INTERVIEW WITH WAYNE BULLOCH

4. You spent several years chipping away at your marathon PB, getting it down to 2.37. You are now focusing on 5k and 10k. Do you prefer the shorter distances or the marathon, and why?

That’s a really tough question. I absolutely love the marathon; it will always be my favourite event. To put it in perspective, I’ve watched every men’s Olympic Marathon since Moscow in 1980. One of my greatest sporting memories as a kid was watching Deek run down pass Ikanga in the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games. In 2008, I ran a marathon in training on the treadmill watching Wanjiru win the Men’s marathon in Beijing (I started well before him and finished after him of course). I see the marathon as the ultimate sporting pursuit. Anyone can run one, but racing one extremely well requires years of good planning, preparation, dedication and sacrifice. Realistically, most people are good for 2, perhaps 3 quality marathon attempts every year. So much goes into just getting into peak physical shape before you line up at the start of a marathon and then you just pray for good conditions (very rare). Then there are the mental elements of critical evaluation and trying to formulate and execute the perfect race strategy for those 2 or 3 attempts. You’re really laying it all on the line. It’s not like you can have another crack in a few weeks if things go wrong.

Whilst I love the marathon event, the training that goes into it over many years can be quite relentless at times to say the least. In recent years I really put a considerable level of effort into most long runs. This included intervals totalling 16-25 km’s of marathon paced or slightly quicker running within a 30-32 km long run every other week, and a long run of not less than 35 km’s of moderate paced running on the alternate weeks. My medium long run was typically around 24 km’s at a moderate pace as well. I did 1 pure speed session every week, such as quarters or wind-sprints, and a longer tempo or intervals session on the week that I wasn’t doing a quality long run. Through personal experience and Sean’s coaching, I’ve learned that the most undervalued yet key component to successful racing (especially for older runners) is listening to your body, optimising recovery, remaining injury free and patiently allowing for the adaption that follows. To undertake the marathon training that I was doing I usually needed 2 and sometimes even 3 days of aerobic training between my quality sessions to improve, properly recover and adapt. Whilst this type of training worked extremely well for me, it doesn’t fit the mould of a traditionally structured programme & it usually doesn’t fit in with what others are doing. Add in family & work commitments and it’s an even tougher ask to align with the Sean’s squad sessions, so I often found myself doing the hard sessions solo. It was good for mental toughness but boring at times. Switching to shorter distances has enabled me to take the focus completely off the pace of my long and aerobic runs, take on a more structured approach and undertake more hard sessions (Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday) and yet still get the right level of recovery in.

In summary, I’m not really sure just yet which distance I prefer. I just love running and am constantly looking to challenge myself and continually improve. Switching to the shorter distances will hopefully allow me to race more frequently and work on the technical aspects of my running gait and hopefully delay the marathoners shuffle.