Well, my first race in eight months couldn’t have been more of a disaster. For those who didn’t see my Instagram reel: 150m from the finish line, a runner was clipped, faceplanted, and I – who happened to be behind her – tried to jump over her prone body, failed, then crumpled and rolled onto the track. Once back on my feet, I went over to help Charlotte Pizzo, the French athlete who fell first, and we jogged together to the finish line.
I’ve had a few spectacular falls in my career, some more traumatic than others (no stitches this time), so I’m hoping I can make something of the rest of my season and not be known as the chick who falls all the time.
But I can’t bring myself to be upset. The ridiculousness of the situation, the slapstick, and seeing SB (Season’s Best) next to my horrifically slow time (2:52), has provided incredible comic value. I can’t wait to be on my next start line to see the minute-long discrepancy between my PB and SB on the big screen.
Speaking of my next race: for those who want to watch, it’ll be the FBK Games in Hengelo, Netherlands, on June 9th at 6:50 pm local time (2:50 am AEST, lol). World Athletics stream here (requires an account).
On a more general note, I had a great time out there, especially being part of a team, as there were multiple M11 athletes competing. In the past, with only Linden Hall as my training partner, I experienced many lonely meets when she wasn’t competing with me. Then there was the issue of what to do with myself between competitions, since I didn’t have a European base. I’d be in Airbnbs, friends’ spare rooms or student accommodation for the aimless few days before I could enter the next meet hotel.
I was incredibly jealous of European athletes who could simply go home after a competition. This time, flying back to my little apartment and rejoining my training squad and regular routine the next day, was the closest to ‘normal’ I’ve ever felt while on tour.
Being able to shift back into routine so quickly also means I can mentally process things faster.
My last major fall was in the Silesia Diamond League in 2023. I was distraught. The following morning I was in hysterical tears on the phone to my psychologist while frantically packing my bag in the hotel. Then I travelled alone to the airport for a long commute to cold and rainy London, where I stayed in student accommodation that was completely deserted for summer break. Bleak. It took several days to metabolise the despair.
That said, it made me determined to have a good time in my next race, which set me up to run my PB at the London Diamond League a week later.
This time around, now a falling expert, I moved on almost immediately. I had the comfort of knowing I was going ‘home’ afterwards, returning to my bed, house plants, and the magpie family who have built their nest outside my bedroom window. Regardless of how I perform on the racing circuit, I anticipate that this will easily be the most enjoyable overseas summer of my professional career.
Track of the week: Sports Park Mladost
Zagreb is a gorgeous Croatian city. Its meet is a favourite of mine despite my two objectively negative experiences there. (The other was when I ran here at the end of the 2023 season, when the mental demons had firmly taken hold.)
The track is part of a parkland network connected by a trail along the Sava River. We jogged along the trail the day before the meet. I was confused and amazed by this pristine gravel pathway raised by several metres. I assume it was raised as a precaution for river overflow, but it also meant it was perfectly flat and gave a distinct vantage point to the various sports facilities along the trail.
Even though I believe the feature was functional rather than a design decision, it points to how changing levels are a great way to play with the spectator experience. And it reminded me of a long-time obsession of mine: land art, an art form based on the large-scale manipulation of landscape.
In some ways, the surrealist ordering of the ‘natural world’ is the basis of all my architectural obsessions, including athletics tracks. By this I mean the combination of using Earth materials (soil, water, vegetation), large scale, and a ‘perfect’ ordering of space (right angles, circles, straight lines). Obvious examples of this are massive industrial infrastructure projects like quarries, dams and farming. I think it’s no surprise that these are a fixation of many architects.
Am I going to do a PhD on surrealism and sports design? Someone hold me back.
When I was a kid, I was deeply affected by the way trees were planted in rows. I felt intense discomfort every time I passed an orchard and experienced the optical phenomenon of trees aligning at one angle and then scattering again. It’s stayed with me all my life. I even used the phenomenon in one of my studio projects to create the illusion of a floating pavilion.
Anyway, back to the track. The warm-up area was an awkward astroturf hockey pitch directly behind the stadium seating. The concrete seating of the hockey pitch mirrored the track seating, so the seating pyramid became the roof of the internal clubrooms. This makes some sense, but the rooms themselves suffered, becoming dank windowless cells with low awkward ceilings.
Smaller athletics stadiums like these are usually designed like a kit of parts, with little thought to their bigness or their connection to the surrounding landscape. There is rich potential for sports design to draw from land art and play with monolithic form. The track is a crater after all: pressed flat in the centre, surrounded by sloping walls.
Ancient and indigenous cultures also used the materials of Earth to make meaningful structures like the pyramids or, in Australia, Aboriginal earth rings. These local histories are one source of knowledge that could inform the way that sports facilities approach the manipulation of land.
Question time!
Thank you to everyone who has sent in questions. I’ll address many of them in future thematic posts. Next time we’re gonna talk all about pain!
For now, because I’ve run out of ideas of things to sketch, here’s a topical question that didn’t fall into one of the themes.
How are you finding the increasing Australian competition in the women’s 800m? Including other athletes getting closer to your 800m AR? Is this a motivator (hopefully) or stressor? — Laura
I watched Sarah Billings come within 0.05 of my 800m record on my phone in a car park in Manchester with my team. We’d just finished a stair session in Rivington Park so lactic inducing that I would be woken up later that night by how much my legs were aching. We made the effort to watch because our teammate, Erin Wallace, was running in the same race.
When I saw Sarah find a gap on the home straight, I said something like “oh fuck, I think Sarah’s got my record.” I watched as her time came up on screen and felt the same discomfort in my chest that I feel whenever I see another Australian 800m runner run fast. The unease was also jumbled up with feelings of pride and happiness for Sarah. I’ve known her for many years and admire her work ethic and persistence.
I spoke about it with Keely as she gave me a lift back into the city. She’d been rattled by the winner of the race, Tsige Duguma (who came second to Keely in Paris), who had run a World Lead and a personal best. Keely said, sure, it doesn’t feel great to see it, but it also gave her a burning desire to throw herself into training.
As described in an earlier issue, I’m highly absorptive on the sponginess matrix, so I have trouble separating my feelings from those of others. Sometimes this works in my favour, like right now, being around people who aren’t neurotic in the least, like Keely.
In previous years, when I still subscribed to Australian athletics news updates and scrolled the Instagram feed, the running world seemed so much bigger and more important. Now, being in an overseas group, literally removed from the Australian scene, and completely checked out online, it makes it easier to feel my emotions right there and then – and then move on. It’s like I’ve lost object permanence, but for emotions.
I had my little burst of panic. Now my goals were back in focus: run fast, you stupid bitch.
10/10 conclusion. Thanks Trina!