We speak to a Liverpool athlete who left smoking and binge drinking behind to become a masters record-breaker

Kirsty Longley has two young daughters and works full-time as a teacher. Yet she still finds the time and energy to run 60-70 miles per week and such training has led to her topping the UK rankings in the W45 age group last year in the 3000m, one mile, five miles, 10km and half-marathon, plus the parkrun.

Amazingly she did not start running seriously until she was 30, either, but has knocked chunks off her PBs and is still improving aged 46. I wasnt that talented, she says. I was a little bit overweight. I was binge-drinking and used to smoke in my twenties, so I had to start at rock bottom.

Apart from a little ballet and dance at school, Longley didnt do much exercise as a teenager but began working in a gym in her early twenties. It wasnt until nearly ten years later, however, that running came calling.

A local athletics coach saw her jogging on the gym treadmill and encouraged her to train at Liverpool Pembroke & Sefton AC.

It was January and freezing and I was running sideways as the wind was taking my breath away, she remembers. I thought: This is not for me as its cold and horrible.

In my first races a Northern League at Wakefield I did the 3000m in 12:49 and 1500m in 6:51 and I actually wore headphones and came last in both races. My mum just said: Next time, just beat someone.

So the next time I beat just one person in the 1500m. But then someone told me: Im really sorry but that person you beat was a shot putter.

But Longley stuck with it. It took me 10 years to break 10 minutes for 3km, she says. For me its been consistency, not getting injured or ill and just grinding it out.

Having worked as a sales account manager, Longley says she had developed a super-competitive mindset. I wanted to be No.1 so Id highlight people who beat me and then Id go after them, she explains.

Her first daughter arrived when she was 34 but she returned to running and has never suffered a serious running injury. Im 46 but feel like a 20-year-old, she says. Running has changed my life.

So what are her secrets? Relaxing during sessions and listening to your body is important, she says. At the moment Im in a really good training group where everyone is there to help each other instead of racing each other.

Ive always been a very positive person, too. Ive always been told Im full of energy and always smiling. I enjoy what Im doing. I love racing Im a race-a-holic. One year I did 75 races. I was going berserk. I love the buzz you get at the end of a race.

As a mum there are no rest days or lie-ins and I am often found doing yoga in car parks while my girls do their cheerleading and tumbling hobbies.

Speaking to Longley, its clear that she is indeed a bundle of energy and enthusiasm.

She counts Jo Pavey among her friends and says the five-time Olympian has gone out of her way to praise her performances. Her next goal is a marathon debut later this year.

Id like to get my half-marathon time down first, she says. What else would I be doing? Sitting on the couch watching Coronation Street?

Training philosophy

Coach Tom Craggs says: Its been an absolute pleasure to work with Kirsty for a number of years now. Regarding planning Kirstys training we work hard to balance it with the demands of a very busy, high energy life children, teaching and everything else that surrounds it which can be draining. Further to this there are of course both social and psychological stressors that come along with this time of life but also biophysical considerations to consider related to a high performing masters athlete.

As such whilst we have a broad long-term direction of travel we would rarely ever plan more than 10-14 days of detailed training at a time and often work in a more iterative way looking at coming days and making decisions based around energy levels, sleep, stress levels, HRV etc. So I would not say we have a default week as such.

Its also important to note that Dave Evans has been integral to Kirstys development and performance over the last 12-18 months and it would be accurate to describe Kirsty has having two coaches, myself and Dave. While I am leading the communication with Kirsty and setting a training plan, Dave is physically present with her at least once a week in sessions whereas I am based remotely. This gives Dave the ability to provide much more direct feedback and engagement than I can and the training group he has developed works really well for Kirsty in terms of the atmosphere and culture which is very supportive.

READ MORE: How they train series

The nice thing about this dovetailing is more often than not the sessions Dave is setting at different times in a year fit very closely to what I would plan for Kirsty so we have quite a similar philosophy to training and more broadly, which helps.

The overriding priority with Kirsty is happiness, enjoyment and health so often the plan below might look very different if we need ot change things to keep that central.

Typical week

Monday: Easy run at an effort of 2/10 effort. Often Kirsty would add or include some strides if the long run was not too intense on the Sunday before.

Tuesday: am: 30min easy, conversational effort, 2/10.

pm: Longer reps on the road such as 8-10 x 1km alternating a 10km-10 mile effort, with quicker 5km intensity off 90sec rest. For short periods of the year these sessions might be lower in volume working more 3-5km pace and faster.

Wednesday: 45-60min easy run to RPE or HR to allow Kirsty to feel the right intensity based on the previous days session.

Thursday: am: 30-40min easy 2-3/10 effort.

pm: Kirsty used to run three pretty big sessions a week. We still keep some quality work on many Thursdays but I have encouraged this to be more focused on mechanics and form rather than big aerobic stress with a big recovery cost. So often this might be a handful of 200-400m reps with generous recovery focused on control. Sometimes this will be very light progression or short hills of 5-6 sets of 8-10 seconds run near maximal intensity with full recovery. If Kirsty has a half-marathon focus sometimes we will shift this run to Friday with Thursday as rest, and then this session would have some more controlled tempo work in, with an easy run on Saturday.

Friday: Rest. For Kirsty a regular rest day every 7-10 days seems to have really helped keep her feeling mentally and physical fresher.

Saturday: More often than not this will be Daves sessions which typically longer split tempo reps such as 4 x 8-9min, or cut down sessions starting at a tempo effort and building in intensity. If racing cross-country we might include the tempo work elsewhere in the week dropping one of the other sessions.

Sunday: 80-100min run easy to steady based on feel and energy levels. Some weeks when focused on a half marathon we would use the long run to incorporate effort around race pace for example 25km with 4 x 3km starting slower than HMP and finishing a little faster off a float recovery. Then the Saturday would be easy.

Power yoga and core is incorporated into the week.

PBs: 3000m 9:43.04 (2018), 5000m 17:10.99 (2018), parkrun 16:46 (2019), 10km 33:35 (2019), HM 75:05 (2022)

Popular event at Parliament Hill in London will feature 800m races for under-17 and under-20 runners this year

Teenage middle-distance runners will get the chance to shine at the Night of the 10,000m PBs in 2023 with the event adding some junior 800m races into its programme on May 20 in London.

The goal is to use the Night of the 10,000m PBs platform to help youngsters run faster and get experience of racing at bigger events with crowds, says event director Ben Pochee.

This year we will host four 800m races for under-20 and under-17 men and women and these races will take place just before our championship events when the crowds and atmosphere really start to bubble up to the boil.

It is not simply the chance to race in big crowds in amid a super atmosphere, though. The athletes will be targeting qualifying times for the European Under-20 Championships in Jerusalem from August 7-10 and the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad & Tobago on August 4-11.

To help them hit the times, they will benefit from WaveLight pacing lights too.

More generally the 2023 meeting is partnering with On Track Nights and has World Athletics Silver status. Young athletes races aside, it features the British Championships and World Championships trials for 10,000m with a total of 30,000 in prize money up for grabs.

Pochee adds: My aim is to up the ante further with fun, entertainment and wild revelry that our event has become renowned. Our event atmosphere has clearly aided performances in the past and I want our next generation to tangibly benefit too.

The event is an invitational, so no entry fees are needed but qualifying standards apply and expressions of interest are to be received by April 23 by emailing [email protected]

Standards for the 800m races are: under-17 men (sub-1:56) and women (sub-2:12) and under-20 men (sub-1:52) and women (sub-2:10).

Qualifying times for the European Under-20 Championships are 1:50.25 and 2:07.80 and for the Commonwealth Youth Games they are (for English athletes) 1:51.0 and 2:08.0.

The Emsley Carr and Millicent Fawcett Mile races, however, are moving north. Last year they were held at the Night of the 10,000m PBs event but on May 27 they will be staged at the British Milers Club Grand Prix in Manchester.

The Olympic champions ability to throw the javelin has propelled him to superstardom in his home country and helped a generation of Indian athletes to believe

The doors of the arrivals hall opened and life changed forever for Neeraj Chopra. When he walked out into New Delhi airport, Olympic gold medal in hand, he could see the thousands of well-wishers waiting outside the terminal to acclaim their new national hero. It didnt take long for him to be engulfed.

The point when I started doing the javelin was a life-changing moment in itself, he tells AW through an interpreter. But when I saw the crowds at the airport that day, I thought: Ive done something. People started recognising me, wanted to be with me, wanted autographs with me. It has given me the motivation to keep trying to get better and to achieve more.

He has set himself a high bar. That landmark Tokyo victory in 2021 made Chopra Indias first ever Olympic track and field medallist of any sort, let alone champion. August 7, the date when his throw of 87.58m wrote his name into the annals of history, is now celebrated as National Javelin Day in his home country. Few sportspeople have managed to make such an impression on the consciousness of a nation where cricketers tend to dominate the agenda.

Chopras Instagram following of 6.2 million people might still pale in comparison to the numbers commanded by great batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, but its still the kind of attention which the majority of track and field athletes could only dream of and that the sport needs.

There is a sense of momentum building in India. The country won eight athletics medals at last summers Commonwealth Games, adding to Chopras world silver from Oregon. Each one of those medallists cited his breakthrough achievements in helping them to believe.

There has been a lot of change and growth in the sphere of athletics in the country, especially in javelin as a lot of youngsters have taken up the sport, plus a lot of young javelin throwers [including world finalist Rohit Yadav] did very well in the past season, he says.

World Athletics also announced recently that India were ranked ninth in the world overall when it comes to mens field events last year. There is a lot of potential.

Coming from a country with a population of 1.4 billion people helps, of course, but its also important to note that World Athletics media monitoring showed the 25-year-old to have been the most written about athlete of 2022, the first time in recent history that Usain Bolt has been overtaken in that particular race.

The endorsements have been plentiful, while the recognition is positive and significant, but it can also be a distraction. Thats why Chopra was to be found spending a substantial chunk of his winter not at his usual training base in Patiala, but at the High Performance Centre in Loughborough.

Thanks to the Indian government funded Target Olympics Podium Scheme (TOPS), he was able to spend two months operating in relative anonymity (there certainly werent crowds awaiting his arrival to the UK) and with the space to start laying foundations for another important year ahead.

I had been to this facility once, last year, and quite liked it, says the athlete who has also enjoyed long-term support from JSW Sports, a company which helps a number of Indias aspirational sportspeople. I had a word with my team, and we were all of the opinion that I should train at Loughborough as it offers great facilities. All an athlete needs to focus on is training, which makes it a good option.

On Sunday, March 5, at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Greece, Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou became the first man to clinch a third consecutive long jump gold. This was thanks to a first-round performance of 8.30 m. The 24-year-old Grevena native kept his flawless record in European competition with that dominant showing; he previously won the outdoor European gold medal in 2018 and the European indoor gold medal in 2021.

Tentoglou won silver at the 2022 outdoor World Championships. He also won gold at the 2022 World Indoor Championships by setting a Greek indoor record of 8.55 metres. This distance places him sixth on the world indoor all-time list. His outdoor personal best is 8.60 metres. In this write-up, we take a trip back to the champions roots. We discuss his beginnings as an athlete, his achievements, and his impact on youths in Greek society.

A star was born from his first steps on the long jump

Miltos Tentoglou was born on March 18, 1998, in Thessaloniki, and spent his childhood and teenage years in the city of Grevena. He grew up wanting to be a MotoGP rider, a professional surfer and a parkour expert. However, after Evangelos Papanikos discovered him, he began training, and when his skills in the long jump improved, he realised that the sport would take priority in his life. He left Papanikoss mentorship and joined Pomashki after moving to Athens, and soon enough, Miltos won the World Indoor title, among other titles.

Tentoglous first international athletic competition was the 2015 World Under-18 Championships in Cali, Colombia, where he finished fifth with a leap of 7.66 metres. In May 2016, he broke the Greek national U20 record with a jump of 8.19 metres at Kalamata. Two months later, he came in second, winning the silver medal at the World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, with a leap of 7.91 metres.

The Greek athlete set a national U20 record of 8.30 metres at Patrass 2017 Greek Athletics Championships. He then went on to win the European U20 Championships in Grosseto, Italy, in July by leaping 8.07 metres. From there, Miltiadis continued to rack up well-recognised titles, the most important being his victory at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He set a new Greek indoor record of 8.55 metres in the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, which won him the gold medal.

Miltos early achievements assured his future take-off

As a beginner, Miltos odds of winning were high since he had yet to prove himself. However, after coming out on top in different competitions, these odds dropped significantly, and he moved from being an underdog to a hard favourite. Nevertheless, you can still find good odds for his events at NonGamstopSites brands.

Tentoglou currently holds the record with five straight European titles. At the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, he won gold for Greece, making him the countrys youngest male continental champion. His second time was in 2019 indoors in Glasgow; the third was in 2021 at the indoor event in Torun.

The fourth European title was won in Munich outdoors in 2022, and the fifth European title was won in Istanbul in 2023, and he made history by becoming the first man to win three consecutive European indoor long jump titles. Only one other athlete, Hans Baumgartner, has won three European indoor titles, but they werent straight.

How he trains and what the future holds for him

Before shifting to the long jump, Tentoglou practised parkour, a sport that required flexibility and precision jumping. It was in the act of parkour that Evangelos Papanikos was drawn to him. Thanks to the demanding physical abilities of parkour, transitioning to the long jump wasnt tricky. According to Georgi Pomashki, who coached him after Papanikos, Tentoglou was easy to train. The coach noted that the Greek athlete, who is termed the king of Europe regarding the long jump, didnt need to practise a jump ten times to get it, adding that Tentoglous talent was a gift from God.

Regardless of his rare talent, Tentoglou still disciplines himself to train as much as possible. He even noted that hes not immune to failure. The Greek athlete also sets jump goals for himself and tries his best to achieve them. For instance, after capping his third consecutive long jump medal, he noted that he was unhappy with himself. This was because he had aimed for 8.50 metres but ended with 8.30. He attributed the below-par performance to the jump being held too early in the morning.

Tentoglou debuted in the athletics world early and has been soaring ever since. Georgi Pomashki pointed out that the Greek long jumper is at the top, and he has come to stay. Pomashki added that he does well between 60% and 70% in different areas of the sport, but for this season, they were working on one major component: speed. With a better rate, the coach hopes the athlete will record jumps as long as 8.70m.

Tentoglou is a real influence on Greek society

The grand champion has done much in his young 24 years. He is the sixth-best long jumper of all time and has won an Olympic gold medal and European championships, among other things. Still, he retains a calm composure, stating that he doesnt think he has achieved anything exceptional. He noted that everyone has their strengths and that the things others excel at are sometimes more challenging or consequential.

Besides bringing multiple wins to Greece, he serves as an inspiration to upcoming athletes. He is also known for his compassionate and relatable personality. After returning from France, where the Greek Olympian achieved this years world record, his coach said his shoes would be auctioned off. The proceeds will then be sent to children in Turkey impacted by the recent disasters.

These shoes were the ones he wore when he made his 8.40-metre jump, which the World Athletics federation cancelled, saying the pair were banned for long jump. Days after this jump was cancelled, he went to Lievin, France, and on his fourth jump, he landed at 8.41 metres, once again setting the world record for the year.