Lachlan – Let’s start with an easy one, how did you get involved in athletics?
Brett – As a kid I always played sports like hockey, cricket and soccer so I was always pretty fit and active. Doing soccer training got me fit enough to make the U12 ACT cross country team, after that I start training for athletics. I still played soccer until I was 16 but then decided to focus on athletics.
Lachlan – During your peak season, what does a weekly program look like for you?
Brett – If I was to race on a Saturday my week would probably look something like this:
- Monday – am-60mins pm-30min
- Tuesday – am-track session, something with with a few race pace things but nothing to lactic pm-30min
- Wednesday – am-60min
- Thursday – am- threshold with some strides, 4km threshold then a few 15second strides
- Friday – am-30mins
- Saturday – am-10min pm-race
- Sunday – am-90mins +
Lachlan – What has been your biggest achievement in Athletics? When did you realise that this achievement was something that you could actually make a reality?
Brett – Making the 5000m World Championships final this year would have to be my biggest achievement. It wasn’t something that I had set my sights on before it happened. My year was about trying to qualify which was always going to be a tough ask, once I did that then I started to think about how well could I do, but I never really did think that I could make the final until I had actually made it.
Lachlan – You competed at this years World Cross Country meet in Bydgoszcz, did you do anything in preparation for the extremely cold weather?
Brett – No. It’s hard coming from Australian summer into a European winter. It’s a cold that I had never ever experienced. It’s funny looking at our Cross Country trials, 25 degrees, sunny, beautiful grass with easy rolling hills then going over to below 0 temperature, mud, snow, jumps, puddles, complete opposites. It’s something we can’t really practise for, but then again the Kenyans and Ethiopians can’t either and they seem to go all right. Everyone has to run in the same conditions, So I believe you can’t use the weather as an excuse.
Lachlan – What advice would you give to someone who is looking to start to dedicate more time to athletics?
Brett – You have to put 100% into it if your really want to be successful. There are 100s of people around the world putting in 100% so you won’t get anywhere just putting in 90%. You only have one career so don’t waste it.
Lachlan – What goals do you have in mind for the coming season?
Brett – To keep improving and getting fitter,I would like to run well at Zatopek and hopefully get into the the Commonwealth Games team for the 10000m then later in the season book my spot for the 5000m. I haven’t won many races so I could like to win some this year.
