Athletics: Make that hill a steep one

Blame it on Maungaraki. Years ago, when Jonathan Wyatt first became a runner, his family lived at the top of a big hill in the Hutt Valley suburb in Wellington.

Every time he wanted to go for a run, it meant starting with a charge downhill and ending with a hefty climb back home.

It was something he enjoyed, the challenge of summoning energy to power uphill, concentrating on driving his legs and learning how to use an incline as a platform for attack.

Those early training runs of the thinly-built 13-year-old in Maungaraki paid dividends. Wyatt flourished into a triple world mountain running champion.

It should be no surprise that to prepare for the Olympic marathon in Athens next month, he has headed for the hills.

Since February, the 31-year-old architect has taken time off from work to concentrate on running, basing himself in the mountains of Austria, staying with a New Zealand friend and his German wife in Ahrn in the Tirol region.

He arrived in winter when everything was cloaked in white, started getting familiar with the numerous mountain trails as the snow melted and the spring flowers blossomed, and has spent the summer striding along the valleys and hills for up to 300km a week.

From where he lives, he has a choice of three valleys, over 250km of off-road trails through pine forests and around lakes - all at a minimum altitude of 1100m. It is hard to imagine a more perfect setting for marathon training for the self-coached Wyatt.

Still, things have not gone smoothly for him this year.

A scrape with a viral infection landed him in hospital for a short stretch in February. The illness, which leaves him with headaches and a lack of appetite, laid him low again recently, but he is hoping it is now behind him.

"The plan right now is to get back on track," Wyatt said this week. "I've had a setback but I'll try not to let it affect me.

He would put in another week of steady high mileage, "and then start looking to reduce it and introduce some more quality".

Wyatt will soon move to northern Italy, where he will hook up with two other runners and train in mid-30C heat as part of his preparations for the conditions expected at the Olympics, where he will line up with fellow Kiwi Dale Warrander, 30.

The marathon will start at 6pm on the last day of competition, winding along a historic route from the village of Marathon, northeast of Athens, to the Panathinaiko Stadium downtown.

It is a course noted for its demanding climbs, particularly between the 20km and 35km marks.

"It's going to be one of those races where you are going to have to be very, very careful in how you tackle the first part of the race," said Wyatt. It goes without saying that he is looking forward to the hills.

"These days in the marathon, some people don't even train on hills. But in a marathon they can break up the race a bit."

Since making his debut in the marathon in 2001, when he became just the second first-time contestant to win the Rotorua race, Wyatt has proved himself in international competition, running a creditable 6th at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in a personal best time.

He graduated to marathons after running the 5000m at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In 1997, he raced in the world championship 5000m at Athens but failed to finish, drained by months of chasing a qualifying time.

Experience has taught him how best to approach Athens. He has decided he will not enter the Games Village until six days before the race, avoiding the hype and the security constraints.

Wyatt said it was a hard decision because it meant he would not be there to support team-mates in other competitions, but in a sport where long, lonely hours, locked into your own thoughts, are a key to success, it should not be unexpected.

Just like legendary Rotorua marathoner the late Jack Foster, Wyatt prefers to train alone.

An intelligent man, with a firm idea of figuring out how he can achieve his goals, he finds that running solo teaches him the ability to concentrate and crack the mental side of running that is so important when it comes time to race.

"I'm a racer at heart. I enjoy getting out and racing people, watching the other athletes and what is happening on the course; if there's a hill coming up, is it a chance to attack?"

It's been the same since those days in Maungaraki.

Jonathan Wyatt

Event: Marathon

Born: December 20, 1972, Lower Hutt

Personal best: 2h 13m, Hamburg, Germany

Previous games:

1994 Commonwealth Games, 5000m, 6th

1996 Olympic Games, 5000m, semifinal

2002 Commonwealth Games, marathon, 6th

Three New Zealanders have won Olympic medals in the marathon: Barry Magee (1960), Mike Ryan (1968), and Lorraine Moller (1992).