I had the chance last month to attend the season opening IAAF Diamond League Meet in Doha. The distance events that night included the women’s 1500m and 3000m steeplechase and the men’s 800m and 3000m. The men’s 3000m race featured Mo Farah, the current Olympic, World, and European champion at 5,000m and 10,000m.
As I watched the action and took photos, various aspects of running form caught my attention—things I have discussed in previous articles, such as strong core control and postural stability with a “running tall” body position (e.g. article 1 | article 2 | article 3 | article 4).
We can learn a lot from watching the elites run. But beyond the lessons in biomechanics remains the simple joy of watching the beauty of well-tuned bodies in motion—the poetry of running.
Steve Prefontaine said it well:
A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they’re capable of understanding.
Indeed there are multiple takeaways from watching the elites run, such as a greater understanding of running form or a target image for visualizing our own performance. And it doesn’t matter how little we may actually look like Mo Farah when we run; simply having a positive image in our minds to target can help improve our own form in subtle ways. Dave Scott has remarked that no matter how unsightly he may have looked running next to Mark Allen in the Ironman, he always filled his mind with an image of himself as a gazelle.
But beyond all that remains the race as a work of art.
For the record, in the women’s 1500m, Dawit Seyaum of Ethiopia clocked a world leading time of 4 minutes 0.96 seconds to edge out Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands (4:01.40) and compatriot Senebere Teferi (4:01.86). In the women’s 3000m steeplechase, Kenyan Virginia Nyambura won in a world leading time of 9:21.51 with Ethiopian Hiwot Ayalew close behind in 9:21.54 and Kenyan Hyvin Kiyeng in third with a time of 9:22.11. In the men’s 800m, Ananleh Souleiman of Djibouti ran a world leading time of 1:43.78 ahead of the Kenyan duo of Ferguson Rotich Cheruiyot (1:44.53) and Alfred Kipketer (1:44.53).
And in the marquee and final event of the night, the men’s 3000m, Mo Farah faced a handful of competitors who all entered the race with faster personal bests at the distance. But even though he was racing in a shorter event, all eyes were on Farah to assert his dominance. The race settled into a tactical affair early on before the serious racing started with a few laps to go. Despite a blazing kick, Farah was edged out by Ethiopian Hagos Gebrihiwet who took the win in a world leading time of 7:38.08. Farah finished second in 7:38.22 (a new personal best at the distance by fractions of a second), and Thomas Pkemei Longosiwa of Kenya rounded out the top three in 7:39.22.
