IT’S A BIG YEAR FOR CALLUM HAWKINS
MERCURY’S RISING ON A PUNISHING PURSUIT OF OLYMPIC GLORY
WHETHER here at home, on the country roads he uses between Puerto Pollensa and Alcudia in Mallorca or at altitude in Arizona with British Athletics, Callum Hawkins will plot his route to Olympic glory in typically singular fashion.
On his own, cocooned in his thoughts, feelings and sensations. Where he can experiment with the new levels of pain his wiry 27-year-old frame will have to handle. And where no one can hear him scream.
‘You teach yourself to hurt,’ he explains when quizzed on the rationale behind such a solitary approach in this age of training partners and support staff.
‘It is hard to push through the pain when you are on your own and you’ve got nobody else either behind or in front, pushing or dragging you on.’
These preparations for Tokyo 2020 are not so much about the loneliness of the long-distance runner, but the masochism of the marathonista.
By Hawkins’ own admission, the 26.2-mile event he is now in the fourth year of mastering is a brutal game, built on pushing your body way beyond where it is designed to go.
What gives the Kilbarchan AAC athlete’s year an added piquancy is that, in addition to putting himself through hell, it will also be predicated on the suffering of others. A touch of sadism to add to the self-flagellation, if you like.
Hawkins famously toughened himself for the unsparing conditions of last year’s World Championships in Doha by buying heaters from Aldi, using them to get the airless shed in his parents’ back garden up to 39 degrees and working himself to a puddle of sweat.
When it comes to the Olympics, he wants it hot and horrible again.
Following on from the criticism that followed Doha — where 28 of the 68 in the women’s race dropped out and 18 of the 73-strong men’s field failed to finish — the marathon has been moved 600 miles north to Sapporo in the hope of cooler conditions.
Hawkins isn’t sold on that, having spent time mapping recent temperatures there and in Tokyo in early August.
‘Over the last two years, it was the same, with the max at 32 degrees, so it still has the potential to be bad,’ he reports.
But bad, in this instance, is good. Hawkins torturing himself in that shed — already on the way to being reinstated as a home-made heat chamber — led to a heroic display in Doha in which he overtook the leaders late on before finishing fourth, an agonising six seconds short of a medal.
While faster runners broke down, he stayed strong. It is why his wishlist ahead of the biggest race of his life in early August involves punishing heat and humidity. He wants to see people fall apart.
‘It is a bit of a sadistic thing to want it to be hotter,’ he concedes. ‘It is the question I was contemplating even before Doha.
‘If it is really hot, I feel it brings my ability more into play and means a lot more of the better athletes can mess it up and struggle.
‘On the other hand, it is going to hurt even more — and the risks of you messing it up are higher, too.
‘You just need to look at past championships like the Athens Olympics in 2004. Meb Keflezighi got silver and he was a 2.08 runner, probably dipping into the top ten.
‘Usually, the hotter it is, the more unpredictable the result can be.
‘In Doha, I was the closest runner in the top ten to my PB, so, clearly, you do get a massive advantage if you prepare well.
‘Look at the Commonwealths in the Gold Coast. There were many runners quicker than Robbie Simpson, but he ran smart, stayed tough and won a bronze medal. They said it was 28 degrees that day, but I think it was closer to 35 or 40 in the sun.’
Of course, it is hard to talk to Hawkins about the effects of heat without revisiting that day in Australia in 2018.
In the gold medal position, two minutes in front of Australian Michael Shelley with a mile-and-ahalf to go, he collapsed for a second time at the 40km marker, hit his head off a barrier and stayed glued to the tarmac as his rivals moved past.
It proved an instructive period. Hawkins needed two months to recover, for starters, travelling to Portsmouth to meet a specialist in the effects of heat on soldiers in the Special Forces.
‘He helped me a lot. It was strange, worse than an injury,’ he recalls. ‘I was doing runs at what I felt was a similar effort to before, but my heart rate was 20 to 30 beats higher than normal. I didn’t feel right. I overheated in the Commonwealths. In those circumstances, the cerebellum at the back of your head shuts off all non-vital organs, so your legs go first and you faint. Everything goes into shutdown.
‘I just had to take it easy. The marathon deserves respect, but you need to respect the recovery as well.
‘I didn’t know how far ahead I was in the Gold Coast, but I could have slowed down.
‘I also got a bug bite before the race, had a bad reaction with rashes on my feet and hands and had to go on antiinflammatories, which push your core temperature up, so it was a bit of my own fault and a bit of unfortunate circumstances.
‘There is a bit of annoyance about the fact it keeps coming up, but I think it has become an “and also…” now. It wasn’t my aim to become famous for that race. I’d rather have a gold medal and be less famous, but I wouldn’t change it.’ It is tempting to suspect he couldn’t have changed it. His downfall was that he wouldn’t stop until his body gave him no option, but pushing it to extremes appears his way. Asked whether part of the marathon’s appeal lies in a secret enjoyment of suffering, Hawkins is clear. ‘Definitely,’ he says. ‘You know it will hurt no matter how fast you are going, so to overcome that and run as fast as you think you can is a big reason why people love the marathon so much. ‘It is such a monstrous thing to do and there is a real adrenaline rush when you finish. It is a brutal event.
Even in terms of the training. I do 130 miles a week at my maximum, but there are months of training, only to catch a cold or get a niggle the week before and that’s it gone.
‘If you are just one-per-cent off on the day, that’s minutes gone. Take just slightly too much fluid on during the race and you’re gone, too. The thing is, it is not like you can then go and do another one to make up for it.’
HAWKINS’ PB remains the 2:08.14 he ran in last year’s London Marathon. He wobbled at the 40km mark that day, too, and claims he had to look upwards at the finishing line to stop himself from falling over.
That was the first time he had covered the distance in a positive split. He went out hard to see what he was capable of in competition and insists Doha simply heightened ambitions of Olympic success.
‘London was about pushing and finding limits,’ he says. ‘Doha was a step up again after that.
‘With every marathon, the times I am doing in my sessions get better. Doing a hot marathon in Doha got the monkey off my back from Gold Coast and it was a dry run for Tokyo to help me nail down a race plan for those conditions.
‘Any potential tweaks? Maybe holding closer order. I maybe didn’t catch the leaders quite early enough and almost had to go on the attack straight away rather than gathering my thoughts.’
Hawkins’ big-race plan for Japan is already being crafted with father and coach Robert, a former international runner himself. He appreciates the raw honesty and unfiltered exchanges that come from working with a parent, but admits emotions can spill over.
‘Sometimes, there are arguments in which other things are brought in when it is purely supposed to be about training,’ he says.
‘Before I moved out of the house, stuff about not doing the dishes used to come into it.
‘We haven’t had any big, proper fallouts. I do remember one time in Mallorca, though, where I was overheating, 20 or 30 seconds off marathon pace for the last two miles, and just chucked it on the side of the road. He got in my face a bit and I just told him to get lost.
‘It cooled down slowly, but we know how to work each other. When times come around where you need
not to be polite, it is easier. ‘I think we have maybe become a bit closer through this. It is a shared hobby and there is maybe a bit of bonding through that.’
During many of those solitary training runs, Robert will bring up the rear on his bicycle. Hawkins, though, remains within his own little bubble.
‘It is maybe unusual nowadays, but I am sure, in the past, the golden-age guys just went out and got it done,’ he says. ‘It is an individual event that comes down to you pushing through when it is hurting on the day. Running by myself toughens you up.’
This is one man against the world, indeed. And there will be casualties.