'That Stuff is Brutal’ - Keely Hodgkinson Reveals 'Killer' Training Routine that Brings Her Success

Newly-crowned world 800m indoor champion Keely Hodgkinson has given an account of what she goes through to shine in competitions.

Hodgkinson is basking in the glory of her gold medal heroics after clocking a championship record 1:55.30 in Torun, Poland on Sunday to win her first-ever title at a major athletics championship.

The Olympics 800m champion has been in great form this season and came into the World Indoor Championships on the back of lowering the British short-track record from 1:57.18 to 1:56.33 at the UK Indoor Championships before breaking the long-standing world indoor 800m record in Lievin with 1:54.87 last month.

But to reach such heights, Hodgkinson has to go through a brutal training programme that leaves her in bad shape, although it is necessary if she has to maintain the high standards.

“The more pain I have now, easier for race day. Race day does not hurt as much. The race hurts but the adrenaline runs so high so sometimes I can barely feel it,” Hodgkinson said on the High Performance podcast.

“Training is definitely way harder than racing. You do all that, and a little bit of lactic pain in my leg like mentally stopping me from giving my everything. You just become tolerant to it, get used to it.

“It just comes with the job. I have never done 100m in training, I do like 1km reps, eight or four-minute reps. That is like running eight minutes tempo.

“If I am fit in the winter, we do like eight-minute runs or maybe five-minute per mile pace and then do it and do it again. I hate those things. Like two minutes all nine of them.”

The 24-year-old then went into more details over what her training entails, revealing that as an 800m runner she does not even run that distance in training for some key reasons.

“Then we do hill training, track work, gym work, speed work because I am trying to bring down my 400m work so we have a mix of everything so in terms of 800m I never run 800m on track ever in training. The further I do is 600m,” she disclosed.

“That is because I think track work you want to keep it warm so when you go to the track, the mindset is that it is fast. So all my fastest sessions always on the track I never do tempo or longer stuff on the track [in training].

“I am more 400m and 600m, this is how I train so I think I just like to keep the mindset that the track is fast so you associate the track with being fast so you either do killer lactic or speed work.”

So brutal is the regimen that Hodgkinson says it leaves her feeling sick.

“It is one of those things that unless you have experienced it, you won’t understand it [killer lactic] but for the athletes out there that have, they know what I am taking about. That stuff is brutal,” she went on.

“When I first saw the session, I was like just 500m, that is like nothing and I did not get off the track for half an hour, I could not move. I felt horrible, if I looked up, my eyes were seeing black spots everywhere, my head was banging, I was going to be sick.”