06.01.2008

Learning from the Falls

When a training group of 85 takes to the tracks of Victoria’s Falls Creek in early January, it’s indication that distance running in Australia is in good shape.

For its servants and loyalists, training at Falls has as much tradition as the turn of the New Year while many up-and-comers of the sport will look to build the fixture into their calendars courtesy of the exposure they have now been given.

Greats of Australian athletics including Ron Clarke, Rob de Castella and Steve Moneghetti made use of the resort’s terrain and facilities throughout their careers.

Moneghetti is still a regular visitor, this time accompanying Olympian Lee Troop to ring in 2008.

For Athletics Australia, the opportunity to host a national junior distance camp at Falls has many benefits. Some of those come from being in the vicinity of Moneghetti, Troop, Craig Mottram and other established figures, while the requirement for young athletes to live and train outside of the comforts of home goes a long way as well.

This year, national event co-ordinator for distance Tim O’Shaughnessy and national youth event coach Nicky Frey have accompanied 29 athletes aged 17 to 20 on the Falls experience.

The eight-day venture provides two training sessions per day, pool and gym work, monitoring of hydration levels, heart rate and weight plus some valuable advice from those most familiar with it.

“(The purpose) is to get our best junior distance runners together, to get them into an environment where they can see what our top athletes are doing, to learn from them and to see the benefits of being in a training camp environment,” O’Shaughnessy said.

“They start to increase their independence. They have to organise their own food and live in shared quarters, so they’ve got to learn to work in with others. There are many skills they can pick up and many things they can gain from up here.

“It’s been a traditional place for many of our great runners and it’s good to have the best of our talented runners coming up here and having the same experience. We hope that they will come back, if not in our group, but come back in their own training groups independently and come back here for many more years to come.

“We have Steve Moneghetti who’s probably been coming up here for 20 years and (Sydney 2000 athletics head coach) Chris Wardlaw hasn’t missed a year in 37 years.”

Along with Troop and Mottram, other senior athletes about the camp include steeplechasers Victoria Mitchell and Martin Dent, newly-crowned Australian 10,000m champion Collis Birmigham, Commonwealth Games marathoner Scott Westcott, World Cross Country Championships representative Emma Rilen, Australian 800m champion Nick Bromley and Chiba Ekiden representative Ben St Lawrence.

Like their junior counterparts, they too are preparing for a 2008 domestic season that commences in earnest in the coming weeks.

“It’s learning by osmosis,” O’Shaughnessy said. “They learn from seeing what the others do. We can tell them these things but by watching and observing, we feel that’s a fantastic way to learn.

“We’re really lucky to use our great runners and they’ve been terrific in giving up their time as well. They have been fantastic in the way that they have gone up to the young runners and introduced themselves and made them welcome. We’re really indebted to our senior runners with how they’re helping our younger ones.

“Collis Birmingham waited on the run (on Saturday) for some of our young guys to make sure they didn’t get lost, (so we’re seeing) that type of stuff.”

Eighteen year-old 3000m aspirant Kane Wille, who finished sixth in the under-20 event at December’s Zatopek Classic, has thoroughly enjoyed his experience so far.

“I’m loving it,” he said. “It’s great because we get to meet all of the best junior runners in Australia and we get to mix with all of the big guns too, the older guys.”

“The main benefit they get is being with the rest of the group,” added Wille’s coach Richard Huggins.

“Junior athletes from all around Australia rock up here. They make friends, they work and train together, they basically live together, they cook together and I think that’s where they get a terrific bond and they drag each other along.”

For Huggins, who has three athletes on the camp, Falls has been familiar territory since 1993. Even in the role of mentor, close bonds have been highlights of his times away and nothing has changed.

“I’ve got Nic Bideau here, I was having a coffee with him (on Friday) and he has been a fantastic help to me and a lot of the other younger coaches with younger guys,” he noted.

“The next step that hopefully my guys are going to take is that international scene and you need somebody that’s had that vast experience.”

As coach of Mottram and 2004 World Cross Country champion Benita Johnson, among other decorated runners, Bideau is as highly regarded in distance circles as he is successful.

He and Mottram will address the junior group in an evening information session, just as Moneghetti and Troop did on Friday night.

“We get that sort of talk together between older athlete and younger athlete, or other coaches who talk to other athletes they don’t coach,” Huggins said. “You’re not there to cut in on what they’re doing, but just to be there as a little bit of extra advice and help.

“The benefit is tremendous and the benefit is mainly from that group training effect.”

But this time around, Huggins - who coached emerging middle distance athlete Jeff Riseley to a World Championships berth in 2007 - is particularly overwhelmed by the number of young runners training at Falls Creek.

“The big thing about this year is that you’ve got so many juniors,” he said, including those outside of Athletics Australia’s camp. “I couldn’t count off-hand but there’s well over 100 juniors out there pounding the tracks too and they’re all training in their little groups.

“There’s probably the most girls I’ve seen up here for ever. I missed a couple of years in the 2000s but this is the biggest group I’ve seen up here.”

Wille, who hopes to qualify for the World Cross Country Championships junior men’s team this year, considers training with the best junior runners in Australia as his highlight.

“I’m aiming for improvement, learning new things and getting a bit stronger as a runner,” he said. “And I’ve made a lot of new friends.”

And for O’Shaughnessy, whose objective is to have camps like these breed confidence, commitment and, of course, results, the signs are very positive.

“I got an absolute buzz when we had our group down there ready to start their run and runners kept coming, including Lee Troop and Collis (Birmingham) and Buster (Mottram),” he said.

“The way these kids’ eyes lit up as they were joining in was fantastic.”

By Steven Lavell

Pictured: Youngsters Matt Gibney, Daryl Purchase, James Kaan and James Alexander take to the Falls tracks (courtesy Richard Huggins)