Scotland’s marathon record holder Callum Hawkins hopes that subjecting himself to heat chamber therapy, twilight training and running at altitude will set him up to win a medal at this autumn’s IAAF World Athletics Championships.
Hawkins is selected to represent Britain in the marathon in Doha, where the temperatures can hit 35 degrees in late September and early October, when the championships are being held.
The potential heat and humidity has prompted race organisers to choose a start time of one minute before midnight for the men’s marathon on 5 October, and Hawkins has decided to adjust his usual build up for major races to try to acclimatise to the challenging conditions and unconventional start time in the Qatari capital.
Hawkins, who was admitted to hospital after collapsing in unbear-ably warm conditions during the marathon at the Commonwealth Games in Australia last year, has already been running in the University of the West of Scotland’s environmental chamber to build resistance to the hot conditions.
Speaking after winning Bella-houston Harriers’ Brian Goodwin Memorial 10k in Glasgow on Friday night, the Kilbarchan AAC athlete said he was determined to “get the monkey off my back” in the next major championships.
“The fact it is a night time race in Doha makes it more favourable,” Hawkins said. “The sun is the worst thing, so taking that factor out should take away a bit of the harshness of the heat.”
Marathon-specific training tailored towards Doha is still around six weeks away for Hawkins, but prep-arations are set to ramp up shortly.
On July 3, Hawkins will commence altitude training in Flagstaff, Arizona, before he flies to Majorca for further warm weather training. Under the guidance of coach and father Robert, Hawkins will punctuate his schedule with the Beach to Beacon 10k in Maine in early August, and a half marathon in early September – likely the Great North Run – on the agenda.
A further trip to Dubai to join the other British athletes selected for Doha in a pre-championships training camp has also been built into Hawkins’ schedule, and it is during these final couple of weeks of training that he will begin to adjust his body clock.
“There will be some late night running in Dubai where the cond-itions will be pretty similar to Doha,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins was supposed to run the Czech half marathon last weekend, but he turned his attention to the Brian Goodwin Memorial 10k in Pollok park, Glasgow after a niggle to his hamstring and glute flared up which meant a four day lay-off.
“Conditions were pretty perfect,” said Hawkins, whose winning time of 29:06 was his fastest over the course, but outside the course record of 28:32 set by Giffnock North’s Luke Traynor last year. “There are not too many road races at this time if you are aiming for a championship, so this one is ideal being just 15 or 20 minutes up the road from where I live and is a well-attended event.”
Former European junior champion Morag Millar did manage a course record in the women’s race running 33:51. The Central AC athlete, who represented Scotland in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games in 2006, is enjoying a renaissance after injury prevented her from reaching her full potential during her 20s.
“I look back on my success as a junior athlete sometimes and think ‘that wasn’t me’,” she said. “When you have success as a junior you don’t know anything else, so when I look back now at what could have been it is with disappointment. However, it has made me really appreciate when things go well now, more so than when I was younger, and proud I was fastest in Europe at one stage and picked for the Commonwealth Games.”
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