Project 400 might have narrowly failed to qualify a 4*400m team for the Olympics but they will be abled represented by David Gillick in the individual 400m race.
David enters the race as the 3rd fastest European this season and Project 400 would like to wish him and all the Irish team the best of luck.
Dave starts his campaign at 9.00am on Monday morning (Beijing time).
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.
I really love that quote. It is not a famous quote but it’s a good one. It comes from Len Bosack, the founder of Cisco Systems. In the early 1980s he and his wife helped invent the router at Cisco Systems. Without the router the Internet as we know it would not be possible.
Len was a workaholic and when asked about his work ethic he said “Commitment starts at 100 hours a week”. According to him, if you are committed to something then 100 hours per week is the minimal outlay of human effort required to show commitment.
The media tend to overuse the word “commitment” in relation to sport. Commitment is mainly referred to in relation to putting in the training sessions but to me commitment is much more that. I like to refer commitment in the Bosack sense of the word.
When you take sleep out of the week, the athlete is awake for just over 100 hours a week and for those hours they must live each hour committed to the sport. People think that international athletes train about 40 hours a week, but the reality is closer to between 15 and 20. Most athletes will tell you that training is the easy part, it’s the other 80-90 hours in the week that are the hard part.
Staying out late, having a few beers, eating what you like are all luxuries that the athlete misses out on. Personally I could train for hours without feeling I am missing out on anything. It’s only when I have to scan the menu for the healthy option, miss out on going out with my friends, or have to refuse playing other sports for risk of injury that I feel the trade-off of choosing to compete at a high level. These are the times when it is difficult and this is what requires commitment. Lifting weights and running track sessions are things that I enjoy.
What makes athletics great that it is in essence performance with zero margin for error. Turning up at the track at 98% is not an option. Being at 98% is the equivalent of finishing 8m back at the end of a 400m race. With athletics there is no where to hide, and no amount of passion, will, or determination will make up for a lack of preparation. To quote another athlete, former marathoner Juma Ikangaa:
“The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare”
Just another 3 months or so of preparation to go!
- Brian Murphy
Hi all,
David McCarthy here. As the only 800m runner in the group I clearly have to do the hardest sessions-which I’m sure the other lads will agree with!! Joking aside, I’m still in pretty heavy training doing sessions like 3 or 4 x 1000m (my personal favourite!!). Training has been going really well the last couple of weeks-my speed is good and I’m getting close to where I want to be in terms of specific 800m stuff. We had a time trial last week and I equalled my PB for 600m, which is encouraging given that it’s February and it was about 2ºC! (Not quite getting the same weather here as McKee is enjoying in South Africa!!) The 1000m runs still need to improve a bit but there’s plenty of time for that and they are going in the right direction. (more…)
As we said in an earlier post, nearly all the lads are missing the early indoor season and training right through it.
The few Project 400 members to venture into action were John Laffey (John’s profile will be going up soon) and Paddy O’ Gorman. John felt like he wanted a break from training and decide just to enter the 60m. In fairness to John he managed to run 7.11 off deep winter training which is no mean feat. (more…)
With the sky clear we made it up table mountain in our second attempt. I don’t have a great head for heights so it was a challenge taking the cable car, but I’m very glad I did. The view was impressive, over looking Cape Town and Robben Island. We got some great photos which I’ll try and put on this site when I get home. (more…)
Last Wednesday was our rest day so we headed to table mountain. Unfortunately it was to cloudy to get the cable car and travel to the very top, but we will try again on monday. We had a nice day out in cape town and got some nice pictures. (more…)
Training well and hard in 25 degrees today, so that was nice. Today’s session was 4×300m, 10 minutes recovery. Myself and Paul Hession did this, and it was hard towards the end. Paul suprised me with his strength at the end, may be there is a possible 4×400m in him! not sure Stuart (coach) will agree to that though. (more…)
Just a quick note from Stellenbosch today as there was good news for project 400m. After talking to Kristoff Beyens, the Belgian 200m world semi finalist, I can confirm 2 new opportunites for 4×400m Olympic Qualification. (more…)
After flying from Dublin to Amsterdam at 6am on Tuesday morning with Paul Hession, we met up with our coach Stuart Hogg and Nick Smith and set off for Cape Town. We then had a 20 minute drive to Stellenbosch, better known for its vineyards (wineries) and got there at about 11.30pm.
Of course being the insomniac of the group I watched a film until about 1am before getting around 3 hours sleep. Luckily there was just a warm up for Wednesday’s training. Today we started training properly, we had weights and then some 50m sprints, which was very nice in the 30 degree heat, especially since just last Monday the track in Belfast was closed due to snow an ice!
Track session tomorrow so I’ll keep you posted!