Congratulations on your recent haul of gold medals! So what have you been up to since the European chamionships? Thank you very much! I got home the Monday after the Europeans and didn’t do an awful lot. I did my recovery first, took a few days off to let the body recover and everything and then it’s just been back to training duties and back to competing again. So no massive celebrations or anything else like that. Almost life as normal, really. It’s kind of depressing in a way: you can win a couple of major titles and because there’s still stuff going on you don’t actually have time to switch off and enjoy yourself.
And you’ve got a baby coming soon so you won’t be able to switch off, ever again I have indeed! Yeah.. my season finishes and then, a month later, the baby arrives, so it’s all go this year.
How much of long jump training involves running? We sprint an awful lot; in actual fact I haven’t done a single jump session this entire summer, which has been a newly tried method of mine to see how I get on with that. Because basically with the jumping, it takes so much out of your legs and the risk of injury is so high every time you do it, that we thought we’d give it a go and see if I can get through a season pretty well without having to jump. So the vast majority has been running.
Running is a relatively loose term, though, because the longest I actually ever run is about 150metres. That’s reps at speed but still, it’s not a particularly long distance compared to most people who go for a run. Apart from that, I do a warm-up lap, 400m of the track. Other than that. my running – anything that’s not fast – is very limited.
What’s your favourite place to run? At the moment we’ve been training at St Albans which is a track I used to go to when I was relatively young, it’s not far from where I’m based and it’s quite a beautiful setting, it’s right by Verulamium there, with the area of all the Roman ruins and the cathedral perched up on the hill, so it’s rather idyllic. Apart from that my main training place is Lee Valley but the issue with that, especially in the summer, is that there’s a sewage treatment plant which can make the recovery breathes quite nasty, to say the least! St Albans is probably my favourite place.
Do you remember your first ever race? Yes I started relatively young; my mum recently came across a photo of me at my nursery winning a race! Just this mass of ginger hair running away and thankfully winning. I’ve always wanted to win! So yes I started pretty early. I always competed in the sprints, mainly for my school. I didn’t join an athletics club until I was maybe 12 or 13, I think. But for my school, I was sprinting from quite a young age, as soon as I could make it into the team. I’ve always really really enjoyed it.
When someone asks you for a training tip, what do you tell them? It depends on their age, actually. If it’s kids I think the most important thing is actually enjoyment, as opposed to giving them a set tip, because ultimately if you don’t enjoy it as a youngster you won’t stick with it or have that willingness to learn. With adults the biggest thing I’ve been pushing on to people is dorsiflexion of your foot and ankle. A lot of people seem to have achilles and ankle problems, which can turn into shin splints and things like that. One of the most common reasons for that happening is that people plantar-flex when they plant their foot each time on the floor, so you are sort of a bit “toey”. If you develop your dorsiflexion. which basically gives you a flat or forefoot landing, you get a dramatic decrease in issues there. So that could be for any part of the training, for warm-up run down to actually running itself. I think more people should try and learn and develop that.
Do you ever run to music? Yes I do. Generally when I’m doing a session on my own or there’s only one or two of us. I quite enjoy being around a group as I like to chat between reps but if there’s no one there then I’ll have my iPod loaded up with a multitude of different songs and genres. How I feel that day will determine what’s on it.
Do you like a running gadget? In my day-to-day life I am a gadgety person but the thing I’ve found in what I do is that there aren’t really many gadgets that can help or do anything. Basically all I need is my spikes, a tape measure and a willingness to jump into sand. That’s about it, really. I use a stopwatch for sprints, if need be. Probably the biggest thing we use in training which is gadgety is a speed gate. You run through these poles which you put down and they measure exactly the time it takes to go through each stage and that gives you an idea of how fast you are running. That’s probably the only thing I use, and I don’t use that all that often, perhaps five or six times a year.
But for kids, with the Leapband, I really do think it’s a good idea; we’re in a tech-savvy world now and kids hugely relate to wanting the newest phone or whatever else it is. So any gadgets out there than can push kids into wanting to be active, to be involved in sport is obviously a great thing – and Leapband is at the forefront of that. It obviously makes it a bit more fun for them. I think if you are looking at your wrist and seeing whichever little guy you’ve picked – dragon, or monkey – and you can get them new things because you’ve been more active, it makes it more exciting. So, I think it is a great thing. It should hopefully become very popular and change the nation of kids that we are developing – enjoying being inside on their computers rather than outside, enjoying the wider world.
What’s the worst thing about running? [Pauses to think] It’s got to be injury, really. I really love training and I’m very lucky in that way. But the worst thing you can have is injury, especially major injury. Last year I ruptured one of my hamstrings which was not a nice thing to do. It just effects every walk of your life at that stage. And walk is probably the right word because when you can’t really walk you realise how vulnerable and how impossible it is to do menial day-to-day tasks. So if injury wasn’t there it would make my life a lot better and I’d have probably have had a more successful career, actually.
Ha, well it’s hard to imagine you being more successful … So what’s the best thing about running? I think fitness. I love the fact that I can push my body into a stage of it being very fit … you develop how much you can handle within training and everything else. When I go back to training when the season finishes I’ll take six to eight weeks off then go back into it. You have a very low level of fitness at that stage.
Is it literally time off? You don’t do anything at all? Yes and no! I always say I won’t do anything. Then a week later I’m out walking the dogs and I end up running and doing a hill session or something like that. That’s always the way with me. I’d love to think that I could completely switch off but I never quite manage that. So I’ll maintain a level of fitness. And actually I think if you really switch off then go back to training you really do struggle. So, I will have that period but the great thing is once you do come back and you get more into the group training and you see great improvements, in the gym or on the track. I enjoy seeing that happen.
What’s your post-race/event indulgence? I’m a massive foodie. If I could I would be an exceptionally overweight person … no I wouldn’t, really, but I do absolutely love food. It can vary massively, can be savoury or sweet but I’d probably say I really enjoy sweets. When I’m really switching off, you can get those big tubs of pick’n’mix with the fizzy ones; I’ll get a lot of them and make myself feel quite ill eating far too many.
What’s the furthest you’ve ever run? Oooh the furthest I’ve ever run. That’s a good question. Well, with one of my previous coaches we used to do this mad training where we used to train at a place called Copthall, out Barnet way, and we used to do something called the Copthall mile which I think was actually more than a mile. We used to run that every Sunday in winter. I have pushed myself to see if I could run a mile at home a couple of years ago, just running in the woods.. So probably around a mile is the longest I’ve ever had to run where it’s been timed at all. When I walk the dogs I go for 10 miles or so a couple of times a week with them but that’s walking rather than running.
What do you eat on the morning of a long run or hard session? I’ll mix it up a little bit. Generally I don’t consume carbs that much in season; when I’m out of season I love it. But, on the morning of a bigger session, I’ll add in some level of carbs maybe a porridge-based meal or something along those lines. Generally, it’s high protein: typically I eat fish and salad in the morning. So I’d probably just add in a bowl of porridge or some Greek yoghurt; I’m a big fan of that, with berries and stuff.
Have you ever run barefoot? I have done, yes. We used to go to South Africa every year and there was this beautiful grass track at a place we used to train, about an hour north of Johannesburg. It was a beautifully maintained grass track and often after bigger sessions we would jog around barefoot. The only problem is trying to do that at tracks in the UK … there’s spikes come off people’s shoes and stones and whatever else so you could end up getting injured. So yes, I have done it but not recently because haven’t really been able to. I think it’s a great idea if you can, though.
What’s your greatest achievement? Um … well it has to be London 2012. This year has been fantastic and it’s brilliant to win two major medals but the difference is with London it was a global medal, competing against the rest of the world rather than just Commonwealth or European. It changed everything. I went from being a guy who did athletics to being a guy who a lot of people realised did athletics. So that got the ball rolling for the rest of my career, really. After a bad year last year sort of re-realising that I love this sport and I can do it to a very high level. But London was definitely what got the ball rolling.
Mo Farah or Usain Bolt? Agh that’s tough! Coming from a sprinting background I’d have to say Usain I think, but the thing is the speeds that Mo and everyone else run at those distances is so fast as well, I think it’s sort of unfathomable for someone like myself. But I grew up loving the 100m, I remember watching Linford win in 92, so it would probably have to be Usain.
Who is the greatest ever runner? Wow. Um. That’s an interesting one. [Long pause for thought] A really tough one. I’d say [David] Rudisha has to be up there because what he did over the 800 is just insane. But then the other day while the marathon was on at the Europeans we were talking about it, talking about the world records. I think it’s 2:03 for the men and Paula Radcliffe has her 2:15. You actually look at how fast they are running each mile and I think it’s something like, for the men, it’s 4.8 minutes a mile and for Paula it was like 5.1 or something like that. To maintain that for 26 miles, I think, is just absolutely out of this world. So, it’s a mixture between a sprinter like Rudisha and someone like Paula. Which is hard. Do I have to pick one?
No you can have those two, because they are mine, too.. Oh really? Excellent. Yes what they’ve done is truly beyond belief.
Greg was speaking at the launch of LeapBand. Suitable for children aged four to seven, 50 different activities and challenges track a child’s physical movements so the more active they are, the more points they earn to unlock games and challenges. LeapBand is available now from all major retailers, RRP £29.99.
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