Nickname: Louie / Fury (for the MMM crowd)
Vital statistics: Age: 35, Height/Weight: 178/80 (now), 178/70 (generally), 178/65 (if I really want to be running well)
Family: Jessica (wife), William (5), Charles (4), Paul (brother), mum & dad
Interests outside running: Basketball, bike riding, AFL (Demons), reading (non-fiction, biographies, true crime)
Why I started running: I was a fat little kid and wanted to lose some weight.
Why do you run: Can be done anywhere at anytime and you don’t need equipment or buddies.
Favourite training session: Solo threshold run. You can do all the fancy sessions you want but there is nothing like just going out and running as fast as you can for as long as you can.
First joined the Midday Milers: March 2008
Most admired sportsperson: Lance Armstrong (if he’s clean)
Running highlight: Running national track championship in the Sydney Olympic stadium during the official test event. I also really enjoyed my marathon jog.
Running lowlight: National XC 2002. Had run 28th in the City to Surf the week before and didn’t recover properly. Ran like a dog. When the course is a goat track and you’re having a bad one, it isn’t much fun. At least managed to beat Nick Harrison (2.10 marathoner) and Daniel Green (Powerbar man) but not many others.
Favourite running shoe: Training – KT26. Racing flat – volleys. Simple old school shoes that don’t mess too much with the foot’s natural function.
Favourite area for training: Caulfield Park, but haven’t been there for years. The distance around is 2.26km and I used to run four of five laps most days, winding it up each lap. Not textbook training but I managed to run fast off this.
PB’S: The Tan: 11:43 (full lap). Never ran a hard tan until a couple of years ago. 5 km: 14:25.1 (This run shows the value of aggression in your racing. Had started the race planning on running a 3km PB. Got to about 2600m and thought I’d keep going), 10 km: 31:13 x 3 (Road), 32:14.8 (1994), Half marathon: 70.54, Marathon: 2.44.40 (The way things are going, this is as good as it’s going to get!)
Other PB’s: 100m: 12.9, 200m: 26.5, 300m: 40.4, 400m: 56.6, 600m: 1:27.7, 800m: 1:.58.6, 2000m: 5:34, 2km steeple: 5:56, 3000m: 8:30, 3000m steeple: 8:59.2, 15km: 47:30
Best performance ever: It’s all relative, so some of my best performances were probably when I was a junior. Looking back, the good performances show how little I did with my talent, but I guess injuries don’t help. I reckon I put in my best string of performances when I was 18. Within a month I ran my then PBs for three distances and my second best 3000m ever. 3:59.53 (1500m), 8:33.1 (3000m), 9:11.3 (3000m Steeple) and 14:.46.9 (5000m). Strangely enough I was very light for that month, maybe 64kgs.
Any pre-race superstitions: Waste of time worrying about superstitions. If you prepare properly and get to the line fit then you have nothing to worry about.
Favourite food: Any sort of good chocolate cake
Favourite drink: Water (I consider myself a non drinker of alcohol, sports drinks, tea/coffee, juices and have recently given up soft drinks so water is the only thing left!)
Favourite movie: Any of Clint Eastwood’s great westerns. The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Good the Bad the Ugly etc.
Dream occupation: Sporting journalist, working for a company with very deep pockets.
Three things on your bucket list: Visit China, travel down the Amazon River and do an Ironman Triathlon
How do you prepare for a race: Physically I probably take the day before pretty easy, maybe an 8km run with 6 to 8 gentle run throughs. Mentally I’d reinforce that if you want to run fast then you’re going to have to hurt.