Saturday, September 15, 2012

Mo Farah to take break after Gateshead victory

Mo Farah to take break after Gateshead victory

Mo Farah plans to reward himself with a two-week break from running after rounding off his historic season with victory in the two-mile event at the Great North CityGames in Gateshead.

The double Olympic gold medallist burst past Australia's Collis Birmingham to cross the finish line in a winning time of eight minutes and 40.04 seconds in bright sunshine at the event.

Farah said: "I won't be thinking about any running in the next two weeks. I will go out for a couple of meals with my friends and family. It's important that I enjoy it and take a break and take my mind off running."

Farah conceded the pressure of a whirlwind month since his London 2012 heroics had started to take take its toll despite the apparent ease of his win, with Bobby Curtis catching Birmingham to clinch second place in 8mins 42.80secs.

Farah added: "My lungs were on fire. Seriously, I was blowing for the first mile because it was pretty quick and I was thinking, 'I hope it's not going to carry on at this pace'.

"It slowly eased off, but I still had to work for it. It wasn't as easy as I thought. I've done a lot of stuff since becoming Olympic champion - I've had my two girls and done other stuff as well."

Farah appeared to relish his appearance at the event, where he was cheered by thousands of north-east fans, and insisted he had no thoughts of withdrawing despite opting against his original plan of figuring in tomorrow's half-marathon.

He said: "There were thousands of people here wanting to support me and it was important that I kept going and motivated myself by saying, 'I don't want to disappoint these people - I want to be able to give them something'.

"That's what kept me going as well. As an athlete, the only real pressure is what you put on yourself. I want to win every race I go into, and I wanted to keep that going throughout the whole year."

Source: RTE Sport

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