Benita reflects on a 2008 to forget
Benita is an all-Aussie girl at heart
Former world XC champion Benita Johnson has been a little off-colour in 2008. It’s easy to look at an athlete, in whichever sport, and think that they are past their best, especially when results start going south. It’s also easy to forget that world class runners are just like you and me really…
When she was well down the field (74 minutes?!) in this year’s Great North Run she could have been overlooked as ‘finished’, “former great Benita Johnson” – you can hear it now. I was personally a little baffled by this performance. I mean this is Benita Johnson we are talking about, the very same runner that in 2004 wiped the floor with the world’s best cross country runners to claim the world title in Brussels, and with PB ‘s of 68 minutes for the half-marathon and 2:22 for the full distance she is no slouch on the road either.
Glory days for Johnson
It’s only in the last few months that her personal traumas have emerged. The death of her father in June, the break up of her marriage – these are the sort of life experiences that can make or break a person, and runners are no different from the rest of humanity. Add to this a troublesome knee injury and the understandable lack of motivation, and it all pieces together.
In a frank interview in Aussie paper The Age Johnson explains how 2008 really has been her annus horribilis. It seems that running has been the last thing on her mind at times. For a global, high profile athlete this is not how it’s meant to be. But then just one look at Paula’s trials and tribulations over the last few years will expose just how much of a roller coaster athletics and life can be. It’s how we learn from these life experiences, and turn them into motivational forces of good, that really define us as people.
Benita handing out the pain, again!
I fully expect Johnson to bounce back. I personally feel that as much as 50% of competition is mental. Freed from the shackles that she has had to carry in the last year Johnson could easily return to her best in 2009, and then some. At 29, her best years could still actually be ahead of her. Let’s hope so…
