In Lapua yesterday, Gordon was drawn in the highly favorable lane 3 inside the fastest in the field . Despite running a sluggish first 200m, his top bend really brought him into the race and after taking the lead at the 80m mark it was a fight all the way home to hold this lead. Gordon crossed the line finishing in a seasons best of 46.81 and a new track record!

This rounds up Gordon’s first round of races and places him 3rd on the Irish rankings this year.

The Mens 4 * 4 team will meet in Namur where they will attempt to qualify for this year’s Olympics.

Irish Team for Namur

David Gillick
Paul Mckee
Gordon Kennedy
Brian Doyle
Brian Gregan

Hey Everyone,

Its been a good start to the season for me. After delaying my start to the season with the flu I ran at the Bedford International Games last week. I placed second with by far my fastest opening time of 47.25. It’s actually my third fastest time ever so it was a positive start to the season.

This weekend I ran in the British Athletics League for my UK club Harrow. This time I dropped down a distance and ran the 200m. I was really pleased with this run as it was 21.48 and I did it from lane one. Hopefully I should go faster from a better lane next time.

Looking forward to the rest of the season, especially next weekend in Namur!

Belated congratulations to Nick Hogan and Brian Gregan in breaking 48 seconds for the first time. Brian broke the barrier at the Leinster schools championships while Nick did so last weekend in Geneva.

Nick and Brian’s profiles will be added to the site shortly.

On Monday Brian Murphy will return to Montegordo for another warm weather training stay, after a full week back in Ireland. This time however, Brian will be joined by his fellow project400 members, Paul McKee and Brian Doyle.

At Montegordo, they will rejoin Gordon Kennedy, who had stayed on while Brian flew home last week. However, they will not be the only Irish athletes this time at the renowned training facility, as the AAI have organized a special training camp and there will be many other athletes in attendance for the 2 week stay.

Among those expected to attend will be fellow project400 member David Gillick who will fly out later in the week as well as Paul Hession and many other stars of the Irish athletics team.

Stay tuned for even more reports, photos and stories from the training camp.

David Gillick got his competition season underway on Sunday at the prestigious Mt Sac Relays held annually in California. With his time of 46.39 Gillick placed fourth overall with his Loughborough training partner, Martyn Rooney taking the win in 45.88

For full results please visit the Mt Sac Results Page

Training is going well here in Monte Gordo. Last week the weather got pretty nasty, gale force winds, torrential rain and cold temperatures. It was more a case of Weather Training rather than Warm Weather Training.

This week it has been much better and we haven’t had to splash through too many puddles. As I said earlier, the best thing about this place is the atmosphere of being surrounded by other athletes. Last Saturday we did a session with Chris Clarke from England. Chris is the current World Youths 400m Champion and definitely one to watch out for. We were doing 2 x 500’s and he was doing 2 x 450’s and as we were going through the 400 mark (c. 52s) at the same pace we decided to do the session together. For an 18 year old he can certainly run, and it’s always nice to train with someone new.

You pick up lots of bits of information training with other people. Yesterday I was doing weights in the gym and I noticed something shiny in my field of view. You can see from the photo, the girl on my right is doing cleans with shin guards on. They looked odd but I thought it was a pretty nifty idea. I have a tendency to cut my shin bones like I’m grating cheese so they might be a wise investment!

Training is starting to get quicker now and I’ve started booking flights for races in Europe. It certainly gives training a different edge when you can see the races coming into view. I’m opening up in Pavia on May 11th so it would be a nice to get the season going with a quick time.

Brian M

Project 400 member Paul McKee was recently interviewed by Andersonstown News where they caught up on his training progress and got to discuss some of the topics in the athletics news of late.

Extract is taken from the Andersonstown News, www.belfastmedia.com.

Beechmount Harrier Paul McKee gives the Andersonstown News a unique insight into his training regime ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August. The 400m star is beginning to increase the intensity of his work-outs and plans to begin racing after a tough six-week block of training. Meanwhile he discusses James McIlroy’s retirement and the controversy surrounding British sprinter Dwain Chambers.

I was in South Africa in January for three brilliant weeks of warm
weather training. It was a great trip and it really broke up the winter nicely. I had
four months of good training before that so I was ready to lift the quality of work but that can be quite dangerous in the cold weather because of injury. So I went warm weather training and put in a lot of hard work. That was instead of doing an indoor season, I felt that would maybe take too much out of me and affect me going to the Olympics.

Even though training was going well, I actually thought I could have done well in the indoors, I spoke to the coach about it (Stuart Hogg) and he decided that he didn’t want anything to interfere with the Olympic preparation.

I got back home in February and then it was back into more hard graft and I’ve been training away since. I had a bit of hamstring trouble but I’ve been keeping on top of it and I’m going to see a specialist in London. I had a bit of a tired spell last week as well, were I was just feeling drained during sessions. But when you’re training hard not every session is going to be a
cracker. I was maybe a wee bit concerned but I bounced back yesterday (Wednesday) and did a really good session.

So things have been going generally quite well. I’m six weeks away from racing but I do need those six weeks of good work. That’s the plan because you don’t want to peak too early. If I was ready to race now I would be tired by the time the Olympics come around so I think at this stage of the year I’m on target.

I’m hoping to get a bit of quality work in before I go to Portugal with the Irish team on April 28 for two weeks. I want to be ready to do some sharp stuff when I get out there.

Surprise
Stuart and the whole squad are coming out so when I’m doing the harder 400m training I’ve a good training partner in Brian Doyle, who is going really well. I think he will surprise a few people this year. I definitely expect him to make the Irish 4×400m relay team. The relay team has basically a less than 50/50 chance of making the Olympics but we’re going to give it a good go.

The relay team is really up against it to qualify because we don’t have many opportunities.
Our first one is in Belgium on June 14. You’ve to be in the top 16 in the world to qualify, the problem is most of the countries achieved that at the World Championships last year. We weren’t there in Osaka, which was a fast track. You have to get two times and then they take the average.

So it’s tough and we’ll be out for the second time in Estonia during the Europa Cup trying to achieve a fast time. But my priority is the individual 400m. Tricky. So I have to be careful that the relay doesn’t get in the way of my own preparation. It’s tricky trying to balance things out.

Paul Doyle, an American with a lot of Irish connections, gets me into races and he’s got me into a race in Senegal, Dakar on May 17. That will be my first race. It’s a bit of a journey but I’ll be half way there as I’ll be in the south of Portugal just before it. It will be a quite interesting experience and I’ll spend a couple of days there. It should be a good meet and it will be my first attempt at the Olympic qualifying time but I expect it to take a few races.Then I’ll go to Geneva on May 31 for another race.

The weather here has been holding me back a bit because when it’s that cold it’s hard to get the quality in. The evidence was there in South Africa because the times I was hitting were well up. I need to open my season fairly quick because I can’t be too far off the time. I need to open with a low 46-second time. I know there’s a good chance that I will progress in five or six races. I’ve said it now so I have to go out and do the business. I’m not expecting to get the time in my first race but I can go to Geneva quite fresh and have a real go. In an ideal world I’d like to get it quite early to take the pressure
off.

Sad news
I was sad to hear James retired (James McIlroy from Larne was the top British 800m runner for the last decade. He was forced to retire recently due to financial problems and a lack of funding). I was glad to see him back running well during the indoor season this year.

He was a hard, honest trainer then when I heard he retired I was
shocked. When he talked about the financial side of things and the potential of
losing his house in order to make Beijing it struck a cord with me because I’m in the exact same position.

I sympathise with him but in saying that there’s no way I could give up five months before the Olympics. There is that strain that I’m not earning money and there’s bills coming in. But I know that if I was to give up now I’d regret it in later life.

I will have a serious decision at the end of the summer but that all depends on how the athletics goes.

Chambers controversy
The thing about the Dwain Chambers issue is that I think they should double the ban from two years to four. A two-year ban is almost like a bad injury, so I definitely would be
in favour of a lengthier sentence.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy in British athletics about the issue. They welcomed him back before in Gothenburg and then the witch-hunt against him this year was strange. Suddenly all the ex athletes who said he was fine in Gothenburg were now coming out against him. They also had another athlete in a similar situation and they never mentioned him.

If there’s a problem with the rules criticise them not the individual. Chambers didn’t make the rules so just let him get on with it and I’ve never thought like that about a drug cheat. It’s frustrating but there will always be drug cheats in the sport.

Paul McKee was talking to Ed McGinley

If you have any questions for Paul please leave a comment here on Project400 and Paul will do his best to respond.

David Gillick appeared on the Tubridy Tonight show just over a week ago. He featured alongside World Indoor Champion (and first person to comment on this website) Derval O’ Rourke, and Cork Hurler Sean Óg o Hailpín. (more…)

Gordon made the bold move this week of launching his own online sports store. The URL for the website is http://www.gksports.ie.

While the website is still in its infancy Gordon hopes this to become Ireland’s leading online sportswear store catering for the Irish market. As most of the guys in Project 400 have to work as well as run it makes sense to support Project 400 by supporting them in business.

GKsports is centrally located in the midlands ensuring quick delivery to anywhere in Ireland. So if you are looking for athletics apparel or footwear, team outfits or sports nutrition GKsports are the people to call. If you want advice on running or sportswear, where else in Ireland can you pick up the phone and get advice from an Olympian and current elite athlete.

Gordon would love your feedback of the website be it positive or otherwise. If there is anything you would like to see featured that isn’t there now, give the big man an email (info@gksports.ie) and let him know.

Unbeknown to us, Project 400 was featured in Northern Ireland Daily, The Irish News just over a week ago.

The article is Called “Seven wonder about Irish relay chances” By Malcolm McCausland. It’s a nice light read and we recommend you have a read of it. (more…)