Seb Coe

So you've got the challenge of figuring out what is the line you take from the brake to the sort of tangential point at the top of the track at the curve.

If you're on the outside lane, you don't want to be left off the pace because you can't see what's going on inside.

If you're on the inside, you don't want to be under a deluge of athletes coming at you.

And then it's like high-speed chess.

You know, you're trying to figure out distances.

It's very quick.

If you make a mistake at 800, it's pretty much, you know, it's over.

I've made two or three mistakes in a 1,500-meter race and still recovered to win it.

But you make one mistake at 800, pretty much the door closes behind you.

And no, I think your summation is absolutely perfectly right.

I came to 800 slightly by accident because I started as a distance runner.

Everything was, you know, the Harrier tradition in Yorkshire.

And I remember going across to Manchester with my father who doubled up on those occasions as my coach.

And we were using the 800 as just to sort of work on some leg speed for a 1500 meters that was coming up a week or two later.

And I ran, my personal best at the time was 1.51 and stuff.

And in one race, I went down to 1.47.

It then qualified me for the national team in just one run.

And I remember we came back across the snake pass from Manchester to Sheffield in the car.

And we were sitting there in companion or silence trying to figure out why I'd taken four seconds of my personal best in one run.

And the most he could contribute at the time.