CIARA Mageean set records and then smashed them again and again last season and the Portaferry 1500m runner hopes to break her own glass ceiling at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games.
The Irish record of 3:56.61 Mageean set in Brussels last year would have been just 0.01 of a second outside the medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Mageean believes she can shave a couple of seconds off her previous best and clinch the medal that eluded her when she finished fourth at last year’s World Championships (in a time of 3.55.87).
“You are always trying to improve on yourself so if I get back into the realms of that 3:55 shape and then I think: ‘What could I do?’,” she says.
“If I ran 3:55, could I run 3:54? I would love that but if I could in my lifespan run a 3:53 that would put you in a really good place for a medal.
“Slower has won major medals but it just seems to be that the women’s 1500 is becoming faster and faster. We’re probably going to see less of those slow races simply because the fast people will want to keep it fast.”
Where does she find those extra couple of crucial seconds? The former camogie player says her focus is on “staying fit and healthy and consistent” and pushing on from the base she built for herself last year.
“It’s just all such fine margins at this end of the sport and it’s such a fine line of teetering on that tightrope of peak physical performance,” she explained.
“Just the slightest thing tips you over. For me it’s about trying to find that consistency, so from here on in it’s about staying fit and healthy and consistent.
“If I do everything that I did last year and get back in 3.55 shape, that’s phenomenal. I just want to run faster, I think we always do, I don’t know if I will run faster, we’ll see. Fingers crossed I will.”
Mageean set a new world record for Park Run when she completed the 5km course at Victoria Park in December in a whirlwind 15.13. Her blistering pace meant she tore the peroneal tendon in her foot and that kept her out of the indoor season but that could be a good omen.
The same injury kept her out of last year’s indoor season and the rest of the year worked out spectacularly for her.
She is fully fit now and going through the gears in preparation for the European Championships and then the Olympic Games..
“I don’t know if I can train any harder (than last year),” she says.
“I’m training pretty hard, but I’m going to go out and try and I’m going to come back to that fitness level, I’m going to make sure my recovery is on point.
“I work with a fantastic sports performance psychologist at the Sport Ireland Institute in Kate Kirby, I’m working with the nutritionists there as well and I’ll be getting testing done in the Institute on Friday morning.
“It’s those little fine things and it’s about staying happy, too, because amazingly your happiness has such a big impact on your performance.
“There’s no special thing that I’m going to say I’m going to start hitting this season specifically, I’ve done everything right in the past and I’m going to try to keep replicating that.”
