was supposed to be afraid of them when I ran the
junior world cross country championship in ?99. It?s never been "us"
versus "them" for me. In ?99, it was just a race, and it still is.