'I've got a lot in common with the everyday folk': A typical day in the gruelling life of Liam Adams, Australia's 'tradie marathon runner'
PARIS: 5.30am wake-up. Midnight bedtime. Hours of gruelling work as a tradie in between. Many, many kilometres, too.
Such is a typical day in the life of Liam Adams, perhaps best known as Australia's "tradie marathon runner", who on Saturday afternoon (AEST) will lace up shoes spray-painted black — more on that later — and take to the start line of the men's Olympic marathon.
Adams was told by a couple of people when he took up an apprenticeship as a tradie in 2015 that he was making a stupid decision. The Melbourne runner, who at that point had made his Commonwealth Games debut but was yet to compete at an Olympics, was headed down a job path that would ruin his running ambitions, or so he was told.
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Almost 10 years on, the 37-year-old is set for his third Olympic appearance.
"It is pretty tough when you're trying to do the juggling act of being an electrician and an Olympic runner," Adams admitted in an interview with Wide World of Sports.
"Being a solar electrician it really does put a lot of stress through the back, and when you're getting a sore, tight back it creates other issues through your running gait, so I feel like when I'm working full-time and training for a marathon it's quite tough."
Liam Adams, pictured competing at Tokyo 2020, spray-paints his shoes black. Instagram/Getty Images
A typical day in his life goes a little like this: awake at 5.30am, out the door by 6am, on the tools by 7am, off the job site at 4pm, home by 5pm, back out the door to run by 6pm, dinner around 9pm, preparation of the next day's lunch, unwinding and, finally, dozing off.
On some days, he trudges through the door exhausted and goes for a power nap, then heads back out to run. On those days, dinner is pushed back, as is his lunch prep and bedtime. He then rises after even less sleep than usual, and sets off to do it all again.
Week after week, he crams in 40 hours of work and upward of 180km of running. The most mileage he's clocked up during a full-time work week is 236km.
The going gets even tougher when he's sent for a job outside of Melbourne, in places like Ararat, Ballarat and Warrnambool.
"One of the places I was once working away didn't really have an athletics track, and I was running down an old country road which was 100km/h and it was getting pretty dark being winter," Adams said with a laugh.
Adams in action at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. Alex Pantling/Getty Images
"So it was pretty dangerous, and I was switching sides of the road to make sure I was giving the oncoming car or the car coming from behind as much room as possible.
"So it can be quite tough doing that rural work and trying to train like a professional athlete."
Most elite marathoners run two or three times a day. Adams can't. So he "stacks" each day's single run, as he describes it, and tries to convince himself that churning out so much distance in each run is more specific to the marathon.
He finds the going far easier when he takes time off work to train at high altitude for a marathon, as he did in Flagstaff, Arizona for seven weeks ahead of the Paris Olympics.
"A 180-200km running week plus a 40-hour week of week is a lot harder than doing a 250-260km week," said Adams, whose marathon personal best is 2:08.39.
"I'm grateful that I can take a bit of time off and train like a professional runner, because the mileage and the training just comes so easily when you get that opportunity, and my body feels incredible."
Ben St Lawrence holding off Adams to win the 2018 City to Surf. (Note the tradie singlet.) Jessica Hromas
Not for the first time, the "tradie marathon runner" last month posted a video on social media in which he was spray-painting black several pairs of running shoes.
Running in blacked-out shoes and a tradie singlet has become as synonymous with the Victorian as the tenacity with which he thrashes himself on the roads.
"Through the years of having no support from AA [Athletics Australia] with NASS [National Athlete Support Structure], or no sponsors, I've decided to wear my tradie singlet and also not show any brands that I might use for running shoes or whatever else," Adams explained.
The Melbourne runner on his Olympic debut, in Rio in 2016. Matthias Hangst/Getty Images
"I obviously don't have much in common with the professional runner and I've got a lot in common with the everyday folk, the weekend warriors and stuff like that. Every time I run, other than when it's for Australia of course, I chuck my tradie singlet on and I'm representing tradies, and I'm representing the everyday runner from around Australia or even around the world.
"I've had a number of people contact me saying how inspirational it is. If I can have a positive effect on their training then it means the world, really. If I can inspire people to get out there and train a little bit harder then [I'm really happy].
"They probably go through the same struggles as what I do, but if they can get through those struggles and do what they love doing then it means the world to me."
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