New Gillick proves impossible is nothing

ATHLETICS: The Irish 400 metre runner's achievement in breaking the 45-second barrier wasn't just the turning point of his season but of his entire career.

IT WAS in the Morton Stadium on Thursday morning, waiting to interview David Gillick, when I was suddenly hit with the urge to run a lap of the track. There must be something innate in all runners, no matter what their distance, to stride out over that perfect 400 metres, preferably as quickly as possible. And why is a running track 400 metres? Don’t ask me.

“I consider it the backbone event,” says Clyde Hart, the great American sprint coach. “I mean, if it wasn’t so important, why would you have a 400-metre track?”

You can’t argue with that. Sure, the 100 metres may be the ultimate test of speed, and the 10,000 metres the ultimate endurance test, but no event on the track tests the human capacity for both speed and endurance like the 400 metres. If you’ve ever swam in a sea of lactic acid you know what I’m talking about.

According to my Encyclopaedia of Track and Field (Prentice-Hall Press, 1986), the 400 metres is known as “the killer event” – and even the top competitors can experience a severe headache, nausea and some disorientation at the end of it: “This can have a deleterious effect on the runner’s future performance since it is not encouraging to settle on the starting blocks in a subsequent race with the memory of the suffering experienced in the previous one.”

Some of my first running heroes were 400 metres specialists, or in the case of Alberto Juantorena, a master of the event, and then some. After being tempted away from basketball, in 1971, the big Cuban went on to record the first and only Olympic double in the 400 and 800 metres, in Montreal, in 1976.

He won the 400 metres in an amazing 44.26. Even for distance runners, the 400 metres is a crucial barometer of ability. Repeat 400 metres is the standard interval session, and at the end of every distance race, the first question you’re likely to be asked is what was your last 400 metres? It was with that in mind that I ran my first and only 400 metres race, sometime back in the 1980s. It was actually a 400 metres relay, for my old club in Dundrum, and I remember well chasing down my old foe, Niall Bruton, who was running for Clonliffe.

We were flat to the boards, and ran 54-something. I was chuffed, and never ran as fast again. So the idea of running 44-something is almost inconceivable to me. Eight years ago the Irish record was 45.73, Derek O’Connor had set it in 1986. By Irish standards, that was very quick. In 2002 Paul McKee lowered it to 45.62, and that was very, very quick. Then along came David Gillick, and the rest is 400 metres history.

Breaking 45 seconds, like breaking the four-minute mile, is as much a mental as physical barrier. That’s what Gillick was thinking when he went to the Atletismo meeting in Madrid on July 4th: “For the last two or three years, I kept thinking 44 seconds was going to come. Every race I ran I was thinking that. But it doesn’t work that way. . .

“And last year, when I ran 45.12, I was putting even more pressure on myself. The fact that my training partner, Martyn Rooney, also ran 44 seconds, I just felt I should be up there too. Now people have been asking me what have I changed this year, when I haven’t really changed anything. The only thing I’ve changed is my head. Running is a big part of my life, but it’s not all my life. I started running as a kid because I enjoyed it. I wanted to get back to that.”

Gillick has been enjoying this summer like none before. He went to Madrid looking forward to running fast, not thinking he had to run fast. Just like it used to be heading down to the UCD track on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. If he was good enough to run 44-something it would happen in its own time.

“The biggest thing, in Madrid, was the first 60 metres or so. ‘Get out of the blocks very fast’, that’s all I was thinking. I just went for it. I relaxed a little down the back straight, but I knew I was moving quick. At the 200 metre mark I knew I was in this. With 100 metres to go, and I can still see it now, I was feeling alright, and started thinking ‘just leg it’. With 20 metres to go I did grit the teeth, tensed up a little, and started looking for the clock. Usually what happens is that it’s on 44, and then ticks over . . .” Not this time.

The clock stopped at 44.77. Gillick won, easily, so he knew straightaway that was his time. It ranked him fourth fastest in the world in 2009, and still does. He hadn’t just stepped into 44-second territory, he’d jumped into it, and it wasn’t just the turning point of his season but his entire career.

“It was great to run 44.7, but it was more important to back it up. I think the Gillick of old would have run 44.7 and thought, ‘nice one, big PB, happy days’. But instead I was thinking about running next, in Rome, and backing it up.” Which is exactly what Gillick did, running 44.82, and finishing second.

You only have to look at Gillick now to realise how much he is enjoying his sport. He can handle whatever he stumbles upon. Just five months ago he had that nightmare at the European Indoors in Turin, where instead of challenging for a third successive 400 metres title, he crashed out in the heats. The Gillick of old might have been haunted by that for a long time. The new Gillick admits he was raging but woke up the next day looking ahead.

“When I saw the final the next day, in 45.9, I know I could have won it. At the time I was gutted, I wanted the three-in-a-row. It would have been great to do it. But I came away knowing I wasn’t injured, I’d a great winter’s training. There were still the positives. I have always wanted to do sport, as professionally as I can. Again, it’s about enjoying it. Like in Monaco, last Tuesday night. It was my first time there. What a place. Unbelievable. I’m warming up thinking, ‘I’m in Monte Carlo here . . . how many people get this opportunity? All expenses paid . . . Staying in a four-star hotel’. That’s what you should be thinking. . .

“And of course I’m thinking about the final now at the World Championships. Why not? I think that was one of my problems before. When you guys would ask me what I wanted to run, I’d think I shouldn’t say. But you’ve got to realise what you’re actually aiming at, and admit it.”

The Gillick of old would never have said that. But that’s what happens when you run 44 seconds. It’s a mental as much as a physical thing. Impossible is nothing.