Race day arrived and so did the nerves. I didn’t sleep much the night before and the 5am wake-up call came early. With a 10:17 race start I had to get up to eat and make sure the body was ready to go by race time. The sun was splitting the trees and temperatures were already hitting 30 degrees by the time we were warming up.
I was in Heat 3, which I knew would be fast due to athletes racing for times to make the final ahead of girls in the previous two heats. The call room was quiet and tense. I knew it was going to be very warm out there in the Bird’s Nest when I saw Emma Coburn arrive with a cool jacket on. I hadn’t seen one before, only the type my mum puts round her bottle of vino in the summer, lol. It’s definitely something I will look at investing in for future races in these climates – the human cooling jacket that is!
The time in the call room seems like a lifetime but we were finally marched out in single file to the track. The crowds were amazing and it was very very warm; all of us were throwing bottles of water around us before the start. The gun went and I kept to the back of the pack; into the first water jump hoping to cool off just a little and it was like a warm bath! Little did I know that the athlete behind me would have an unfortunate fall and that the photo captured from it would go global within the next couple of days.
Even at the back of the field the pace was fast; faster than I had ever run a steeplechase before and unfortunately for me the lactic was already building. With 1km to go I was really feeling the heat and the legs were swimming in lactic. I came across the line 13th in my heat but in a really disappointing time. On reflection I couldn’t have run the race any differently. If I had sat off the back of the pack on my own pace, I may have dropped further back, sometimes you just have to give it a go and test your body to the limit; if it doesn’t work then it’s back to the drawing board for the next time and look at what you can do in training to be able to cope with different race scenarios.
One massive benefit from this race is that I now know what to expect, I can prepare and plan better to cope with a very fast first km and try and train my body to withstand the rise in core body temperature in races like this. The 10-day training camp in Hong Kong really helped us to deal with the hot and humid conditions but I think maybe more time spent doing sessions in the likes of a heat chamber could really help the body to adapt to racing in temperatures in excess of 30 degrees.
So the morning after I was feeling a little down about my race but the positive feedback and encouraging comments I got from friends and family on social media really helped me to realise that getting to the World Champs had been a massive achievement.
The ‘Great Fall of China’ (as one of the papers headlined it) water jump incident with poor Rolanda Bell had made headline news in many papers across the world and in social media. All of a sudden I was tagged in it as I was running out of the water as Rolanda had unfortunately fallen. Back home it had made front page in the Irish Times and further afield it had also made the Wall Street Journal. Fortunately I’ve since spoken to Rolanda and she has no lasting damage, but it’s been one of the most used photographs of the Championships and has now thousands of hits on YouTube.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJyzQcA5gM
After our race it was great to be able to support the rest of the team and the other athletes from all over the world that I’ve met over the years. Each evening the atmosphere in the Bird’s Nest was unbelievable especially when Usain Bolt stepped onto the track. The Chinese Crowd went mad for him and he really showed his class in each round, heats and final.
Kelly Proper and I had bought a wee coffee machine between us as the hotel only had instant coffee – yes, athletes are coffee snobs, well Kelly (Proper), Brian (Gregan) and I are anyway. And so the coffee culture was all part of the ice breaker with Bolt.
We were lucky enough to get a fantastic hotel along with the USA and Jamaican teams and Bolt was there in the same dining room as us for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had spent the whole of last year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow dying to ask him for a photo but had chickened out. One lunchtime, Kelly and I had left the dining hall and had got into the same lift as Bolt. Kelly and I were having our usual banter and I was heading back to the room to make the coffee for us. I’m not sure Bolt could follow our full conversation but I offered him and his team mates some coffee too and he said he only takes a “wee bit” (in his best Donegal accent, where his manager hails from!). So that’s when I plucked up the courage to ask him for a photo and now I will always be known to the Jamaicans as the crazy Irish coffee girl!
During the rest of the Championships we had a bit of time to discover Beijing, the Great Wall of China is a must see and we had the most fantastic day there at Mutianyu. Kelly’s not into walking much and tempted us to stay in Beijing with a promise of a visit to a few walls in Waterford, free of charge! But we soon persuaded her to come along for the craic and we all fully enjoyed the amazing views and were in total awe of the Wall; we couldn’t get over how this had been built and the fact that it spans for over 6,000km!
Being big kids we throughly enjoyed the toboggan ride down the valley off the Wall. It was really good banter and we all had a blast.
Most evenings we would head back to the Bird’s Nest to watch the athletics. The women’s 1500m was one not to miss. Genzebe Dibaba is in a class of her own and wound the race up with a 1:56.9 last 800m!!!! This was faster than the actual women’s 800m was won it. We witnessed some spectacular performances and we even had a bit of craic with Dibaba a few days after her race when Sara (Treacy) and my long-suffering room-mate of three weeks Michelle (Finn) tried to get a sneaky selfie as she sat behind us in the stand. They were caught in the act and Dibaba gave them a cheeky wave from behind, lol. She is a really lovely girl and didn’t mind at all getting a photo with the three Irish Steeplechicks.
Beijing didn’t know what hit it when Kelly & I spent 5 hours shopping in the Pearl (Hongqiao) Market. If we had spent any longer in there I swear they would have been handing us freebies just to get rid of us.
The athletes banquet was on the final evening and it was out of this world. We entered the room and they had a little running track on the carpet, there was enough food to feed the Chinese Army and enough wine to keep my mum happy for a lifetime. The spread of food was amazing and Ciara (Everard) and I were in heaven with the little desserts, especially the wee cherry tarts. The entertainment was fantastic and I got to catch up with my friend Jenny Wenth from Austria who made the 5000m final and coach David Heath who I know well from training in Font Romeu with Sophie Duarte. It was a lovely evening to round off the Championship and the best banquet I had ever been to.
The experience of my first World Championship was absolutely amazing. I have learned a lot and I would like to thank the Athletics Ireland Management Team for their support and encouragement and also a massive thanks to the team for being great friends and great craic too. My coach Richard was able to come out and share the experience which was fantastic; I wouldn’t have made it there without him. Tom Reynolds has helped me make a big improvement in my hurdles technique and Andrew Cotter even gave him a wee mention during the BBC commentary of the the race!
Finally thank you to my friends, family and sponsors; the encouragement and support is what keeps me going in the sport and I hope you can all share the next chapter with me soon.