Heffernan targeting 50km step-up
The teak tough Corkman is officially the leanest person ever to pass through the NCTC in Limerick, according the new Dextro machine which has been installed there. It gives not just weight breakdown, but readings of the breakdown of all the individual muscles as well bone density.
“It lets you know if there is any muscle loss or if there are individual muscles that need to be worked on,” Heffernan said. “It is new but very soon it will be indispensable for every athlete.”
That news, however, was not the complete reason for the bubbling enthusiasm shown by the normally effervescent Togher athlete in advance of this weekend’s championships. He is set to introduce a new dimension to his athletics career by including the 50k walk in his repertoire – he holds the Irish record for every other distance on the racewalking calendar.
And all his newfound enthusiasm has stemmed from the bitter disappointment of his performance at the world championships in Berlin last year. There was a time when 13th place would have been acceptable as a solid performance, but sixth place in the 20k walk at the world championships in Osaka two years earlier, followed by eighth position in the Beijing Olympics the following year had raised the bar to heady heights.
The day after his lacklustre performance in Berlin he watched Olive Loughnane climb on to the podium to accept the silver medal for the women’s 20k walk and that eased the pain.
On his return to Ireland, he and his long time girlfriend, Marian Andrews, the national 400m champion, were submerged in the final planning of their wedding. But, once he had time to think, it was all about his racewalking future and he did some serious soul searching.
“I felt, after last year, much of which was spent carrying different injuries, I needed something new,” he said.
He felt if he could put in a really solid winter’s training it would stand to him for this year’s European championships in Barcelona and he came up with the idea of tackling one of the most feared events in world athletics.
“I have done 50k work-outs and found it easy,” he said. “In fact in last week’s work out I could have broken the Irish record for 50k had I kept going. I have done very good times over longer distances before.”
And now he could compete over 50k at the European championships in Barcelona even though the 20k is still his focus. He will have his first 50k race next month. In the meantime, he has changed his coaching arrangements, bringing the former Mexican racewalking star, Ivonne Cassin on to his team. She is married to former Irish racewalker Jeff Cassin.
“It is somewhat ironic they were living here in Cork for 10 years and then, after they moved to Paris, I should be bringing Ivonne on board,” he said.
A young Spaniard, Jacinto Garzon, who is doing a thesis on race walking, now draws up his programmes. Robert then passes them on to Ivonne Cassin, she looks over them, makes her recommendations and suggestions and he then makes the necessary adjustments.
“Really it is not too different to what I have been doing in the past apart from including Ivonne,” he said.
He attended the NCTC for testing before departing for South Africa on Monday. He will train at altitude outside Johannesburg until March 4 and then he will have his first 50k race in Slovakia later in the month.
In 2007 he got a memorable year off to a spectacular start at the Odyssey Arena where he took a huge chunk of his Irish record for the indoor 5k walk, posting the fastest time in the world.
“I don’t expect anything like that this year,” he said. “I have done absolutely no fast work this time. In fact I have done 180km in the last week. I’d done a lot of fast work going into the national championships that year.”
Tomorrow the focus will be on Derval O’Rourke as she gets her competitive season under way. She will go to the world indoor championships in Doha next month in a bid to reclaim the world title she won in Moscow in 2006.
Her club-mate and training partner Ailis McSweeney will compete in a highly competitive women’s 60m, alongside in form Waterford teenager, Niamh Whelan (Ferrybank AC), Clare Brady (Celebridge AC) and Irish 60m record holder, Anna Boyle (Ballymena & Antrim).
David McCarthy (Le Cheile AC) lines up in the men’s 800m after another new indoor pb at the Indoor Classic in Vienna on Tuesday night when his time of 1:48.29 gave him the qualifying standard for the World Indoor championships in Doha.
Kelly Proper (Ferrybank AC) will be looking for her fifth national long jump title. The Ferrybank athlete broke her own Irish record at the Vienna Indoor Gala two weeks ago when her 6.62m qualified her for the world championships.
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