Half Marathon - Steve Moneghetti's Build Up

26 May 1997

Six weeks ago Steve Moneghetti couldn't run. Even walking hurt. So the Commonwealth Games marathon champion forced himself to shuffle. He'd just finished the London Marathon and had suffered the usual multiple muscle tears, physical breakdown and mental fatigue of sustaining three-minute kilometre pace for 42km."After a marathon, the body goes into a default mechanism to try and repair all those damaged areas," Moneghetti said. "You seize up and go into panic mode". The best way to recover from a 2hr 8min 45s marathon is to keep the body moving. So the next day he shuffled for 20 minutes. The following day he did 25 minutes, and on he limped until finally, by the end of the week, his sinewy white legs started to feel like they belonged to him again.

It takes about six weeks for an elite athlete to recover from the mental stress and physically debilitating effects of a marathon. Moneghetti's time is up tomorrow. He's celebrating his recovery by getting up at dawn with 4,200 other endorphin addicts and wrecking his body all over again in the annual Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. He admits it's daft, but then so is running 200km a week. "This race is a bit early, it is right on the edge, but what the hell," Moneghetti said. "I don't usually race for six weeks after a marathon. It is hard to come straight back into a half-marathon. It is a long way when my body is not in racing mode, yet. It will be a pretty tough call". Moneghetti is almost back in full training after running sixth in London. He's slowly lifted his workload from a shuffle to 175km a week, with three hard sessions. His normal output is 200km and three hard sessions.

The father of two will be bidding for his third Half Marathon victory after wins in 1993 and 1995. But his main rival, defending champion Pat Carroll, thinks it is in Moneghetti's interests to let him win, to ensure Moneghetti goes on to collect a gold medal in the marathon at the world championships in Athens in August. Carroll claims part credit for the marathon gold Moneghetti won at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and the 5,000m gold won by 1992 Half Marathon champion Andrew Lloyd at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. Carroll's input was to beat Moneghetti and Lloyd soundly in the lead-up to the Games and inspire them to greater feats. "I'm the wake-up-to-yourself bloke," Carroll said. "I will be having a quiet word with Monners to make sure he lets me beat him on Sunday, so he can win that gold in Athens."

At the 1994 Half Marathon, Carroll won in a course record of 61min 11s. Moneghetti admits Carroll's performance blew him away and stands as one of the great unsung races in Australian distance running.

This event, which begins at 7.30am at The Rocks, will be the only time Moneghetti toes the line in a major race before Athens. Moneghetti knows he can't keep pushing his body to the edge and muses how much longer he can sustain such punishment. But he's been doing it so long he says he has forgotten how old he is. For the record, Monners, you're 34 and still shuffling.

Click here for CoolRunning Homepage
CoolRunning : The original and best aussie site for runners by runners