Izzi Batt-Doyle has claimed her second Aussie record within a year with a stunning run in Japan
Adelaide’s Izzi Batt-Doyle has claimed her second Australian record within a year, beating Kerryn McCann’s half marathon record set more than 25 years ago.
Izzi Batt-Doyle has claimed her second Australian record within a year, beating Kerryn McCann’s half marathon record set more than 25 years ago.
Batt-Doyle, 29, competing at the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon in Japan on Sunday, posted a time of 1:07.17, taking more than 30 seconds off McCann’s mark which was set in January, 2000.
This adds to Batt-Doyle’s 10,000m Australian road record set in September last year. She also ran the fastest ever debut marathon by an Australian woman back in 2022 and in December ran a time of 2:22.59 - the third fastest on record for an Australian woman - at the Valencia Marathon.
Batt-Doyle - a two-time Olympian - said she had watched the vision of McCann winning gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games innumerable times, and had been inspired by her legacy.
“That clip of her running back into the MCG I’ve watched many, many times before,’’ she said.
“It’s such a core memory in my view on the running world and the history of women’s running in Australia. I think that was a pretty big moment for a lot of people watching her win that race.’’
Batt-Doyle said her mindset during Sunday’s race was to be competitive with the leaders, and focused on that battle rather than the record per se. That said, her attitude to hitting new Australian marks now is “why not me?”
“I think in the last six months since Paris I have changed my mindset ... why not me, why not shoot for those records and take a bit of a risk and go for it. It paid off last year with the 10k road record, I really went for it that day and got it done.
“Going into this race I had the record in the back of my head but I thought it was a bit of a harder level, I wasn’t sure I was quite at that stage yet where I could go for that sort of time.
“My race instructions from my coach were to just race the race and race the girls in the field, because it was a really competitive field and not to worry about the time so much.
“I wasn’t so much trying to run a time or force the pace, but just to be competitive and in turn the time came.’’
Batt-Doyle said she focused on the race on the day, and the time followed. She is now training for the Nagoya Marathon In March.
Batt-Doyle is also a cofounder of Adelaide-based run club RunAsOne with partner Riley Cocks.
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