I am a 20 year old middle and long distance runner from Austria aiming to compete with the best runners in the world for medals at major international events such as the Olympic Games, World & European championships!

Training camp South Africa - three down one to go It’s been already 21 days since I arrived in Potchefstroom. The first few days of training camp have definitely not been easy. Coming from cold Austria, the 30 degrees plus felt even warmer than usual, plus the altitude of 1400m didn’t make it easier. However, things have been progressing nicely and I found a very good training rhythm. Although I'm training a lot at the moment, the ideal training conditions and lots of other international runners to train with make it relatively easy to get the training done. Now I only have one more week of training camp ahead of me and in two weeks I have my first race in quite a while. The 10k elite race at the „Boclassic“ in Bolzano on 31st December! The 10km Austrian championships have been my last important race of 2023. Since then I have completely changed my focus on training trying to get as fit as possible for 2024. Under the guidance of my new coach Andreas Prem, I have been able to train very well according to plan so far.As I'm currently in the base training phase, the intensity of the training is relatively low, but the volume is very high. Over the last few weeks, I've been running between 150 and 170 km a week on average.Most days I had two running sessions on deck, sometimes including a third strength training session.Definitely not easy but I’m really enjoying the process at the moment. 1. My first national youth record The decision for running my first half marathon this weekend came very spontaneously. After a workout one week before the race that went extremely well, I decided that I wanted to run a race on the road and saw the half marathon in Linz as the perfect opportunity to do so. Right from the beginning I was running with the elite group of the marathon and found a very good rhythm. The pace from the pacemakers was very consistent and we came throw 10 kilometers in exactly 30 minutes which was already under my previous personal best. I was feeling very great at that point and after and a bit slower second half I crossed the finish line in 64:06 which was under the previous Austrian U23 record. A very good feeling that I want to take with me for the track season that starts in a couple of weeks. Interview with Wojcieck Klimek from the website https://bieganie.pl/ (translated in English): Hi Timo, how are you doing? I feel good, recovered after the race, everything is going great! Super! Your start is what we want to talk about. You completed the Borealis Half Marathon, which took place on April 16, in a time of 1:04:06 as just an 18-year-old runner. How does it feel? It feels very good! Right now I'm already focusing more on shorter runs on the treadmill, it definitely means a lot to me that I can already run so fast in longer races on the street. This is very promising for me for the future! Yes, definitely! Did you prepare for this specifically with your coach? Or did it just come out of training for the summer season? It was a fairly spontaneous decision to run this half marathon, which I made a week before the competition. After a short indoor season, I ran a lot of kilometers in March and early April, but at a fairly low intensity. Training was going very well, so I decided that I wanted to run a street race, and the half-marathon was the perfect opportunity to do so. I'm a little surprised in this case. I'll ask you about training later in this interview, now tell me when it all started? Have you been in this sport since you were young, or like most runners do you come from other sports? When I was younger, I played many other sports, such as handball and skiing. About 8 years ago I started with athletics and for about 5 years I've been running " seriously", before that I played various sports and didn't focus on one particular sport. Sure, good progress over the years! It seems to me that it's good not to throw yourself into specific training from an early age, but to move a lot and do different sports, unless you are Jakob Ingebrigtsen (laughs). Do you have any running idols that you always want to follow and get inspired by? Yes, I would definitely say that too. By playing different sports, you develop different motor skills, and you can find out which sports interest you the most and in which you have the most talent. No, to be honest, I don't have a running idol. There are many different athletes who inspire me and I try to learn from them. You're 18, so you're still in school. How much do you have left to graduate? Do you plan to go to college? I will finish high school this year. After that I would like to take up professional running and probably study something besides that. However, I don't know at the moment exactly what course to study. Now it's time for what runners like best: training! I saw that you put up a social media post about your first workout after Sunday's race. Kilometer repeats at threshold pace. How fast was it and how much did you do? Between 3:00 and 3:05 per kilometer, 10 times with a little over a minute break at a jog. Do you find this type of training very tiring? I think many runners simply train too fast, but the truth is that we can achieve the best results by training at medium intensity, right? Yes! In the past I probably made the mistake of doing too much intensity. Right now, I train a lot at a very relaxed pace combined with training slightly above and slightly below threshold and strength training. As I get closer to faster races on track, I'm starting to add a little more intensity, but I'm also doing very high intensity units to work a little more on faster paces and anaerobic capacity. Sounds a bit like the Norwegian approach...? Yes, I take inspiration from the Norwegian system when planning my training. Wait a minute... you write your own training plan! Yes, I've been planning my training myself somehow for 1.5 years. Impressive. I'm full of admiration and in such situations it's hard for me to understand how you don't prepare for a half-marathon, but unexpectedly decide to do it a week before, during which you are busy with school and training yourself, while many professionals go to the mountains, train specifically for a half-marathon and nothing comes out of it. Thanks (laughs)! Sometimes it's like the best things happen to us when we don't plan them. True! In my opinion, when training for running, the most important aspects are physiological. Ego and whims need to be put in the pocket. Do you use heart rate or lactate measurement? Yes, I use both. The heart rate monitor rather always, and sometimes with more intense workouts I also measure lactate. However, for me the most important thing is my own well-being, so that without measuring these parameters I know whether I am running at the right intensity. Interesting. As for lactate do you try to hit the right numbers or do you just measure and check the value for information? I measure and then see if it correlates with how I feel. Sure. Today after training did you measure? No, today I didn't. How many kilometers do you run per week? At the moment I'm doing quite a lot for me, between 140 and 150 a week. Do you plan your training from week to week or do you rather set a plan for a longer period? Usually from week to week and I make adjustments as needed. All right, and what does a typical week of training look like for you? Each week looks a little different, but during the baseline period I usually do 2-3 moderately intense sessions (threshold intervals, tempo runs or long runs), for the rest of the week I do only steady runs of 40 to 90 minutes plus uphill rhythms. As I get closer to the competition, I start adding one very intense session. These can be short uphill sprints (30-45 seconds) or on the track, where I work on speeds from 800 meters to 5 kilometers. It looks very professional. You can see that you know what you're doing. When it comes to the gym, are you doing anything special, or just training with your own body weight to avoid injury? I'm just starting serious "work" in the gym, but one with weights, not just with my own body weight. Goals for the summer season? The main goal for the summer is to qualify for the European U20 Championships, which will be held in August in Jerusalem, and to place very well. I will be competing in the 3000 and 5000 meter runs. How fast do you think you are able to run these distances this season? I don't know. I will just focus on training and the rest will do itself. When is your first start? I don't know exactly yet, but probably 3000 meters in mid-May. Do you put any special emphasis on your diet? I don't have a special diet. I just focus on good nutrition and proper energy replenishment before, after and during workouts and try to have a balanced diet to provide my body with all the micro and macronutrients it needs. Timo, thank you so much for your time, sorry to have taken so much of it! I wish you all the best for this season and I'm afraid what will happen when you start training at altitude! No problem, also thank you! The video of the race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEFR93Sa5gA 2. Season opener in Pliezhausen This weekend I ran a 3k in Germany as the first race of my season. In February I ran 8:23,30 which was just 0,3 seconds over the standard for the european U20 championships. Training over the last two months has been very good and I wanted to get it this time. There were some fast runners at the starting line and right from the beginning I found a group to run with. Again, it was pretty tight with the limit, but in the end I ran 8:21,87 which was enough for the qualification. Although I definitely want to run faster this season, it was a solid start. Onwards! 3. Training camp St. Moritz I spent the last 3,5 weeks training at high altitude in St. Moritz to prepare for future races. As every year, it’s been a great time training with other athletes and putting in lots of quality work. During my time at altitude, I ran 505 kilometers, running between 140 and 150 kilometers every week. This weekend I will run a 5k in Belgium and three weeks later I will compete at the european U20 championships where I will participate in the 3k and 5k. Example week of training: am pm Monday 23km easy + 6x100m strides strength Tuesday 8k temporun + 8x300m 10km easy Wednesday 12km easy 10km easy + hill sprints Thursday 30min easy rest Friday 8km easy 6x1000m + 2x400m @ race pace Saturday 12km easy 10km easy + strength Sunday 24km easy rest 4. 5000m Personal Best in Heusden! After 3,5 weeks of training in St. Moritz I tested the shape in Belgium this weekend. Training in St. Moritz has been going as planned and I wanted to improve on my previous fastest 5k time of 14:28, which I set in Vienna four weeks ago. Right after the race started, I found myself in the first group and we ran the first 3k very evenly in 2:52-2:51-2:54. I was still feeling relatively strong and ran the last two 1ks in 2:53 and 2:48 to run 14:18,51 in the end. Another steep in the right direction for me heading into the European U20 championships in three weeks ! 5.8th of Europe! From the 7th to the 10th of August the U20 European Championships took place in Jerusalem. The whole focus in the last months was on this championship. My preparation was more or less ideal, I had no issues and could do my training as planned. After I didn't manage to qualify for the final in the 3000m on the first day of the championships, my whole focus was on the 5000m final which took place on the last day. My clear goal was a top 10 finish and right from the start I positioned myself in the middle of the 26 runners field. I was able to hold on to the leading group until two laps to go and finally I finished in 8th place! Of course you always want more, but for now I am very happy with the result and return home with many great memories.