Winning came easier than usual for Sonia O'Sullivan on Sunday when she comfortably beat all-Australian opposition in the 10,000 metres Zatopek Classic in Melbourne's Olympic Park. Her time of 33 minutes 17.58 seconds was the slowest of her five runs over the distance.
The race doubled as the Australian championships and with summer temperatures well into thirties, no one was in the mood to make it fast. O'Sullivan found herself 50 metres clear at the halfway stage and although Liz Miller got back on her heels over the final few laps, there was a clear winning margin at the end.
The 37-year-old Australian took second in 33:26.80, with Susan Michelsson third in 33:56.81. O'Sullivan had been looking for something a little quicker but the lack of competitive opposition didn't help.
"When it was so hot I didn't want to kill myself out there," she said. "Winning became the priority and there was no need to run any faster." In fact, O'Sullivan appeared to get quite bored in the latter stages, and with that lost interest in the time.
The intention, however, was to get a feeling of where her fitness stood and there's little doubt that O'Sullivan could have run a couple of minutes faster if she had to. Her Irish record of 30:53.37 - clocked during the Olympic final - was always going to be out of reach but on a better day she could have come close to her Australian all-comers' record of 31.43.07, set in Sydney last January.
The crowd had earlier observed a minute's silence to honour the Czech running legend Emil Zatopek, who died aged 78 last month. The Zatopek Classic - now in its 40th year - was initiated by Ron Clarke, who won the race five times in the 1960s. Zatopek famously gave one of his four Olympic gold medals to Clarke, who failed to win the honour despite setting 19 world records in his career.
Kenyan Luke Kipkosgei won his fourth title in the men's race, the third athlete and the only non-Australian to do so. Kipkosgei missed the Sydney Olympics in September because of illness but looked very impressive when winning in 27:57.11, ahead of compatriot and last year's winner Abraham Chebii, who clocked 28:23.95, and Australian Sisay Bezabeh who ran 28:40.09.
For O'Sullivan, there was also the honour of collecting an Australian championship gold medal - made possible by the fact that she was running in the colours of her Australian-affiliated club Glenhuntly, which was also made famous in the 1960s by Clarke.
She leaves Melbourne today and heads north for seven weeks altitude training at the Falls Creek ski resort (about 5,000 feet above sea level), her traditional winter hideaway in Australia. The bulk of her off-season training will be carried out there and her next race will be the Australian cross-country trials at the end of January.
