Athletes Exclusive with Liam Adams

Liam Adams is a Distance Runner from Victoria. He has taken part in several World Cross Country Championships and has two City 2 Surf titles to his name. He has agreed to answer some questions for Athletics Exclusive.

Lachlan – How did you get involved in athletics?

Liam – I was introduced to athletics through the primary school system. As a young boy I absolutely loved playing all different types of sports and was quite competitive at them too. Outside of the schooling system I played baseball, football and did a bit of umpiring. After making a number of state cross country teams and even medaling at a national championships, I decided that I’d take up running outside of the schooling system and do a bit of training. I joined the local athletics club Athletics Essendon and Gregor Gojrzewski’s squad and through my teenage years I slowly gave up my other sports to dedicate more time to running.

Lachlan – What does a weekly program look like for you?

Liam – My recent program has been geared towards running a marathon. I’m currently tapering so I’ve decided to share one of my training weeks at the start of September.

Lachlan – What advice would you give to someone who is looking to start to dedicate more time to athletics?

Liam – If you are dedicating more time to your athletics or running, you are most likely going to come across restrictions such as work, studies or any other important commitments. There is a huge degree of sacrifice in chasing your goals and dreams but you also need to way up the important aspects outside your athletic ambitions. I’d say that it is important to be flexible with your extra training that you are dedicating to your sport and work around your studies, work or any other important aspect of your life. I also think that having things to distract you from constantly thinking about athletics or training reduces the pressures/stresses and makes you enjoy it more. You probably aren’t going to get the best out of yourself if you’re not enjoying your training. Be focused on your goals and enjoy the journey in trying to achieve them.

Lachlan – What is your goal for the coming season?

Liam – My goal for this coming season is to lower my personal bests through a range of distances and hopefully be closer to getting some qualifying times for Commonwealth games. I’d like to improve on my B-Standard in the 10,000m but I’m mindful that I just might not be at my peak for Zatopek. I’m hopeful of making the commonwealth games and that’s what I’ll be striving for in this summer season.

Lachlan – You’ve competed in Sydney’s annual City2Surf several times now, taking home two victories in the last three races. Do you prepare for these ‘fun runs’ any differently to what you would do when participating in, just say an, Athletics Australia meet?

Liam – I put a lot more emphasis on Athletics Australia track meets. My winter is based around high mileage and forming a strong base for the summer season. There is probably two key races I usually peak for during winter and that is city2surf and national cross country championships. The city2surf is a big event during the winter calendar so I do try to target that race and be quite fit for it. This year’s winter was a little bit different though, I sacrificed my preparation for city2surf and skipped my first national cross country championships since making my first Victorian team in 1998, just to concentrate on preparations for Melbourne Marathon. My training coming into city2surf was quite a hard training block and I thought I was either going to have a better result then previous years or be quite flat. Unfortunately it was the latter but never to mind I believe I got a vital block of training completed for what I’ve been gearing this whole winter season towards. There are similarities in targeting key races and how you approach these key races in the different seasons, but I believe I am always a stronger runner in the track season and that is when the more important races are for me.

Lachlan – If all goes well, this Q&A article will be posted Saturday night, which is the night before you take part in the Melbourne Marathon. Is this your first marathon? Can you explain what you have done differently in preparation for this type of event? Not only from a physical perspective, but from a mental one as well.

Liam – Yes, this will be my first marathon so its quite an exciting time to see if I’m ready to step up to the marathon distance yet. My training has been quite interesting in my preparation to my debut marathon. My training block before the city2surf was quite tough, I was doing roughly around 160km per week and doing some fairly solid sessions. I was quite stiff and sore during this phase so my body probably wasn’t handling it that well, but straight after city2surf I really amped up my mileage whilst improving the quality of training too and the body really handled it well. Before this winter my highest mileage week was 178km’s at Falls Creek and I was quite exhausted after that week. This last block of training over the winter has been stringing together weeks of high mileage around 200km’s per week whilst doing some fairly good sessions. I’ve been quite surprised with how the body has handled the training and quite impressed with some of the sessions that I have been able to do in this massive increase in training load. As for the mental aspect, well I think the mental aspect for preparing for the marathon comes along with all the hard training you put in and getting those long runs done. I’m a firm believer that I have been quite focused on my goal in the preparation for this marathon and that all my hard work that I have put into my sessions and all of my runs will be rewarded with a good result. All the training and hard work that I have put in for this preparation has definitely mentally prepared me for this marathon. Even though it’s my first marathon and it will be hard to accurately gauge how I will go over the distance, I am fairly confident that I’ll have a successful marathon debut.