In the race for regular reinvention, Steph Twell has frequently managed to sneak out ahead of the pack. A teenage Olympian. Commonwealth Games medallist by 21. An ascent halted, only temporarily, by a broken ankle. Then, renewal and progress once more, to 2016 and an emotional European medal and another five-ringed circus act in Rio. Challenges at every turn. But also commitment and clarity of thought.
Barely a month past her 30th birthday, the Scot is primed for another spin of the wheel. Next Saturday, she will line up in the sweatbox of Doha for the 10,000 metres at the IAAF world championships, the first time she has competed in the longest of track events on the international stage. A shift in emphasis. Perhaps a step before the junction that leads her to a marathon next summer in Tokyo and fresh gambits on the roads.
Based in Aldershot, Twell’s journey has been pockmarked with travails but also rewards. She has emerged stronger and wiser from each, enough to now assert control over her own training and the destiny it plots.
A bold move which also makes perfect sense, she hints, after prior extended spells with distance gurus including Mick Woods and Geoff Wightman. “Mick was very useful even though I was kind of driving my own coaching towards the end of that relationship,” she declares. “Now I've got to comparisons that I know what intuitively works me.
“I have spoken to a few coaches. But I haven't used any of their stuff. And it's been totally designed by myself. I speak more to my physiologist to bounce ideas off them. I have had a conversation with Robert Hawkins, but it's not the coaching. It's like, ‘tell me what your philosophy is’. So that's very different to when someone sets something for you, day in, day out.”
An easier fit also, given that Twell will likely return to a teaching career that has been parked until next summer, at least. Now, she possesses freedom to accept discrete distractions that appeal. She gives workshops and talks, and contributes to a charitable initiative near where she resides with her husband Joe, no mean runner himself. “I help on a panel that decides which good causes deserve some funding, little things like that,” she reveals. “I'm quite active in my local community.”
It slots in between the miles required to challenge in Doha, where even the promise of an stadium air-conditioned to 14 degrees has only attracted a 10-kilometre field of just 27 entrants, one which may be reduced further if her compatriot Eilish McColgan decides to solely focus on the 5,000m following a final ponder in the days ahead.
Twell will measure her readiness by feel by also by the flow of output graphs she plots each day. “They help a lot,” she maintains. A medal next weekend would be extraordinary, with controversial Ethiopian Almaz Ayana, the world record holder, defending her title but with a rigorous challenge expected from the Netherlands currently-omnipotent Sifan Hassan.
It doubles, however, as a warm-up for the Frankfurt Marathon, almost exactly a month later. It will only be her second excursion at the distance. The Olympic qualifying mark of 2 hours, 29 minutes and 30 seconds will be her goal.
Before that though, new ground can be broken in Qatar among a 12-strong contingent of Scottish hopefuls. Further invention, Twell trusts, after winning the UK title earlier this summer. “I had a positive experience,” she smiles. “Let's see what I can do a world level.”
Meanwhile Katarina Johnson-Thompson believes she may need her greatest showing yet to challenge heptathlon rival Nafi Thiam. The Liverpudlian adjoins Laura Muir and Dina Asher-Smith as the UK’s leading medal hopes. However Johnson-Thompson claims that the consistency of Belgium’s Olympic champion is something she must match over all seven disciplines.
“I don’t think I have ever had one where everything comes together at once and that is what I am working towards,” the 26-year-old said. “That is what she is working towards too and obviously she is very strong in a lot of events now. She is definitely pushing me but I am not sure about the other way around. You just have to concentrate on yourself in a heptathlon.”
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