Race walker heads to 5th Olympics

Edmonton's Tim Berrett is Beijing bound and when he lines up for the men's 50km race walk it will be the fifth consecutive time he has represented Canada at an Olympic Games.

The 43-year-old has also worn this country's colours at a record nine IAAF world championships and placed 19th a year ago in his specialty at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka. Where does the motivation come from at his age?

"Sometimes I wonder that," he says, laughing. "I think it's just a case of trying to push yourself and believing that the perfect race is still to come, and that everything will come together on that one particular day. That's the motivation that keeps me going.

"Actually I wasn't that happy with how things went in Osaka. I was in much better shape earlier in the year. Had I raced like I did in a race in Portugal I would have been a lot higher in Osaka. It was an OK performance but I felt there was more in me."

The 2007 season has given him reason to believe his goal of getting into the top 10 in Beijing is possible. He was 10th in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and 7th in the 1993 World championships in Stuttgart in 1993. On March 18 he achieved the Olympic A+ standard in Burnaby, B.C., racing 125 laps of a track there in three hours, 52 minutes and 42 seconds. He has a personal best of 3:50:21.

Walking the dog

"I knew I had to do it on that day. I knew the time I was aiming for," he remembers. "The way I went about doing it. I did it on the track, me against the clock, basically, with a couple of people walking the dog. That was about it."

Training alone on the streets of Edmonton, apart from the winter where he went indoors, he does up to 200 kilometres a week, about the same as top level distance runners. The difference is when he does a long distance session he could be walking for well over three hours.

Berrett, who was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in southeast England, is also a part-time professor at the University of Alberta but he could also lecture on time management. In addition to teaching he runs a consulting firm and is father to two young children.

"I am always juggling," he says. "You find time to fit things in somehow. It manages to get done. I couldn't do it without my family, my wife especially. I train on my own, I don't rely on anyone else. So if I decide to train at 10 instead of 11, I can do it. It's my schedule."

Three weeks in Florida

While many Canadian athletes are able to get away to warm weather training camps during the winter months, Berrett took his family to Sarasota, Florida, for three weeks. He combined training on a road circuit with children's activities.

In all his years as a world class race walker he has endured the jabs of people who don't follow the sport or don't understand what it takes to race at the highest level. The late Sunday Times athletics correspondent, Cliff Temple, once said of race walking: "It's a bit like a contest to see who can whisper the loudest."

"It's one of the recognized events in track and field," Berrett says. "Why high jump when you can pole vault? People don't ask, 'Why do breaststroke when you can front crawl?' Breaststroke is recognized as a different event.

"The way I see it, it's a tactical event. It's something that takes a lot of training in technique and also endurance whereas running technique has less impact on the outcome of the race. It's a different kind of challenge. It's certainly not an easy way of getting from A to B.

"The layman doesn't probably realize how fast we move from A to B. There is always going to be people who never give us the respect we deserve."

Beijing pollution

Looking ahead to Beijing he is obviously aware of the environmental conditions that have many athletes in the endurance events concerned. Although world marathon record holder Haile Gebrselassie has decided against competing in that event because of the pollution Berrett believes there is no option but to accept the conditions.

"It's the same for everyone," he declares. "It's kind of a cliche but it's true. It will be hot and humid, not to mention the pollution. The first two you can do something to prepare for. But, the pollution? I don't know how you can deal with that without doing some damage to yourself in the process. It's just a case of trying to deal with it.

"It's not like I haven't competed in polluted conditions before. I have been to Mexico City a few times. Athens wasn't exactly the cleanest place on the planet."

Experienced and eager to make the most of the challenge, Berrett believes the conditions can be to his advantage. Many of the pre-race favourites are likely to begin the race at a strong pace. The Canadian reckons he will race conservatively and pick off the stragglers in the second half of the race.

Hot and humid

"That was kind of how I approached Osaka," he explains. "It kind of backfired because the day of our competition it was hot but the humidity only got up to 50 per cent, whereas in the days before it was low to mid 30s but the humidity was 70 per cent plus and those are the conditions where people decide they are going to go out hard and if they can't cope with the conditions they will suffer.

"It's the humidity that's going to be the factor and I don't think you can escape that in Beijing."

Berrett will attend the Canadian Olympic trials July 3-6 in Windsor. He won't be competing but he is looking forward to the Breakfast of Champions on Monday July 7 when the Canadian Olympic team will be announced.