A Word With ... Phil Costley | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Christchurch runner PHIL COSTLEY talked to Nick Tolerton before leaving for next week's world cross-country championships in Mombasa.

# Phil, how many national cross-country titles have you won now?

Six. Six is the most anyone's done. The consecutive record was four and my last was my fifth in a row, so I have the most titles consecutive and equalled it overall.

#And how many New Zealand athletic titles altogether?

I've won 29 now.

# But unusually you came back empty handed from the track and field nationals this month?

The 10km was the first event I had on the programme, but I had to pull out. It's only the second race I've ever pulled out of ? the other was back in 1989 when I had a stress fracture and the rest of my team, I was running for Massey University in a cross country race, they made a line across the track and told me to get off because I was limping so much! So this was the first time I've withdrawn myself from a race. It's something I pride myself on, I guess, that if you start something you go on and finish it.

# And the 10km is the only national event you haven't won?

I've got a little chart with the national titles I've got, and it's the only hole among the gold medals ? and that's from 3000m up to the marathon. So I'd love to chalk that one up, and I thought that was a good race to focus on before Kenya. But I guess it keeps me in the game for another year!

# What do you know about Mombasa?

The race is on a golf course. I've seen pictures and it looks pretty well manicured. I've been told to keep out of the long grass and watch out for snakes. They're running quite late in the afternoon, so hopefully it will be over the hottest time. But honestly I don't know too much about it, but I'm figuring being on the coast on a golf course it's going to be hard and fast, so the stuff I've been doing this year on the track should be a pretty good simulation of running cross-country in Mombasa. Whether you've got to run in bullet-proof vests, I'm not sure!

# What have you been warned about terrorism threats?

The head office is keeping an eye on it and I've been going about preparing as though nothing is going on and leaving them to look at what's going on.

# Taking on the Kenyans at home is a big ask?

I've been to four previous world cross-country champs. I've run them in the snow, I've run them in Cape Town which was really, really hot, but you're never aware of how good these Kenyans are because they always performing outside their own country. So it will be really good to go there and be involved in a world championship at what I guess is the current home of cross-country racing. These guys can beat everyone quite comfortably when they have to travel. What will they be like at home, super fresh?

# How did you go last time at Lausanne?

I was 30th in the short course 4km, the best ever placing by a Kiwi, and the day after that did the long course and was 32nd. That's basically the best placing by a New Zealander since Africans started dominating. It will be a little different this time because there's no short course.

# How have you prepared?

Back in November I started to think I've got to prepare for this in March, so since then I've been building up and starting to do big mileages, more than I've ever done before, running 200km a week. I did that for 15 straight weeks, basically. One week I got up to 259km. I've never done anything like that before. I'm going 20sec faster over 3km and not long ago I ran my best ever 5km time and beat my personal best I set nine years ago. So I did all the hard work in November-January and I'm getting the rewards now.

# You been a great City to Surf supporter, but you'll miss it this time?

Bit of a shame that, but (Star advertising rep) Mike McAuliffe will be romping along ? we run for the same club and egg each other on. The year he won it, I got third. It's always a fun event.

# What's on your calendar after the worlds?

When I was looking at doing this big mileage back in November, in the back of my mind was that the Olympics is just around the corner. I've been to Common-wealth Games and world champs for cross country and mountain running, but the one elusive thing is going to an Olympics. So maybe it will be heads down and try to qualify for the marathon at Beijing.

# Other goals?

One is obviously get that 10km under my belt, and the other is I'm sitting on 96 or 97 national and provincial titles. To round that off to 100 would be special. Since I've been in Canterbury I think I've picked up 29 Canterbury titles and had 32 when I was in Hawkes Bay-Manawatu.

# What's the funniest thing you've seen in athletics?

Funniest was first world cross-country I went to in Durham. It was sponsored by Snickers. We flogged our guts out and they were giving out Snickers bars at the finish line. I came in about 112th and obviously a lot of the Kenyans and Ethiopians had finished and they took a liking to these Snickers bars and started running off with big cartons of them after the race. I came in absolutely exhausted and the last thing I wanted was a Snickers bar. The officials were taking off after them trying to get these cartons back ? I thought if they can beat me, they're going to run away from any official!