06.08.2009

Aussies continue countdown in Cologne

Sharon Hannan, coach of Olympic silver medallist Sally McLellan, reports on all the latest news from the Australian team camp in Cologne, Germany, just days out from the start of McLellan's world championships campaign.

Amsterdam – August 1, 2009. I’m not actually staying in Amsterdam, just passing through airports between Stockholm and Cologne. A couple of hours to kill here.

The DN Galan was different to all other meets Sal has raced at this campaign. There were heats and finals of the 100m hurdles featuring a strong field of 14 contenders. The two big names missing were Dawn Harper and Damu Cherry, both of the USA. Sal was in heat one at 5:10pm, heat 2 was scheduled for 5:20pm and the final for 7:30pm. This was a perfect arrangement, as it replicated quite closely the scheduling of the semi-finals and final in Berlin on August 19, which are just 10 more minutes apart. A good practice. 

Sal got out well and was blitzing the field until something went wrong on hurdle three. I’ve watched it several times and Jen Manning has also watched, but we can’t pinpoint exactly what happened. Sal has watched it tool, and we are all perplexed. We’ll go over the footage again tomorrow or the next day with new eyes and maybe get event coaches Penny Gillies and Craig Hilliard to look as well to see if the ‘brains trust’ can spot something.

The wind was +1.8 and the result was third with a time of 12.80. Sal wasn’t cranky after the heat, just confused and disappointed. She knew something had gone wrong, but had no idea what it was. She was now looking forward to the final and wanted to run it straight away, because she wasn’t even puffed – didn’t feel like she’d exerted herself at all. We practiced the routine for Berlin before the final and she felt great and looked very good in her warm-up starts.

In the race she blitzed the field again at the start; the data shows her fastest time recorded by Jen (we have one race from Japanese biomechanists from 2007) to the first hurdle touch-down of 2.49s. Sal was definitely in front to the sixth hurdle and maybe in front by a whisker at the seventh, but decked the eighth completely. Virginia Powell (USA) crashed the eighth as well.

The girls zoomed past and Sal was left with the huge task of re-accelerating. She came through for fourth in a very respectable time of 12.64. The wind was +0.7, so not as big as in the heats. The footage and the data show she’s getting faster and faster and too close to the hurdles. She’s definitely faster than this time last year and now we have to manufacture the same experience in training so she can see the hurdles coming up at her sooner than ever before. The good thing is that she feels faster, so it won’t take long for her brain to send the message to her legs to shorten the strides between hurdles a fraction.

Hurdles is all about precision. Speed is about covering the ground faster. However, when the athlete is travelling faster, the distance they cover is greater. Unfortunately, the athletes aren’t able to indicate to the officials just where they want the hurdles placed, so they have to learn to chop their stride at breakneck speed.

Our trusty travel mate of the past week is heading home to Australia today. Jen Manning has left me with her portable drive and lots of footage of almost all the Aussies who have competed in London, Monaco and Stockholm. I’ll burn it to CD when we get to Cologne as almost all the team will be arriving over the next two days.

It’s bizarre how quickly we establish a ‘home’. I heard myself and several other athletes saying ‘I’m going home via Amsterdam’ or 'via Berlin' or wherever. We were all referring to Cologne as home. How good is that, we must be happy about the environment. A few of the distance runners have a house in London and are going back there until Berlin.

Cologne – Wednesday August 5, 2009. Sorry it’s been a few days since you’ve had an update to read. Lots to get done now, from a team point of view.

I volunteered to coordinate a uniform swap system because, as always, there were problems with the kit received by some, including me. Well, what a mammoth task it turned out to be. It took two full days and now everyone has competition uniforms, tracksuits, training gear, shirts and wet-weather gear that fit, have been ordered from Australia or have been listed in an emergency order placed with Asics. I asked everyone to hold off on the vests and casual shorts/skirts until the major job was done, and then I’ll start again.

Sal knew she was facing some tough training sessions this week because the only training she did last week was the two pool sessions. Mind you, the pool work was surrounded by four races in three countries in seven days. 

On October 8, 2007, just a month after Sally competed at the Osaka world championships, I introduced a new session into her program. All my post-secondary athletes do it. We call it the ‘guts’ session and during winter it consists of 400m repetitions, with lots of hills and stairs etc in between each rep. As we get nearer to the major event for the year, the distance reduces, the hills are deleted and the recovery increases.

The session this week (Monday morning) was down to 3x150m with eight minutes in between. She did the same session the week before we went to London and I mentioned in that report that she was ill after it. Well, that was nothing compared to this week. She had Sean Wroe alongside her this week and she wanted to show him that he’d have to work to beat her. Hence the times were quick for the first two (17.2) and she was completely full of lactic before the third, which she did in 18.35.

She crawled off the track on all fours and didn’t get off the ground for 40 minutes. My heart was saying, ‘bugger – this isn’t good!’ but my head knew it had to be done. I just hate to see her so sick, and am glad it only happens a couple of times a year. I don’t know that I could ever be a great 400m coach, don’t know that I’m tough enough.

She recovered well during the day after an ice bath and trained again in the afternoon. This time she had Melissa Breen alongside her. Melissa arrived in Cologne on Saturday and still needs to do a B-qualifier to go to Berlin and compete at the championships. There are only four or five athletes still chasing a B-standard and they’re getting lots of support from those already ‘on the bus’. 

Melissa is only 18, but has competed at world junior level and last month, at the World University Games. She’s finding out that the cut-throat village entry standard of 11.40 is really tough. She’s training well and can really feel her speed coming on now, but only has two more races to get a B.

Sal’s session was 4x80m with long recoveries. Her Monday afternoon sessions are always hurdles, but I decided she’d had enough barriers for a while and programmed a sprint session. Melissa’s coach, Matt Beckenham, is in Berlin and we talked on the phone and he was keen for her to train alongside Sally, but to do 2x60m and then 2x40m.

The girls set their blocks up and they were off and racing. Great starting practice for both of them. Melissa is not the best starter in the world and was caught a little unaware in the first two reps, but by the third she almost smoked Sal. It was a good session for both girls and I was particularly pleased with Sal’s ability to back up. She had treatment on Monday night and then did gym on Tuesday morning. She has tough gym sessions this week as well, because it’s extremely difficult to get strength sessions done when you’re travelling.

Tuesday afternoon we were off to the track again for another sprint session with Sal to do 120m, 110m and 90m on 12 minutes recovery, and Matty decided Melissa could do the same. Melissa only did 60m in the third rep and Matty timed all her reps. The times for Sal were 13.31, 12.24 and 10-dead. I was very happy.

Melissa is in a really tough place right now. She’s in camp, but isn’t sure of going to Berlin. All the athletes have received their uniform and there’s lots of discussion around camp about what fits and who can swap what. Melissa won’t get her kit unless she is definitely going into Berlin, which means doing a ‘B’. This is the really tough part of our sport. It’s a sport of precision, time, height and distance. The world championships, from qualifying, to being selected, to achieving village entry standards, aren’t necessarily enjoyable processes and certainly aren’t for the faint-hearted. The athletes who have been through these processes several times before are here to help the newbies. Even Justin Anlezark, who has represented Australia in many teams since 1996, found himself on the back foot, chasing his village entry. He went off to a small meet in another part of Germany last weekend, and threw 20m+ twice in the competition. He performed under pressure and came home very happy.

Everyone here is extremely hopeful that Tamsyn Lewis (400m hurdles), Youcef Abdi (3000m steeplechase), Petrina Price (high jump) and Melissa get their Bs at competitions on Saturday and/or Monday. Then we’ll be one very large, happy group singing ‘The Wheels On The Bus’ all the way to Berlin on Tuesday.

Before I left Australia I packed a one kilogram supply of Minties just for the trip.  Sara M, take note! Just one kilogram, not 12.

I mentioned previously in this diary that I was undecided about competitions for Sally between Stockholm and Berlin. I’ve managed to manufacture two races in Dusseldorf on Monday and the local organisers have been extremely accommodating. I’ve asked for two 60m hurdles races two-and-a half hours apart, to simulate the semi-finals and final in Berlin, and Perdita Felicien of Canada is going to race as well. We’re also hopeful of getting Priscilla Lopes-Schliep to line up but she’s yet to speak to her coach. A big thankyou to Athletics Australia high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth and assistant team manager Nathan Sims for their help with the negotiations, and to Gary Winckler, Perdita’s coach, for organising the Canadian end of the project.

I’m a people person. I love to watch people, love interacting with people, communicating, laughing, helping and learning from people. The first week we were here, a few of us went to an Italian restaurant and took over the microphone and turned the place into a karaoke bar. The star of the show, a certain female track athlete from Victoria, sidled up to me just before dinner tonight and told me she’d made me a CD of The Mamas and the Papas. How thoughtful is that? I’m really chuffed.

The athletes here are great. Tamsyn is a movie buff and she is always quoting funny bits from various movies. She mimics the Sloth in Ice Age unbelievably well. She’s so funny. It gives you a whole new, fun way of looking at films. Team life... just loving it! 

Cheers from me again.

PS. Australia has a pole vault coach who does a very good rendition of ‘American Pie’.

Read previous instalments of Sharon's exclusive online diary here.