Olympic 800m champion is the latest in a long list of runners who have included sand dune workouts in their training with great success
Fashionable training techniques for today’s endurance runners double include tempo efforts, cross-training and of course Norwegian-style double threshold sessions. Thanks to Keely Hodgkinson, though, sand dune running is making a comeback.
The Olympic 800m champion puts herself through gruelling workouts on the beach at Formby, especially during the winter base building period. Situated a short drive from her home in Manchester, the 22-year-old travels there to train with coach Trevor Painter’s group. “It’s a really brutal session,” says Painter. “It’s formulates your mind as well as your physiology.”
Running hard on the beach and especially up sand dunes is nothing new for middle and long distance runners, of course. The efforts build strength and stamina and promote good running form as the body struggles to get a grip on the soft, uneven surface.
Frank Horwill with BMC runners (Mark Shearman)
Coincidentally 124 years before Hodgkinson stormed to gold in Paris, another British 800m runner called Alfred Tysoe won the men’s Olympic title – also in Paris – after having done much of his preparations on the sand dunes of South Shore in Blackpool, a few miles north of Formby.
Not only did Tysoe win that Olympic 800m title in 1900 but soon afterwards won a head-to-head match race over three-quarters of a mile against the Olympic 1500m gold medallist Charles Bennett. The victory over Bennett earned him the title of “undisputed middle-distance champion of the world” and Tysoe’s fitness had been built on the sand dunes of the popular tourist town in Lancashire, although he died aged just 27 after a bout of pleurisy.
An obituary in Athletic News in October 1901 said it was “probable that in distances from 880 yards up to one mile he had no superior in the amateur ranks” and added he was “a natural runner with a graceful, raking stride and splendid finishing powers”.
Neil Caddy on the dunes of Cornwall (Mark Shearman)
What’s more, Tysoe ran similar times to Hodgkinson and the men’s world record at the time for 880 yards was 1:53.4 – a fraction slower than the women’s world 800m record of 1:53.28 that Hodgkinson has in her sights.
Whereas Tysoe is something of a forgotten champion, the training that led to Herb Elliott’s 1960 Olympic 1500m victory – in a world record of 3:35.6 to…
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