Paula Radcliffe looks forward to London
Words: Euan Crumley
Paula Radcliffe is expecting sparks to fly when the London Marathon races get off and running on Sunday.
The format may be unusual and the absence of crowds will be keenly felt by the athletes, but the former world marathon record-holder believes that the build-up of frustration from months of waiting to perform this year will be released in spectacular style on the looped course around St James’s Park in the UK capital.
“On the start line, all that was going through my head was just really wanting to capitalise on all the months of hard work that go into training for a marathon,” says Radcliffe, a three-time London winner. “It’s not like you can just come out and race lots – essentially you have sacrificed three months or so of hard training to get ready.
“That means you really want to show how hard you’ve worked and you really want to make the most of it. You want to feel good, you want things to go right and you don’t want to make mistakes on the day. All of those things are going through your mind.
“For example, in 2002 when I had a knee injury and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to run at all, I think that fire of wanting to really make it right and make it count, coupled with the little bit of you that thinks ‘I could have missed out on all of this, I could have lost all of this so I’m really going to appreciate it and make the most of it’ that can really produce top results.
“I think we’re going to see a bit of that this year. The focus will be accentuated by the thought that this might not ever have happened. They haven’t been able to have spring marathons and they haven’t been able to have essentially anything unless they raced in the early part of this year.”
Radcliffe’s 2:15:25, a mark which stood for 16 years, was finally beaten in Chicago last year by the 2:14:04 run of Brigid Kosgei.
The 2019 London winner is back and will be targeting Mary Keitany’s women’s-only world record of 2:17:01. Radcliffe, however, believes the mixed race mark can eventually be lowered again, too.
“I think she (Kosgei, below) can go faster because, looking back at that Chicago race, she kind of made mistakes in the first couple of miles and was a bit too quick,” says Radcliffe. “She was able to hold it together but with some slightly more sensible pacing at the start I think she can run quicker towards the end.”
Another groundbreaker is to be found on the men’s side as world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge goes for what would be a record fifth victory.
Much of the pre-race hype understandably revolved around his contest with Kenenisa Bekele, which will sadly no longer happen following the Ethiopian's withdrawal due to injury. Radcliffe, however, believes the Kenyan is about as close to invincible as it's possible for an athlete to be.
“I think every marathon plays into his hands,” says Radcliffe of Kipchoge. “The marathon is his forte and I think the biggest strength is the power of his mind.
“He’s so very focused and very strong that it’s very, very difficult – if not impossible – for another athlete to get in his head and mess with it."
Kipchoge’s consistent brilliance over the 26.2-mile distance since his debut in 2013 has been remarkable. As the 35-year-old approaches the latter part of his career it will be intriguing to see how much longer he can continue to keep pushing boundaries.
“He has had an amazing number of marathons at the top already and the thing is that there isn’t a known number on how often we can bash our bodies to the limit but it can’t go on forever,” says Radcliffe.
“At some point he is going to start coming down, while another athlete might be coming up and I guess the beauty and the magic of sport is that we never know when that’s going to happen.
“He looks after his body really well and he runs extremely efficiently so the wear and tear on his body is really low. You never know.”
That biological blessing is particularly significant, as Radcliffe knows all too well. “I don’t think it gets harder to get yourself up for these events but, speaking from personal experience, what got a lot harder for me was coping with the disappointments when your body does break down and you get those injuries – and as you get older that happens more and more.
“It was accepting that, as much as my mind wanted to keep going, sadly my body wasn’t able to do so any more. It gets harder and more frustrating, plus the end goal kept getting taken away from me. In the end, I still would have carried on fighting through that – what finished it for me in the end was that I physically couldn’t do it anymore. Then it became a fight just to be able to get back and run at all.
“For some people, they have to call time on their careers because the injuries get too much, whereas I think I was always going to be one where the injuries had to call time on it for me.”
When it comes to this weekend’s action, the 2.15km lap adds an intriguing dimension and the prospect of what is almost an amalgam of road and track running. In the pre-race press conference Kipchoge, more accustomed to that kind of set-up following both of his sub two-hour marathon attempts, seemed entirely comfortable with the prospect. Bekele, perhaps noticeably, found it harder to see the positives for what will feel much closer to a major championship marathon.
“I didn’t mind doing laps because you learn which bits of the lap you feel good on and which bits you can hurt other people,” says Radcliffe, world champion in 2005. “You can kind of plot where you’re going to make your move.”
Such an approach would make for fantastic racing. “I do think the chance to have that top quality race, the athletes are really wanting to make this work and to make this happen,” adds Radcliffe.
“I think those that might not have been so naturally inclined to track racing on enjoyed a lap course, they would have made the most of it anyway but I think everyone will be so caught up in racing.”
(Lead photo by Bob Martin for Virgin Money London Marathon)
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