Rob and Marian Heffernan doing the walk of life together

Ireland’s world champion walker credits his success to hard work and the support of his wife and family, says Jonathan deBurca Butler.

SINCE winning the 50km walk at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, Rob Heffernan has become a celebrity; not just in his native Cork, but across the country.

A year on from that famous victory, Rob is still a little overwhelmed by people’s reaction.

“I’m so taken aback by the response I’ve got from people,” says the 36-year-old. “I still have people coming up to me and saying how much my win meant to them and that it lifted everybody. It’s amazing that sport can have that effect on the public.”

During our interview, which takes place at a product launch for Glo Health in Dublin, Rob often uses the pronoun ‘we’, referring also to his wife, Marian. Marian was also a top athlete. Though now retired from running, she is active in Rob’s training and in managing the family’s affairs.

The couple met at the Togher Athletics Club, where Marian was the only female member. After several requests for a date, Marian relented and Irish Athletics’ Posh and Becks were born.

Marian has been Rob’s rock throughout his career. Who can forget the photograph of the pair embracing when Rob crossed the finish line at Moscow?

The couple has three children, Megan, 11, Cathal 9 and Regan, who is just four-months-old. Rob says Regan has shaped his training.

“It’s settled everything really,” Rob says. “We’re a bit more organised now. I train in the morning, I come home, have my nap with the baby, and Mar can go off and do her own thing; shopping or training, or whatever else needs to be done. And it’s a great distraction. You go off and do your sport, but I can’t wait to get home to see her.”

The last few years have been nothing short of remarkable for Rob. As well as his gold medal in Moscow, there was a fourth place finish at the London Olympics in 2012. But when the Corkman talks about his competitive highlights, he refers to a little-known race in Denmark, eight years ago.

“I had five years of having no finishes in races, between illness and injuries,” Rob says.

“And because I’d had years of no results, I was off-funding. Me and Marian had very little and there was lots of pressure on us. We were renting a house and Mar was working. She stuck by me and was supporting me, and she used to drive, beside me in the car with Cathal in the back. That was at night time, when I was training in the dark. So we had nothing to fall back on, really. I went out to a race in Copenhagen in 2006, with the hope of getting a qualifying time for the World Championships to get back on funding and I got it. That was one of the biggest reliefs of my life and nobody knows about it.”

“There was nobody at the race, it was a very low-key affair, but it was so important to me, at the time. I always remember coming back from Copenhagen, and being stuck in Stansted Airport for about eight hours, and I went and found a bar and called Mar. I was talking to her for hours, just saying how unreal it was. It was a turning point for me. It meant I got a second bite at the cherry,” he says.

That second bite has seen Rob become Irish Athletics’ most prolific performer at major championships, with eight top ten finishes since 2007. It is typical of his humility that he is reluctant to focus on the spotlight achievements.

For him, it is the quieter, personal victories, such as Copenhagen, that drive him.

“People always revert back to medals, but some of my achievements without winning medals, in my earlier career, were nearly as important as winning golds in Moscow,” he says. “There were other things in my career that were massive for me, like qualifying for my first Olympics or as a junior qualifying for the European Championships.”

Even if he is reluctant to focus on Moscow, others are only too happy to remind him.

Whether he likes it or not, winning at a major championship makes him a hero, particularly among the younger Irish athletes. It is a responsibility he is acutely aware of and it is something he uses positively.

“A few days ago, I was at the schools sports day in Pairc Ui Chaoimh,” he says. “And there were 6,000 school kids competing and just to see the joy. The kids were delighted to meet me and meet Marian, and the teachers are saying ‘you’re an inspiration’; to have that effect is unbelievable,” he says.

Here’s hoping Rob will have the same effect in 2016. Ireland’s Samba stroller is already in training.

Roll on Rio.