When Callum Hawkins crossed the line in fourth place in 2019 and came heartbreakingly close to a marathon medal for the second consecutive World Championships, few doubted that he would be rubbing shoulders with the world’s very best for a while. future.
He had established himself as Scotland’s fastest ever marathon runner and pushed himself within touching distance of a major championship medal in an event monopolized by Africans in recent years.
Top sport, however, is cruel, which Hawkins has discovered to his detriment since that second-place finish at the World Championships in Doha in 2019.
Over the past three and a half years, Hawkins has been plagued by injuries, to the extent that he has spent far more time on rehabilitation work than racing.
For some, the constant stream of injuries might have been enough to consider hanging up the coaches for good.
However, it will take much more than a few long-term injuries to force Hawkins to give up the fight.
“I honestly never thought about quitting,” Hawkins says convincingly.
“I’ll keep going until the legs fall off. Until I go for it and I really can’t succeed, I’ll keep going.
“The prospect that this could be it and that I honestly wouldn’t come back never crossed my mind. I always knew I would continue.”
Hawkins’ unwavering self-confidence is almost certainly a byproduct of the mentality that made him one of the best marathoners in the world.
As well as finishing fourth at the World Championships in 2017 and 2019, he also achieved a top ten finish at the 2016 Olympics and set Scottish records in the 10km, half marathon and marathon.
Hawkins finished fourth at the World Championships in both 2017 and 2019
However, that streak of results and records came to an abrupt end shortly after the 2019 World Championships, with that race being the last time he crossed the marathon finish line.
In the aftermath of those World Championships, Hawkins got himself into “silly” shape, which is his way of describing fitness levels that were as good as he’d ever achieved.
He was, he believed, well on track to better his Scottish half marathon record at the New York Half Marathon in March 2020, but then the pandemic struck and the world turned upside down, with Hawkins losing every chance taken away to demonstrate his fitness.
Since then, the chips have refused to fall for Hawkins.
He failed to complete the Tokyo Olympic Marathon in 2021, but in reality his problems had started some time earlier.
In late 2019, he was hampered by what he calls a “stiff, pinching ankle,” but such a prosaic description doesn’t do justice to the longevity of the injury.
Failure to identify the problem, as well as several misdiagnoses, set Hawkins on a seemingly never-ending path of rehabilitation, recovery and reinjury, with this being the main cause of his mid-race withdrawal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Hawkins got a bit of luck, but the running gods had other ideas for the Kilbarchan man.
He underwent surgery in early 2022 to correct the ankle problem, which was eventually definitively diagnosed as a loose bone fragment. This was successful, but just as he prepared for his competitive comeback in Valencia at the end of 2022, a stress fracture of his femur put an end to that competitive outing, while 2023 followed an almost identical pattern with Hawkins suffering a hamstring tear. plus another stress fracture, this time in his pelvis, just as he was getting fit again.
It has, the 31-year-old admits, been an almost interminable few years with only sporadic competitive appearances, all over shorter distances than his specialist 26.2 miles.
“It was so hard to get advice, but nothing helped me,” he says of his ankle injury.
“Athletes’ careers are short. And especially as a marathon runner, you miss three or four races and that can take two years off your career.
“So it’s hard to feel like you can never completely shake off the injuries.”
It’s a slog that would have been too much for many.
The hours and hours of soulless rehabilitation, with little to show for it in terms of race results, would be enough to send mere mortals into retirement.
But with age comes maturity, and that maturity ensured that Hawkins was never on the verge of walking away.
“Previous injuries made me wonder if I could continue, but that was a thing of the past when I was much younger and much earlier in my career. I had two knee operations years ago and I remember thinking that if I needed a third I didn’t think I could continue,” says Hawkins, who famously led the Commonwealth Games marathon in 2018 before he fell due to overheating.
‘But now I have this great ability to put things behind me and move on.
“It’s also a bit of a curse because it means you forget your great achievements because you don’t think about them. When you’re doing well, you can just think things through and move on to the next thing, instead of really letting it get to you.
“But the big advantage of that mentality is that no matter what happens, you set the next goal, focus on that and forget about the setbacks.
“It has become very natural for me to always look forward and never look back, so the motivation to go back was always there, it has never disappeared.
“I love running and racing, so I did everything I could to make sure I could do it again.”
Finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel for Hawkins.
Slowly but surely, he has gotten closer to race-ready in recent months.
Today he will pin on a race number for the first time in months at the Podium 5k race in Leicester, which will also include the 2022 1500m world champion Jake Wightman.
Today’s run, Hawkins warns, “won’t be pretty,” but it is very much a means to an end.
The big goal is next month, when he will be at the start of a marathon for the first time in almost three years.
The London Marathon, which takes place on April 21, is a fitting place for Hawkins to make his comeback over the distance.
It’s where he first showed his potential to the rest of the world, where he finished in the top 8 in 2016, and where he set his Scottish record of 2 hours 8 minutes 14 seconds in 2019.
With five weeks to go until London, he remains somewhat unsure of how close he will be to full fitness on race day, and admits the relief of being on the start line of a marathon again is likely to be overwhelming.
And he will, he admits, have to make a conscious effort not to let his emotions get the better of him when it comes to his racing tactics.
“It’s been way, way too long since I’ve run a marathon,” Hawkins says.
“So it will be huge to actually be at the start. That’s why I just go to London, no matter what shape I’m in.
“I just like competition. Most athletes are like that: we don’t put in all these hours just to stay fit.
“It will be so nice to do these long races again – I always get better the longer it goes on. Once it’s over an hour, I’m happy to be there. It’s only after an hour that I feel like I’m really in a race.
“I have to be quite strict about how I run in London though.
“There will be pacers, so that will help, but I do think I might have to be a little stricter than normal, especially in the first half of the race.
“I’ll have to bite the bullet and be sensible and not listen to my pride, which will probably tell me to go faster.
Hawkins has physical scars from his injuries and it would be completely understandable if the past few years had left him with significant mental scars as well. But there doesn’t seem to be anything of the sort.
He is so confident that he is finally on his way to full fitness. He is even entertaining the prospect of making Team GB for the Paris Olympics this summer.
However, he will only tolerate a third Olympic appearance if he can do himself justice – he has, he says, little interest in going to Paris just to make up the numbers.
But no matter how long it takes, Hawkins isn’t shy about admitting he wants to compete with the best again.
He is well aware of how difficult it will be to regain his place at the top of the marathon runners, but half the battle has already been won by leaving no doubt in his mind about his comeback abilities.
“I believe I can still compete at a very high level. There is a natural belief in that,” he says.
“I may be a little misguided sometimes, but I always think of the best case scenario.
“I still believe that I am a developing athlete and that I still have a long way to go, even though I am 31. Until I really slow down and there is proof that this is not happening, I will always believe that my skills are still present. over there.”