Allyson Felix adds a national 400m title to her collection (© Getty Images)
time World 200m champion Allyson Felix is fine-tuning her preparations for the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, where she will attempt to become only the third athlete ever to achieve a 200/400m double.
“I am preparing to leave for Daegu and the World Championships.
“I’ve decided to run both the 200m and the 400m. It was a very difficult decision to decide to double. I was torn with deciding if I wanted to have fresh legs to defend my title in the 200m for an unprecedented fourth time.
“Ultimately I decided that I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and try something different this time. I feel blessed to have had success in the 200m at Worlds in the past and I felt like it was time to take on a different challenge.
“I’ll also be running in the 4x400m relay in addition to the 200m and 400m. I feel like mentally I am going to take one round at a time and physically I feel like I have done the work in practice and I just have to sustain my body the best I can throughout the competition.
“It will have been more than a month since my last race, a 200m at the Herculis meeting in Monaco and the World Championships.
“It's never fun to lose but looking at the big picture of things has always been my focus. I have my sights set on World Championships and all my training has been geared towards that so at times that means being patient.
“Training has been extremely intense leading up to Worlds. Being home has been great to be able to get the quality and intensity of workouts that my coach Bobby Kersee had planned. I'm feeling very prepared going into Worlds. We will begin to taper soon after we arrive in Daegu.
“I am very supportive of the blood testing at Worlds is a great idea, particularly being a participant in the US Anti-Doping Agency's Project Believe program, which regularly tests athletes to ensure their body is free of performance-enhancing drugs. Anytime there is testing that is across the board and equal makes me very excited. I'm all for clean sport and feel this is a step in the right direction.
“I recently got the chance to mentor a young athlete who won the Acuvue 1-day contest. The contest pair myself along Jonas, Meaghan Martin, Charice and Sterling Knight with teens for one-on-one sessions focused on helping them achieve their dreams, and brought them to Los Angeles.
“I spent a day with a teenager on the track, teaching him new techniques and then we attended the Teen Choice Awards together. It was a great time to see a young person so excited about athletics and working hard.”
Allyson
