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I’m finally training with other women and their support exceeds my expectations

Andrea Seccafien dreamed of training with other women. Now that she is on a female team, her training partners are even better than what she hoped for

I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to train with many talented and gritty women over the years. Each group of women has been integral to my development and my experience in this sport. Although the professional level of athletics is a largely individual pursuit, I consider the team of athletes around me to be one of the most important elements of a training group.

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Not only have these women pushed me to achieve more than I would have on my own, they’ve celebrated my highs, weathered the lows, travelled the world together and have become dear friends. When it gets tough, we need someone to lean on, and when we succeed, it’s always better when you have someone to celebrate with.

One of the main reasons I sought out the Melbourne Track Club is because of the number of successful women in this group. I trained with high school and collegiate boys for the past few years in Toronto and while that does the trick, I longed for more women my age to share in the journey.

For the past month, I’ve been living and training with some of these women at the MTC training camp in Falls Creek. I’ve so enjoyed the camaraderie of these women and I already have many examples of how they’ve picked me up from the arduous training.

This is just one example:

Every Tuesday, we run one kilometre repeats. These kilometres are run on a rocky single track trail with one fleeting minute of rest between them. While you may start out feeling good, the fifth always bites. The sixth, seventh and eight are a war of attrition. 

On the final Tuesday of the camp, the energy was low. The altitude and the constant rain was wearing the group down. We warmed up through the puddle-soaked trails with only 50 meters of visibility through the fog. We jogged in a wordless single file, everyone seemingly mentally preparing for what was ahead. Or at least I was.

Charlotte Purdue, a British marathoner just coming off a 2:30 marathon performance in Japan, was doing six repeats. Like a true marathoner, she likes to lead, her pacing is dead even and she pulled me through six well-paced kilometres.

Before I could even express my absolute gratitude for leading the whole workout until that point, Charlotte offered to bring me through the first 500m of the next repeat and then the last 500m of the eighth.

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On the other side of the seventh kilometre, I spent that precious one minute of recovery telling myself I could do this as many times as I could and that all I had to do was get to Charlotte and hold on. I took off, searching through the fog for Charlotte’s blonde ponytail flicking. I reached her and as we turned a corner, there was Brittney McGowan, an Australian 800m champion who had also finished six repeats of her own, only still there to help with my final kilometer.

Seeing the selflessness of these women and their willingness to help me made me forget about the oxygen deprivation and exhaustion I was experiencing. That last 500m was almost joyous. Almost.

This is the value of teammates at this level. It’s knowing what it’s like to be doing something really hard that you’re borderline afraid of and caring enough to help that person. Both Brittney and Charlotte are world class athletes who had completed their own workouts and could have headed out of the miserable conditions, but choose to stick around to help their newbie teammate. I can only hope that one day I can repay the favour.

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