McCann flees
fires in leadup to Marathon
Mike
Hurst for the IAAF
28 December 2001 -
Running 180km a week in training for her
next marathon race has been tough enough
for Kerryn McCann without the added
insult of breathing in smoke from the
NSW southcoast bushfires.
But Friday Australia’s top marathoner fled her home at Wollongong for the rarefied air of Falls Creek in the Snowy Mountains where she can top up her preparation for the elite Osaka Marathon in Japan on January 27.
“It has been shocking, really bad,” dual Olympian McCann said of her recent twice daily running sessions around Wollongong, 60mins drive through the burned out forest reserve to the south of equally smoke-choked Sydney. “The smoke is just so thick. My throat’s been really sore the last few days and I’ve had headaches after running.”
Her greatest supporter, husband Greg, has been doing his best to improve circumstances.
As a retained fire-fighter, the former surf star has managed only about three hours sleep over the previous couple of nights as he fought blazes around Appin and Stanwell.
“It will be nice to get up to Falls Creek and breathe some fresh air,” Kerryn said.
“We’d been driving almost 90mins, almost to Goulburn, before we saw blue sky.”
On October 7, 2001, McCann placed an excellent third in 2hrs 26mins in the Chicago Marathon won by Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba in a stunning world record 2:18:47.
Now she plans to do some record-breaking of her own in Osaka. “I’m not worried in the least about the strong field in Japan. I’m running for a time. I just want to get that Australian record,” McCann declared. Lisa Ondieki set the Australian women’s marathon record of 2:23:51 on the same Osaka course in January 1988, confirming her greatness in September that year at the Seoul Olympic Games by winning the silver medal. McCann confided: “I’ve been training a lot better than before Chicago. I’m running with a lot more confidence now.”
The invite-only Osaka field is an all-star collection including several 2:22 performers but Ethiopia’s Elfnesh Alemu is the only woman to have run faster than McCann this year.
Best credentialled in the field is another Ethiopian, the Atlanta Olympic champion Fatuma Roba.
Others include Kenya’s Lornah Kiplagat, last year’s Chicago runner-up in 2:22:36, Japan’s Harumi Hiroyama, last year’s Osaka runner-up in 2:22:56, and Restituta Joseph (Tanzania) and Lyudmila Biktasheva (Russia). There is also a squadron of other fine locals such as Kayoko Obata, Tomoe Abe, Ai Sugihara, Haruko Okamoto (9th in 2001 world championship 10,000m) and Ikumi Nagayama, running her second marathon after a debut of 2:27:44.
