‘I’m going to break it today.’
Those were the first words to come out of my mouth when I woke up on the second morning of the 2007 Australian championships in Brisbane. I’d never done anything like that before. I was declaring to Kieran that I was going to break the Australian 100m hurdles record.
All season I’d been chasing it, but I suddenly had this strange, overwhelming sense that Pam Ryan’s record of 12.93, which had stood since 1972, was going down.
The chase had become a frustrating saga all summer. Every time I stepped onto the track I was asked the question: ‘Are you going to break it today?’ I’d been agonisingly close on a number of occasions over the previous six weeks, but the weather gods hadn’t smiled on me.
In Canberra I’d gone under it, clocking 12.88, but it was with an illegal wind reading of +3.9 metres per second (above 2 metres per second is deemed illegal). I’d also improved my 100m personal best that night to 11.25 – with a legal wind reading – which pushed me up to sixth on the Australian all-time list.
Athletics Australia were doing their bit to help with the record chasing by bringing reigning world 100m hurdles champion Michelle Perry out to compete in the Sydney and Melbourne legs of the domestic Grand Prix Series. Surely, racing against the best in the world would push me under it.
An infected wisdom tooth in the lead-up to the Sydney meet was annoying, but there was no way I was going to miss out on an opportunity to race Perry. The key was not to be overawed by the occasion. I came up with a mantra that I kept telling myself over and over before the race:
I am here because I deserve to be. I am here because I deserve to be.
It worked because I flew out of the blocks and was still leading coming into the final hurdle before Perry effectively monstered her way past. The American was known as a messy hurdler, and I was a bit shocked when she came right over almost onto my lane and her lead arm made contact with me, throwing me off. It was enough for her to get the win in 12.87. My time was again under the record – 12.90 – but the tail wind was too strong at +2.4 metres per second.
Despite the loss it was still pretty nice to be able to say I nearly beat the world champion the first time I’d raced against her. Perry’s comments about me afterwards were also heartening: ‘I think she’s got what it takes. She’s got a lot of tenacity.’
The trip to Melbourne didn’t go according to plan. I was beaten in both the 100m and 100m hurdles by Perry and was taught a lesson in how to not let conditions dictate performance. Olympic Park had always been a nightmare for sprinters, and I was cranky about the headwinds in the lead-up. It was like I’d convinced myself before the start of the race that the record couldn’t be broken. Then when Perry false-started, that threw me out even more. She didn’t miss a beat on the re-start, though, and won easily in 12.82 while I ran a horrible race for second in 13.04.
‘That sucks,’ was my summary of events when questioned about it afterwards.
My last chance to get the record in the domestic season was in Brisbane a week later at the 2007 Australian championships.
The 100m was first, and I was happy to claim my third national crown in another personal best time of 11.23 – the fastest time by an Australian woman in Australia.
Despite waking up the next morning and having my premonition about breaking the hurdles record, I was still very nervous at the warm-up track. Sharon said afterwards that she’d never seen me so stressed – and my mindset didn’t improve after some controversy at the start of the race.
When I came out of my blocks, they slipped backwards, so I put my hand up straightaway to indicate the problem to the starter. But by the time he fired the gun a second time to indicate a false start, some of the girls had gone over five hurdles. I couldn’t believe this was happening now. It turned out my blocks had no needles in them, which wasn’t my fault and I was well within my rights to call a false start.
Once that drama was finally sorted, there was another false start, which thankfully didn’t have anything to do with me.
It was a case of third time lucky to get the race under way, and after I’d cleared the first couple of hurdles I knew something good was coming. I felt smooth and fast; the key was to keep it rolling to the end. As I dipped at the line I thought I would be close.
Then I looked up and saw 12.94. My heart sank.
I knew that time was unofficial and it could be rounded down.
‘Come on, be nice to me,’ I said.
I had my head in my hands as I stared at the clock, and then I heard the stadium announcer say the adjusted time: ‘12.92.’ I screamed the loudest I’d ever screamed and took off on a crazy dance/run routine back up the straight.
Two hundredths of a second! I couldn’t believe the clock had done that for me. All the hard work had finally paid off. The monkey was off my back.
Fittingly, Pam Ryan was there to present the medals – but I was taken aback by what she said to me on the dais.
‘You shouldn’t be aiming for 12.9, you should be aiming for 12.5,’ she said.
I was stunned. Here I was, bursting with excitement about breaking the record, yet she was having a go at me.
‘Ah, yeah I am.’
When I told Sharon about the exchange she was horrified. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Why put me down at such a moment?
I was 20 years old and of course I had long-term goals to go a lot faster, but you also need to have short-term goals, and breaking the Australian record had been it for that season.
Her comments to the media afterwards were also disappointing. ‘She was lucky that the start was called back,’ Ryan said.
I came away determined to prove that I was more than worthy of holding the record and that in the future I would be going faster than 12.5. This wasn’t a one-off. I would show Ryan that this was just a stepping stone to something far greater.
Despite the negative feelings I got from Ryan’s comments, the hurdle gods had been on my side, as predicted.
‘I told you I’d do it,’ I reminded Kieran as we left the track.
The first thing I did when I got home was get my ‘goal book’ out and put a big tick next to the 100m hurdles open record.
Those goals were done now. What was going to be the next one?
* * *
It felt like I was flying. The ease with which I was covering the hurdles was new. There was a flow that had never been there before.
I’d again started strongly and was in front of two of the best hurdlers in the world, the American duo of Lolo Jones and Danielle Carruthers. This time I was going to hold on.
I just knew it.
I did.
As I crossed the line I threw my arms up in jubilation. I’d just won my first international race – but that wasn’t all that I was celebrating. The time was out of this world: 12.71.
It had been only two months since I’d broken the Australian record in Brisbane. After chasing that mark for so long I was shocked that in my next race – which was at Osaka’s Nagai Stadium in Japan – I’d sliced .21 of a second off it.
I hadn’t been expecting it because I came into the race with a badly swollen knee, which had limited my training in recent weeks. Plus I was taking on the top guns. I’d heard a lot of hype about Jones, who’d run 12.56 the previous year, and she’d certainly exuded confidence pre-race. I also knew most of the field had faster times than me coming into the race, but, importantly, I again proved to myself that I could mix it with these girls.
So if they were the best and I’d beaten them – with a bad knee – then why couldn’t I be the best? It was a question I was pretty happy to be tossing around in my head.
I did have a chuckle to myself that night as I thought about how Pam Ryan’s 12.5 was becoming a reality sooner than we’d expected. My winning time was the fastest in the world that year and, with the world championships back in the same stadium in just over three months’ time, my goals needed some reassessing. I’d come to Osaka thinking a semifinal berth in August was about right. I left thinking I could make the final at the world championships.
Even though I was physically exhausted after my career-best performance, there was another opportunity straightaway to race against the same girls at the Doha Golden League meet. I still wasn’t used to high-pressure racing, so the more chances I got to put myself in that environment the better. Despite not feeling great, I managed to run 12.90 to finish third behind Virginia Powell and Lolo.
Instead of heading off to Europe and following the tour with the rest of the girls, I headed home, as Sharon wanted to get a solid training block in before the world championships. She still considered 2007 a building year, despite the significant inroads I’d made, and already had one eye on the following year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
The downside of going into a heavy training load was that it sucked the magic of Osaka out of me. Two weeks out from departing for the world championships I was feeling slow.
We had a pre-departure camp in Cairns for the relay team – we’d qualified at the Osaka Grand Prix back in May – which coincided with the North Queensland Games. I ran in the 100m and clocked 11.5. It was rubbish and I was pissed off afterwards.
The reality was that if I served that up in Osaka, my championships were going to be over a lot sooner than expected.