Beijing Bound

So right now I’m sitting on a plane to Beijing! I have just spent 8 days with Team Ireland in Hong Kong acclimatising to the hot and humid conditions in preparation for the World Athletics Championships in Beijing. We have a small team including my two fellow Irish Steeplechicks Michelle and Sara. It has been great being able to spend time together preparing for the same event and having company on runs and at the track.  

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The plan this season was to try and get as close to the Olympic Qualifying Time as possible, I knew I was in good shape this summer but I guess I never expected to have one of the best seasons of my life so far.

June and July brought some wonderful athletic memories and a summer that I won’t forget in a hurry. A fast 1500m in Leixlip, at the Le Cheile International Meeting, saw me run a PB of 4:12.79. I had been hoping that I was in around 4:14 shape (my PB from 2009) but with no specific 1500m sessions I really didn’t expect to go that fast. This was a great boost to the confidence and it helped me to race with greater determination when it came to the European Team Championships in Crete where I finished in 3rd place in the 1500m securing 10 points for Ireland.

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After Crete, Michelle Finn (my fellow ‘Irish Steeplechick’) and I travelled to Slovenia to race another Chase in pursuit of the Olympic Qualifying Time. We were there with Lennie Waite (GB) and a few other top Chasers that had run in and around the 9:30s and 9:40s earlier in the season. A fast race was expected but it turned into a tactical race with a bit of a burn up. I was happy with a 3rd place finish but was frustrated that I hadn’t picked up the pace earlier in the race to run a faster time. So on the post race cool down with the girls we planned our next race. We had a choice some nine or ten days later, the IAAF World Challenge Meeting in Madrid or Letterkenny in Ireland!

Lining up on the Letterkenny track I’m not sure any of us could have predicted that the three Irish Steeplechasers would all go inside the Olympic Qualifying Time, but we did and I guess we made a little bit of Irish Athletics history that Friday evening. I would love to know what the odds would have been on achieving what we did that evening, with not so perfect conditions but a small field of quality Chasers from the USA, Uganda, Germany, GB, Ireland and a Polish pacemaker.

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Coming into the home straight I could see the clock and dug harder than ever before, I threw my arms up in delight crossing the line as I knew we had gone very close but how close? Waiting for the official times was like a lifetime and as soon as I was told I had gone inside both the World and Olympic Qualifying Times, I was ecstatic, I filled up a little and was so happy that nobody was going to be able to wipe that smile off my face for a while. It was great that my other two Irish team mates had also achieved standards and the fact we had run this in Ireland was extra special. We owe a lot to Daragh McDaid for bringing us all together for this race, it really was a magic night that resulted in the three of us being selected for the World Championships in Beijing and moving firmly along the ‘Road to Rio’.

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Race day at the iconic Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing is now only 4 days away and it’s all getting very real. Preparation has gone really well and I have started to acclimatise to the extreme heat and humidity of the Far East. I have been drenched with sweat after every run and track session, its been crazy, but the Hong Kong training camp has really helped us to adapt to the conditions we will face on the day of competition.

The support back home has been amazing, from friends, family and my club Newcastle AC. A massive thank you to you all for your kind messages and belief in me, I hope I can do Ireland and you all proud on Monday 24th August when I step onto the track.