Courtney eyes World Championships after breakthrough 2018
BySportsbeat
Published 30/12/2018 at 17:45 GMT
Melissa Courtney is determined not to rest on her laurels after a breakthrough year in 2018 as she targets a place in the Great Britain squad for the World Championships in Doha.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
The 25-year-old surprised many by claiming a bronze medal in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April in what was her first major final.
She crossed the line in 4:03.44, shaving two seconds off her previous personal best, before setting another new PB in the 5000m at the European Championships in Berlin as she came fifth.
Courtney went on to run the 5000m Diamond League final in Zurich before finishing the year with a team silver in the European Cross Country Championships in Tilburg, the Netherlands.
And after a year to remember, the Welsh runner is in no mood to let her standards drop in the new year as she looks to bolster her major championship experience in 2019.
"Hopefully I can carry on what I've done this year, next year," she said. "It's been such a good year and I really want to be able to continue that.
"I don't want to plateau, I want to be able to keep going upwards in my progression. I'm targeting the European Indoors and the World Championships in Doha.
"If I qualify for the latter, it would be my first World Championships and I really want to be a part of that team and get that experience."
Courtney also finished ninth in the 5000m at the Commonwealth Games in 2018, but she said her impressive year has been the result of years of hard graft.
"2018 has been an amazing year and it's been a big breakthrough for me," she added. "Some people would probably say I've come out of nowhere, but it's been a long and steady progress.
"This is the first year that it started to show in my performances. Winning a Commonwealth Games medal to start the year and being able to do a lap of honour is something that I'll never forget.
"It's been great to continue that form all the way through the year. I've always wanted to do Euro Cross and to do it as part of that team that was so strong, just to be a part of that was amazing.
"Last year I got team gold for doing a mile and this year I got team silver for doing around five miles, it's such a big step up.
"It was proper cross country and it was a long way out of my comfort zone and I showed from my performance in Tilburg and from the trials in Liverpool that I've come on such a long way."
After having a deserved break over Christmas, Courtney is straight back into winter training as she prepares for a high altitude camp in Kenya in January ahead of the European Indoor Championships.
"I head out to Kenya on January 1 for altitude training so I'm straight back into things in the New Year," she said.
"I'm out there for four weeks before I head to Germany to race my first race of the new season in the 3000m.
"For me, altitude training makes a huge difference, especially being an endurance runner.
"I've been doing altitude training camps now for four years and I've seen such a big benefit from it as an endurance runner in the 5,000m, it really does help."
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