The course: Melbourne's Princes Park. The running track is a soft gravel circuit, almost completely flat. It is bordered by Royal Parade and Melbourne General Cemetery, which can be a powerful motivating tool in itself.
Targets: cardio fitness, endurance
For those of us average Joes who regularly huff and puff around the local running track in a misguided attempt to somehow right the wrongs of the weekend, there's nothing quite as demoralising as being swiftly overtaken by a superior athlete.
Have you ever felt a sudden breeze at your elbow and looked up just in time to see a clean pair of heels disappearing into the distance?
It's a scenario that plays out time and again at popular courses around Australia and AFL footballers are among the worst offenders at this time of year.
If the Princes Park running track is your favourite stomping ground, then you're more likely to encounter these pesky self-esteem drainers thanks to its popularity with AFL clubs during pre-season.
The circuit in Carlton North - around a seven-minute drive from Melbourne's CBD - has been used by at least five AFL clubs in the past, but North Melbourne director of sports science Peter Mulkearns says there's more to it than mere proximity.
"It's a consistent, flat, simple course that is well marked, well kept and softer than bitumen," Mulkearns says. "It also has a history associated with it and a certain mystique and challenge for the players.
"Normally it would be used three times as an aerobic fitness test usually at the start of pre-season, prior to Christmas and after the Christmas break. It can also be used for interval trialling, as well as being used for active recovery throughout the year.
"It has been used before interval training as the course is marked at 500m intervals. The track and the surrounding parklands are a great venue for fartlek [advanced interval] training."
How the pros fare
Those who have run it have probably wondered, however briefly, how their own times might compare to those of the professionals.
Well, here's the bad news.
Mulkearns estimates most AFL players would negotiate the course in a time somewhere between 10min 45sec and 11min 45sec: a pretty cracking pace of less than four minutes a kilometre.
If that hasn't burst your balloon then consider that the fastest time he has witnessed by an AFL-listed player is 10min 7sec.
Still that's nothing compared to Kenyan runner Daniel Komen, who holds the record over the distance with a blazing 7min 58sec set in Hechtel, Belgium in 1997.
That's a lazy couple of sub-four minute miles. Eat your heart out, Roger Bannister.
To everyone else, happy health and fitness.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.
