Most of us have heroes in any sport we enjoy.  Whether it’s a sport we do ourselves, or just a spectator sport.  Whenever I watch some sporting activity on TV, almost automatically I root for one of the teams or competitors, if it’s an individual sport, over the rest.  The reason for selecting a particular person is not always the same.  Perhaps it’s the person’s proficiency at his/her event, a previous sporting achievement, dominance of an event, attitude towards success, or maybe just because he or she is the underdog or the new kid on the block.

One of my favourite runners of yesteryear is the Czech Emil Zatopek.  Known as a notoriously hard worker, at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Zatopek became the first and almost certainly the only man in Olympic history ever to win the three long-distance events, the 5000m, the 10 000m, and the marathon.  What is even more remarkable is that it was the first time he had raced the full marathon distance and did so only three days after winning the 10 000m final!  He won all three events within seven days, and set Olympic records in them all.  By the end of that year he held every world record from the 10 000m to the marathon, and in 1954 he added the 5000m world record as well.  All in all he set 18 world records during his career.

Despite running Comrades last year as my first long distance race, I was feeling extremely nervous as I drove into the center of Florence to prepare for my first ever 100km ultra.  My training since January had gone very well so I felt confident physically to compete.  Mentally though I was really nervous, especially after I reading the first sentence of the race commentary notes - “This is a very hard race…”(!) 

In one of the FFA newsletters earlier this year, a phrase was included that went along the lines of “don’t expect different results by doing the same things”.  I was training for my 7th Two Oceans with FFA coming into 2010, and decided that perhaps it was time to shake things up a bit.