Jana Pittman and Cathy Freeman (© Getty Images)
Hello everyone,
Here in Australia, we have been very lucky recently. The weather has been really nice and warm and the temperature is around 30 degrees.
On Saturday, I ran a 300m and broke the Australian record. I felt pretty good in the race but the conditions weren’t very good. There was a lot of wind in the back straight which made things quite difficult but on the other hand it was good as one needs to learn to race in any weather condition. The 300m race was only 25 minutes after the 200m which I also ran so I didn’t have much recovery time.
It was a good simulation of training conditions and my coach and myself were pleased with the outcome.
I was supposed to run against Cathy Freeman but as you all know she had to withdraw from the race. I must admit that I was quite disappointed by her not being in the race especially since as of next week we will start training together until the Nationals (Ed. Australian Championships – 3-6 April).
Cathy and I will train together probably twice a week and our training sessions will be like a cut and paste of hers and my programmes. Most of the training programmes are similar so it won’t be a big difference in that respect but the fact of training with Cathy will be great.
The aim of our training together will be to try and simulate the European conditions of competition. I mean it is often easy to be ranked number one in Australia but then when you travel to Europe, where the real world of Athletics is, you don’t know where you stand. So with Cathy, I am sure I will have a good reference.
As you know the Australian season started last week so from now on I will compete every weekend.
This coming Saturday I will compete in Canberra. It will be my first 400m Hurdles since the World Cup in Madrid so I am quite curious to see what I can achieve.
I have only been doing time trials over 8 Hurdles in training so I really don’t know what to expect. I hope the conditions will be good but the weather is so unpredictable in Australia that I expect anything to happen.
I am in good shape presently and hopefully my time on Saturday will confirm it.
Talk to you soon
Jana