Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography (27 page)

For the first few miles I ran a conservative race. I didn’t want to go full-on in my first half-marathon. Then Galen went down like a ton of bricks right in front of me, almost taking me out with him. I narrowly avoided a collision by hurdling over Galen at the last moment. For a split second I thought I was out of the race. But I recovered my stride and carried on running, managing to keep pace with the lead pack without ever pushing on. Some of the other runners were pushing the pace hard and had I been a less experienced runner I might have been tempted to go with them. But I called on my experience and resisted the temptation to push with them. 13.1 miles is a long way and you don’t want to go too hard, too early. As the race progressed, several other runners dropped off, leaving a pack of five of us racing towards the end. With 400 metres to go, it was a straight duel between me and Gebremariam. Then Gebremariam made his move. For a moment he eased forward and I thought he was about to pull clear of me. I didn’t panic. I stayed level on his shoulder until the last 200 metres. Then I put my foot down. In the process Gebremariam tried to block me off, moving to the left to stop me going in front of him. I had to take a big detour in order to get round the guy – while sprinting at full speed. Over the last 100 metres I opened up a 2-metre gap on Gebremariam. I held him off and crossed the line in first place.

The New York half-marathon was a big win for me. My performance made all the big marathon race organizers sit up and take notice. They started to think, ‘This guy could be a serious threat at the full marathon distance.’ I also clocked the fastest time ever for a British man at the distance. It would have been a new British record – by about thirty seconds – but because a section of the course was ever-so-slightly downhill, they were unable to ratify the result. Still, a win on my first-ever half-marathon was a great result. And Galen managed to salvage his race after falling over to finish third, making it a great day for both of us, and Alberto, as head of the Oregon Project, who could celebrate having two guys on the podium.

In June I travelled down to Eugene, a city about 100 miles due south of Portland, to compete in the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting, held at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus, the same track where ‘Pre’ had broken the American 5000 metres record. The ‘Pre Classic’ is considered one of, if not the biggest track meet of the year, anywhere in the world. It’s specifically a Nike meet, and all the top athletes in the world are involved, in every discipline: the sprinters, the long jumpers, the discus throwers and the distance runners. Basically, the cream of the crop is there. And that goes for the 10,000 metres too. Anyone who was anyone was in that race: Imane Merga, Moses Masai, Zersenay Tadese and Mark Kiptoo. There was absolutely nobody absent from the line-up. In athletics we call it ‘fully loaded’: it’s the term we use for a race with the strongest possible field with nobody missing. Going into the 10,000 metres, on paper I was probably halfway down the list in terms of where people expected me to finish – Tania included. A lot of people had said to me before the race, ‘You’d do well to come about fifth. If you’re in the top five, that’s a great result for you, mate.’ I guess that was a fairly realistic prediction. Compared to the other guys in the race I hadn’t come close to them; I’d never beaten any of them before. I hadn’t even clocked any quick times that were seriously threatening them.

If you listen to the commentary for the race, my name isn’t even mentioned until twenty-two minutes in. The commentator also happened to be the head of marketing for athletics worldwide at Nike. He knew everything there was to know about athletics, and had a pretty good idea about who stood a chance of winning the race and who didn’t. Sure, I’d won the European titles, but on the world stage nobody is that fussed about the European Championships. It’s all about how you perform at the Worlds and the Olympics. That’s where it’s at. And no one in their right mind expected me to finish top five at the Pre Classic. It was only after I started to creep up on the leading pack and I came into the camera shot that the commentator and everyone else in the stadium started to take notice of me. At that point I was neck-and-neck with Merga. He’d been the hot favourite for the race. Beforehand everyone had predicted that Merga would win. With 200 metres to go, I suddenly found this kick. It came from nowhere. I shot away from Merga, kicked on and won the race.

For me to win that 10,000 metres race was absolutely phenomenal. Nobody had seen it coming. All around Hayward Field, jaws hit the floor. The crowd went absolutely nuts. It was a local crowd and they were excited to see a British guy beating the Africans at their own game. In addition, the fans knew I was training and based in Oregon, working with Alberto, and they viewed me as one of their own. In the other races that evening, the crowd showed their respect, but the noise was nothing like that generated when I crossed the finish line. They went ballistic for me. That race was the turning point of my career on the world stage – the race where I went from being an outsider for the top five to becoming a world-beater. All of a sudden, I was a threat.

My victory at the Pre Classic tasted extra sweet because I had also set a new British and European record of 26:46.57 in the process. Chris Thompson, one of my main rivals as a junior, had said at the beginning of the year that he was going to go for the British 10,000 metres record. Over the course of the year, this friendly competition unfolded between me and Chris as to who could break that record first. In previous years we’d both edged closer and closer to it, shaving a second off each other’s time with every race. Chris would run 27:28. I would then come back and run 27:27. Then Chris would clock 27:26. And so on. It was almost as if we were competing with each other to seize that record. It was a big target for both of us. To not only win the 10,000 metres in such a strong field, but to break the record in the process, which I’d been trying to do for two years, and to pip Chris Thompson to it as well – it was an all-round amazing feeling and fully vindicated my decision to switch coaches and work with Alberto.

In July I broke another British record competing in the 5000 metres at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco, where I ran 12:53.11 – a new personal best and almost four seconds faster than my time in Zurich. That time was good enough to elevate me to second place on the all-time European list for the event (behind only the Moroccan-born Belgian runner Mohammed Mourhit). It was also the fastest 5000 anyone had run in 2011. More importantly, I had beaten Bernard Lagat. To this day, Lagat is considered one of the all-time greats of middle-distance running. In his prime he was the best in the world, twice a gold medallist at the World Championships. Lagat was in great shape going into Monaco and for me to beat him was a massive shock and a significant boost ahead of Daegu. I had already asserted my credentials at the 10,000 metres at the Pre Classic. Now I was making my presence felt at the 5000 metres too, and against different competitors (some guys compete in the 5000 metres but not the 10,000 metres, including Lagat). Going into Monaco, you would have been laughed at if you’d put your money on me to win. With another win under my belt, my confidence skyrocketed. After the Pre Classic and Monaco, I now had the feeling that I could beat everyone. So far that year I had won every 5000 metres race I’d entered. I went into the World Championships determined to win.

Building up to the Worlds, there had been some talk in the press, a few people publicly questioning my decision to relocate to Portland. ‘He’s just won the European Championships,’ they said. ‘Why risk it all now so close to the Olympics, when everything seems to be going so well?’ It was an easy argument to make, but it ignored the fact that before 2011 I’d consistently placed behind the leading distance runners in the world. I owed it to myself to ask: ‘Will I get to the very top of my sport by continuing on the same path, by doing the same things?’ The obvious answer was no. My results in the Eugene and Monaco meetings told me that I’d made the right choice. I was going into the World Championships at Daegu in South Korea in the form of my life.

Unlike the Worlds at Osaka and Berlin, where I simply wanted to do well, this time I
knew
I could do well. I wasn’t finishing sixth or seventh any more. I was winning races. Training had been great. Now it was time to make it happen on the big stage. I was still known as a European athlete; everybody on the European circuit knew my name. But I still had it all to prove on the world stage, mixing it with the likes of the Bekele brothers. I told myself, ‘There’s no way I’m going home without a medal.’

This time, I simply had to win.

I went into Daegu as one of the hot favourites. With that expectation came a degree of pressure. Now people were expecting me to do well. On the evening of 28 August 2011, I entered the Daegu Stadium to take my place in the 10,000 metres final. Of my rivals for the title, Tadese and Merga were ranked in the top three in the world, but I’d already beaten them once that season at the ‘Pre’ Classic. Sileshi Sihine, nicknamed ‘Mr Silver’ because he’d taken silver twice in the 10,000 at Athens and Beijing, and three times in the World Championships, was another runner I had to watch out for. Kenenisa Bekele was there too, although he’d been struggling with injuries for some time and hadn’t run a race for nearly two years. Galen was also there, our friendship on hold while we prepared to race. There were several other runners I didn’t know much about: Yuki Sato of Japan, Juan Carlos Romero of Mexico, and an unknown Ethiopian runner named Ibrahim Jeilan.

As a professional athlete, it’s my job to do background research on the guys I’m up against. Before a race I’ll watch videos of my main rivals, figuring out whether their strength is in sprinting or endurance. I’ll look for any weaknesses too – every athlete has one, even me, although I’m not about to give that away. I do enough research so that by the time I line up at the start of the race, I’ll know what every single runner on that start line is capable of. And as I took my place on the line that day, I knew the main threat would come from Imane Merga, the World Cross Country holder. He’d won the 5000 metres at the Diamond League meeting in Rome earlier that season. Tadese, Sihine, Bekele – they were definitely threats. A big race like that, you can usually pick the winner from one of four or five favourites.

I lined up next to Galen on the start line and gave a quick wave to the British fans in the crowd. The race had a two-tiered start. A little bell rang to silence the crowd. I took a deep breath. BOOM!

As usual, I started at the back of the field and began working my way up to the leading pack. The first lap, the pace was in the mid-60s. Fine by me. I was happy to let it go along at this rate, knowing that I could go really hard on the last two or three laps and produce 55 or 56 seconds across the last 400 metres. Soon the lead group was reduced to Galen, me and the Africans: Tadese, Merga, Mathathi and Jeilan. At the halfway point Bekele was spent and he had to drop out. Tadese nudged out in front. The pace in the big races is often quite slow; everyone is running it tactically, and some runners are afraid of what the other guys will do. I was working hard, but the pace wasn’t fast enough to split up the rest of the field. Then I started winding it up. I surged past Tegenkamp. With two laps to go, the pace picked up and runners started falling away. Now I moved up into fourth place. Still winding, still pushing. Waiting for the moment to attack. All of a sudden, Tadese slipped back. He was out of the picture.

‘Now,’ I thought. ‘Now’s the time to kick.’

With 500 metres to go, I bolted past Merga to take the lead. The clang of the bell told me we were coming into the last lap – 400 metres to go. I was having to dig really, really hard – harder than I’ve ever had to dig before. But it worked. I opened up this big gap between myself and the chasing pack. I must have been 10 metres in front of Merga and the rest. The finish line was in sight. At that point I thought I’d done enough to win the gold.

Out of nowhere, this guy just tore past me.

Jeilan.

In the blink of an eye, the young Ethiopian had wiped out the big gap I’d worked so hard to build and took the lead. I had to dig even deeper now. I dug hard. I worked hard. I gave it everything I could to try and catch Jeilan, sensing that gold slipping through my fingers, like sand. It was too late. I’d kicked on too soon. I was helpless as Jeilan sprinted ahead and won the race. As I made it over the line I slumped to my knees in disbelief. ‘I’ve lost.’ That thought kept repeating inside my head. ‘I can’t believe I’ve lost.’ At the very moment when I felt like I had the 10,000 metres gold in the bag, Jeilan had beaten me. I had clocked a time of 27:14.07. Jeilan ran it in 27:13.81. There was less than three-tenths of a second in it. Gutting.

When I looked back at my race, I realized that I’d made a fatal mistake. Tactically, I called it wrong. In my honest opinion, I kicked too early. I should have saved my kick for 400 metres instead of going at 500. At the point when I kicked, I wasn’t even thinking about Jeilan. I didn’t have a clue about this guy. He hadn’t competed at any of the previous races I’d been in, so I hadn’t had a chance to see him and what he was capable of. I wasn’t the only one who made that mistake: none of the commentators considered him a realistic shot for the title in Daegu. I hadn’t done my homework on him, and I ended up paying a high price.

I had three days until the qualifying heats for the 5000 metres. Mentally I was fatigued, dejected – almost depressed. Thankfully Rhianna and Tania were in Daegu with me during the competition, and having them there helped take my mind off the result. For a couple of hours after the race I had athletes coming up to me and saying things like, ‘Unlucky, mate,’ or ‘Maybe next time, Mo.’ That’s the problem with staying in the village during an Olympic Games or World Championships. You’re surrounded by athletes and if you lose, you’re reminded of your failure constantly. I’m sure all the people coming up to me had good intentions and were trying to cheer me up. But I didn’t want to be constantly reminded of the fact that I had just lost a massive race. I needed to get out of that environment. So I decamped to the hotel where Tania and Rhianna were staying, outside the village. I just stayed in the hotel room with my wife and daughter, watching movies and trying to take my mind off the result. Psychologically that helped a lot. I wasn’t allowed to dwell on losing the 10,000 metres. Rhianna and Tania took me out of that bubble. I was able to do normal things, watch TV and put my feet up, forget about everything else. Those three days were crucial for me in terms of recovering for my next race. If I hadn’t had that downtime with my family, I might not have been able to overcome the mental pain of losing in the 10,000 metres.