European Indoor champion on embracing the lactic “burn”, stretching her limits and the Dutch team ethic which is bringing so much success

There are times when Femke Bol can’t quite believe how much progress she has made. It’s only a little over 18 months since she began competing over the 400m hurdles and already there is a huge buzz around what she might be able to achieve.

The noise which surrounds the 21-year-old was hardly quietened by her performances at the European Indoor Championships last month, where she struck 400m and 4x400m relay gold in highly impressive fashion.

In an exclusive interview in the April issue of AW, she explains why she now can’t wait to tackle the world’s best hurdlers – such as America’s world record-holder Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin.

Bol also admits to being something of a perfectionist, but is thriving under the guidance of coach Laurent Meuwly, whose training group which is based at the Olympic training centre of Papendal in the heart of the Netherlands was largely responsible for the nation finishing top of the medals table in Toruń.

Bol is something of an anomaly, too, in that she reveals a love for pushing her lactic limits.

Speak to most athletes and they will admit that the pain or the “burn” which comes from flooding the system with lactic acid when pushing to the body to its maximum is one of the major downsides of their sport.

Not for this rising star of European athletics, however. She goes in search of it because of how it helps to highlight how she is progressing.

“I don’t know what it is. It’s something in me that really likes it,” laughs Bol.

“I really like to challenge myself with the lactic – I don’t know, just to try to breeze through it. During this indoor season I really learned that, when I think I can’t anymore, I can still do 200m in an okay time. You can really you push yourself to things you didn’t think that your body could handle with lactic. But then you can still handle it and I just really liked it.”

"To win the 400m [in Toruń] was insane for me but I knew I had to focus for the 4x400m. After that race, I really felt all the emotions!"

Here's a sneak preview of our exclusive interview with Femke Bol from our April edition.

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— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) April 1, 2021

Learning that lesson has begun to give Bol some perspective in terms of how far she has come.

“I think when I was younger, Bram (her long-time coach Bram Peters, now Meuwly’s assistant) would say ‘you don’t push yourself enough’. And I was always a bit like ‘no, I do it. I really tried to go as fast as possible’.

“But I was a bit scared of the lactic then and now I think, last year and also this indoor season, I really learned that ‘okay, you can think that you can’t but you can again’, and it’s really nice when you see yourself mentally and physically break those limits for yourself a bit and go to a higher level. I then also see that in my results and that’s amazing.”

Bol has loved to run ever since, as a very young girl, she followed the example of her older brother and gave athletics a try. What she enjoyed most about it then is still what drives her now.

She adds: “It was always a way to clear your mind and just have fun and not think too much about other things. That’s still what I like so much about it.

“I have sessions I like more and I like less but I enjoy every session and mostly the lactic ones because then it really clears your mind and the only thing you can think about is the pain and how you are going to recover.

“I just love how you really can mentally challenge yourself so much in the sport and just let go of everything a bit by running.”

The Communication Sciences student also loves to write.

“I have all these books that I write in. It’s a bit training-related and just about everything. Not like a diary, but more like my training times or what went well or these kind of things.”

The European U20 400m hurdles champion will have had plenty to write about recently and is hoping to add some copious notes about a year which is leading up to her first Olympics.

“During the whole year, it [Tokyo] is somewhere in your mind every day.”

First, though, will come the World Relays at the beginning of next month. Given the Netherlands’ recent success, it is a big target for Bol and her training group, which is also complemented by Swiss athletes such as Lea Sprunger and Ajla Del Ponte.

The team ethic which exists under Meuwly’s expert eye is clearly playing off.

“The atmosphere is really good,” says Bol of the training set-up. “Right now. We’re all motivated. And we’re all helping each other in trainig and also outside of training. I think you can really see that our group is working as a team. In the 4x400m and in our individual races we really learn from each other and we push each other in training.

“I think that’s really something special that we have. It feels a bit like we are a big family. We’re just trying to help each other grow faster and yet it’s really great to be in a team like that.”