‘If I’m going to win a gold medal at the Olympics, then I have to win the world championships.’
My declaration to Sharon came in our debrief session looking back at 2010. I then added: ‘These two years are going to be the biggest of my life.’
My coach understood where I was coming from, but wanted to hedge her bets. ‘I agree that if you are to win a gold medal in London, you have to medal at the world championships.’
‘No. I have to win,’ I repeated.
She seemed to get the message.
I wanted to be in the shape of my life for the 2011 world championships, which were being held in Daegu, South Korea, in August.
‘I don’t want to let anything stop me,’ I said. ‘I want to make sure I do everything I can to run fast and become the best.’
I’d already made one important decision about a key area: my diet. One of the things I could control was what went into my body, and this was highlighted to me by a fellow athlete. What started out as an innocent conversation over lunch ended up being a life-changing moment, and a potentially dangerous one.
I’d spoken about how I thought I needed to get a little bit leaner and maybe drop my skinfolds, but hadn’t really looked into it.
‘You can start by not eating those things, for a start,’ she said, pointing to what I thought was a healthy chicken and salad sandwich.
By the end of the lunch I had a whole different outlook on food. I clearly had no idea about eating properly. Not that I ate badly by any stretch, but this was a whole new world. From that point on I was obsessed. Major carbohydrates such as pasta and bread – which were my two favourites – were out. Any little treats like chocolate or biscuits were gone, and I started measuring to the gram how much cereal I had each morning.
In my head I’d suddenly convinced myself that controlling my diet was going to win me the world championships. If I remained anal to the extreme, then I would win. If I didn’t, I would lose. It was a scary mindset to have, which I was to find out later.
Another lifestyle change that was designed to keep my mind busy was a new job. I’d begun to think about life after the track and thought it would be good to have some qualifications behind me whenever that time came. I knew I could get a job at Mum’s work any time, and I found a TAFE course for a traineeship in business administration, which I would be able to do at Bartercard. At the end of it I’d have a Certificate 3 in business administration, which sounded impressive enough. That was all well and good, but the problem was I had to understand how Bartercard operated, which was a lot harder than I’d figured.
Speaking of hard, I got to sit across from Mum at work – and she was one tough cookie on those phones! It’s fair to say she didn’t put up with much rubbish, and there were many times I was glad I wasn’t the person on the other end of the phone.
Having a routine with work and training was a lot better than just lounging around on the couch in between sessions. I would do an early gym or pool session and be at Bartercard by 9.30 am, work until around 1.30 pm and then go to training at the track in the afternoon. Instead of sitting on my backside behind a desk the whole time, I raised my computer and keyboard so I’d be able to stand up and do my job. It might have been a small detail, but everything was geared towards Daegu in August.
On the track Sharon and I had again decided to limit my hurdling throughout the Australian domestic series because of my back. It worked for the most part until I got itchy feet after training had been going so well. A compromise was reached and we included the hurdles in my program at Perth and at the national championships. With virtually no training over the barriers, I still ran 12.85 in Perth, but my frustration with the 100m national record continued. My pursuit of Melinda Gainsford-Taylor’s 11.12 again came up short. This time it was 11.20.
The national championships were in Melbourne on 15–17 April, and rather than focus on records – historically conditions were always bad for fast times at Olympic Park – we changed tack and I was chasing titles in three events: the 100m hurdles, 100m and 200m.
On the Friday I cruised through the heat of the 100m in 11.69 and then ran 11.51 in the semifinal. The following night I improved that again to claim my fifth national title in 11.38.
Four races in one day were on the menu for the Sunday, with heats and finals of the 100m hurdles and 200m. The hurdles was again solid, with victory coming in 12.83, while I enjoyed winning my first national 200m crown in 23.20. I found out afterwards that I was the first athlete in 43 years to win three national titles on the one weekend.
While we were keen to mimic a lot of 2010 in our preparation, there was one major difference – Kieran was coming with me.
We’d both struggled badly being away from each other for three months and agreed we couldn’t go through that again. His business was up and running, but financially we could handle him being away. More importantly, for my sanity I needed him. His presence was going to make going back to Cologne bearable.
I’d come to the realisation that it was one of those places that was good to visit on holiday but not to stay in for too long. I found there was a combination of little things that conspired to wear you down. Not many of the locals spoke English, which did get to me after a while. The weather was always bad, and I couldn’t even chill out in front of the TV because there was nothing that was watchable. Instead, I ended up spending hours stuck in the apartment looking at downloads of my favourite shows on the small screen of my computer.
What I also found myself looking at was my body in the mirror – all the time. Too much of the time. I kept looking to see if I was lean. In my mind I wasn’t – what I was seeing was still the slightly chubby Sally from the previous year – but everyone kept telling me how fit I was looking.
It was weird.
I knew I had an issue, which scared me. But at the same time, the fact that I still wanted to eat gave me confidence that everything was still reasonably okay.
On the track I couldn’t have been more confident with how I felt coming into my opening race in Lausanne on 30 June. It turned out to be a challenging evening, as we had to deal with a strong tailwind. For hurdlers it’s actually harder to cope with that than a stiff headwind, because you have to try to keep yourself balanced.
Adding to the degree of difficulty was the fact that Danielle Carruthers was right on my tail the whole way, but I got the dip in on the line to win in 12.47 by .01 of a second. (The wind had been an illegal +3.3 metres per second.)
The American actually thought she’d won and started celebrating with the winner’s flowers, which are presented at the finish line. I knew it was me, and Danielle was a touch embarrassed as she handed them back over. The bonus was I got to feel what it was like to run at that speed. While it was illegal, it was still the first time I’d broken 12.5, and knowing what it felt like was important for the future.
We weren’t tapering for the competitions, with Sharon saying it was crucial that I continued to build fitness right up to the world championships. She had to plant these things in my mind ahead of time because I was always questioning everything.
‘What I am doing this for?’ I’d ask about why I was doing a speed endurance session the day before these big meets.
This added to our happiness about what I was producing on the Diamond League circuit, and we got a pleasant surprise in Birmingham. After winning the heat in 12.57, which was a meet record, two hours later we came out for the final in pouring rain. It wasn’t exactly the backdrop I’d expected to produce another Australian record-breaking performance against, but my personal best was lowered to 12.48 – the fastest time in the world that year. Danielle Carruthers had also run a personal best for second (12.52) while Virginia Crawford was third (12.79).
I decided the new record deserved a celebration, and a break from the ‘rabbit food’ that was all I’d been allowing myself to eat. Two slices of cheesecake were the prize, and I’d never tasted anything so good in my life. It was only a brief lapse, and the strict diet was back for our visit to Monaco, where once again the weather was hot and perfect for running fast.
The problem was I felt terrible in the lead-up and certainly wasn’t expecting the 12.51 I clocked in claiming another victory. There was a new kid on the block chasing me, with American Kellie Wells grabbing second (12.58) and Tiffany Porter third (12.60). I got a lot of confidence out of running that fast while feeling absolutely crap. I knew that was a great sign looking ahead to Daegu in just over a month’s time.
* * *
‘Am I peaking too early?’
I was asking Sharon the same question over and over.
‘No, Sal, these are the times you should have been running last year, but for a whole host of reasons it didn’t happen.’
That seemed to make sense to me.
‘So you’re not surprised?’
‘No, I’m not surprised.’
The final race before the world championships was in London at Crystal Palace, which was a track that historically was slower than the others. I was determined to keep my unbeaten streak going and felt good in the heat, winning it in 12.55. There were no mistakes in the final, which I won comfortably in 12.58 from Danielle Carruthers (12.67) and Tiffany Porter (12.78).
Now all everyone wanted to talk about was the pressure associated with going into a major championships as the raging favourite. I actually the liked the position. While it’s on a different scale, I was always favourite as a junior going into races, and got used to it, so being expected to win wasn’t really daunting. It gave me confidence, as I knew these girls had to chase me. And they had a lot more work to do than I did.
I already knew I was in great shape. I was healthy, and they were the ones who had to pick up their game.
‘You want to be the best in the world and that’s what comes with it,’ I told journalists after the race. ‘I’d rather be running fast and have everyone talking about me than not running fast. I am conscious of [the added pressure], but that’s what I want.’
We arrived in Daegu two weeks early, which turned out to be a masterstroke as it put me in an extra bubble of focus. It meant I could concentrate on exactly what I was there to do, and didn’t have to stress about anything. I was in an apartment with a great bunch of girls, including Alana Boyd, who was my roommate, Dani Samuels and Hayley Butler.
The village was fun, but the food was shocking. There was a lot of outrage, but I didn’t let it worry me. My attitude was that there was nothing you could really do about it, so you just had to find a way to deal with it.
Everything was tracking perfectly until I felt it go again. I was halfway through a hurdles session when my back tightened. I made the mistake of choosing to ignore it and pressed on. With each hurdle I felt the muscles getting tighter and tighter before it finally grabbed. Then I couldn’t move.
It wasn’t as bad as the 2009 episode, because I was able to get moving after a few seconds, so I wasn’t totally freaking out. I went straight over to the physio and we were all confident that some rest and anti-inflammatory tablets would do the trick. As long as it didn’t affect my program in the final week leading up to my first-round race, then I was able to remain calm.
After a few days off I went down to the small 150m track at the village for an activation session with the physio. He had me complete a series of drills to see how my back responded, and I knew Sharon was freaking out. She wasn’t happy, but I went along with his directions. I survived that and was determined to stick with the program that had been mapped out months ago.
The following day I had a sprint session and it was terrible.
‘This feels absolute crap,’ I said to Sharon.
My calmness was starting to break.
‘I’m running so slow. What I am doing today is not going to get me a gold medal at the world championships. What the hell is going on?’
And with that I stomped off and started to walk a lap.
I’d also asked Sharon what she thought the speed of my run-throughs equated to for the 100m. She estimated 11.5. That just made me even angrier, because an 11.5 pace wasn’t going to win me a gold medal in the hurdles.
As I started the walk, Eric Hollingsworth approached and asked if he could join me. It was good to have someone other than Sharon to talk to about these things, and I wanted Eric’s thoughts on what he’d just seen.
‘Did you see that? It was just crap and slow,’ I said.
He agreed, which was all I wanted to hear.
‘Yeah, it was slow and I know what you mean that it’s not going to get you a gold medal, but you know you are better than that,’ Eric said. ‘You know that at the world championships you’re going to be.’
Before we’d left for overseas, I’d sat down with Sharon and had a heart-to-heart. While the odd blow-up was inevitable, we really needed to be on the same page.
‘Can you please just hear me out sometimes,’ I told my coach. ‘I really need you to trust me as much as I trust you. It’s really important because these are the two biggest years of my career, and I can’t let anyone else disrupt it.
‘We know what we’ve got to do to make me the best. Others don’t understand – they haven’t been with me for that long. They don’t get it. They don’t see me every day. They don’t know what my body is like.’
This resolve was put to its greatest test in the final week leading into the first round of the 100m hurdles. I was scheduled to do a hurdles session out of the blocks, but as we walked to the track, Sharon suggested a change. At that stage I was unaware of her motives.
‘I don’t know whether hurdling is a good idea today,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘You’ve had a fair bit of treatment on your back and I think maybe it’s too much to be hurdling today. Maybe we just do a warm-up stretch and then hurdle tomorrow.’
That meant I would be doing a hurdles session three days before I raced – the first round was on Friday, day seven of the championships – which normally wasn’t what we did. I didn’t like breaking routine ahead of big races and I suggested we make a decision after the warm-up and just see how I was feeling.
Sharon agreed, but unbeknown to me she was copping heat from team management. Eric and the medical team had effectively ordered Sharon not to let me go over the hurdles. He wanted me in cotton wool, as any sort of minor setback would end my championships.
After feeling good in the warm-up, I went and started setting up the blocks. Sharon just let me go as normal. The track was quite slippery and I needed someone to stand on the blocks.
‘Hey Eric, can you stand on my blocks for me?’
He looked at me and then Sharon. ‘Yeah, sure.’
I completed a couple of starts without issue and then Eric had to leave for a meeting.
My back had not been an issue, and as I was warming down, Sharon came over and told me about the blow-up. Just before he’d left, as I was at the other end of the track, Eric had walked past Sharon and said, ‘This better not fucking lose her a gold medal.’
‘No, it won’t,’ was Sharon’s response.
I was so happy when my coach told me the story. Sharon had shown faith in me to know what my body was capable of doing in that session.
Instead of buckling under pressure and listening to the medical team, which she’d done in the past, she’d trusted me.
It was a pivotal moment in our relationship.