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| Justina Heslop on life as Tirunesh Dibaba’s training partner |
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British athlete Justina Heslop on living and training with Ethiopia’s double Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba. Q. How did you arrange your stay with Tirunesh?A. I met Tirunesh at the press conference before the 10km in November, and she invited me then. Sileshi even phoned me after the race and said they wanted me to stay with them. When I came back this time, Sileshi again got in touch. Q. How has it been? A. It’s been brilliant. They have been so kind, and are always asking “Is everything OK?” They really want to make sure that I have everything I need. They have even offered me use of their cars! Q. Tell us about your training. A. We train twice a day most days. The afternoon run is easy, and I have no trouble keeping up! The hard running is in the morning. Tirunesh has been getting ready for her indoor races, so she has been at the track quite a lot. Before Boston she ran a session of 3 x 1200m pretty fast, on another day she was doing 200m sprints followed by 100m walk. Q. So how do you do on those sessions? A. When she runs track, I usually do part of the session. Once, we did 5 x 5 minutes off road. She has other training partners too, and I was faster than some of them which helped. On our steady runs – which are quite fast for me – she is always encouraging me. Once we ran a steep hill, and when I got to the top she said “Justina, you are really strong!” That made me feel really good. Q. What do you do together outside training? A. We sleep after the morning training. She is pretty serious about rest. In the afternoon we play cards, watch films and chat. They also eat out quite a lot in the evening. Q. What’s it like being with Tirunesh in public? A. It’s so funny to see people when we stop at traffic lights, for example. People’s faces light up when they see her. Q. Who lives with them at their home? A. It’s mainly Tirunesh’s family, not Sileshi’s. Tirunesh has five sisters, two of them (Meseret who is 15 and Genzebe who is 18) live with her, plus her brother Dereje who is 21. As well as her family, there are a few people who work at her home, guards and cooks. It feels like a big family – we all sit down and watch films together. Q. Does Sileshi train with you? A. Sileshi has been busy with a few business things over the past few weeks. He says that he is too busy really to focus on training, although I think he wants to get back into serious training soon. So he has been with us for a few easy sessions. If he is not there, somebody else will drive us to training. Q. Is Sileshi coaching Tirunesh? A. No, I wouldn’t say coaching, but he gives her lots of encouragement. He knows that in Ethiopia people have very high expectations of Tirunesh and also that people will always be quick to criticize if things go wrong. So he is trying to protect her in certain ways, but I think that this is important for both of them. Q. How would you say that training with them has benefited you? A. This is my fourth training trip to Ethiopia in one year. Every time I come I think I believe in myself a bit more. I start to think “yes, I can do this!” The athletes I train with here are so supportive. They always say “Justina, No.1” and so I start to think “so why not me?” So being here has really helped me psychologically. Q. How have your results improved? A. In 2008 I finished 36th in the national XC and felt quite pleased. Last year I was 7th, and felt pleased but also a bit disappointed. Later in the year I ran my PB for 3000m (9:07) which took almost ½ minute off my best. Q. What have you learned from Tirunesh? A. She and Sileshi are so friendly. I will never forget how kind they have been to me. Behind that, you can also see why she is so successful. She is so determined. She is in charge of her sisters: they listen to her. But the great thing about living with her is to see that she really relaxes when you get to know her. Her English is actually really good. |
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