ATHLETICS: Organisers of the New York City Marathon on Sunday week may have attracted Ireland's two current leading athletes in Sonia O'Sullivan and Mark Carroll, but Eamonn Coghlan, one of the leading Irish athletes from the past, is also concluding his preparations for the 26.2-mile race.
Coghlan will lead 100 members of his charity team that are set to raise over €500,000 for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. And as the 10th anniversary of the year when the team first entered New York, Coghlan felt it was time he should once again run the race.
"I ran here before in 1991 and finished in two hours 25 minutes," he said yesterday. "This time I'll be looking for something about half an hour slower, maybe 2:55. But I've managed to build up the training over the past six months, and have got in a few 20-mile runs in training."
Now just a month short of his 50th birthday, Coghlan admits he is a little more worried about trying to complete the 26.2 miles this time, but with O'Sullivan and Carroll in contention for the top prizes he expects the atmosphere on race day to be more exciting than ever.
"It is a very special year with Sonia running. She is the greatest Irish athlete of all time, and I'm delighted she's running what is for me the best marathon in the world.
"Since having the kids she's a more relaxed athlete, and she's put the necessary miles in training. She's also run the distance once before, so I feel she wants to end the year winning a big one. And she is definitely ready to do that."
O'Sullivan arrived in New York early yesterday and will spend the week counting down to the race at Villanova University, just outside Philadelphia, where she attended college in the early 1990s.
Coghlan believes the key to a winning performance will be patience in the early miles.
"Sonia spoke to me about three weeks ago, and asked me had I any advice on New York. I did say it's like no other marathon in the world in terms of the millions of people out on the streets. And it's so easy to get carried away with the excitement.
"Just on the Verrazano bridge alone, after the start, there's going to be 30,000 people. It's so easy to get carried away with the excitement and adrenalin that an athlete experiences in a situation like that. If she's planning to run 5.15 mile pace, a 4.45 mile at the start will seem so easy.
"So she'll need some discipline to run the first 10 or 12 miles according the her exact split times. Otherwise she will pay for it through, say, 18 to 21 miles. And that takes confidence as much as discipline."
The New York course also has a reputation for a difficult finish as the runners enter Central Park, yet Coghlan didn't seem too worried: "The last couple of miles in any marathon are difficult. But the hills in Central Park have been cut out somewhat and the runners now come down a different approach to the finish."
Coghlan was, however, less certain about Carroll's prospects in what will be his debut at the distance.
"Moving straight up from the track is going to be difficult," he says. "He should be running to win the race, and forget about the pace. If he can be controlled and disciplined enough and gets over the wall then he may have the leg speed to carry him over the remaining miles, and finish high up."
