Sweet return for Heffernan

ROBERT Heffernan put weeks of frustration behind him when he retained his 10,000m walk title at the Woodies DIY National track and field championships at Morton Stadium yesterday where he beat his Olympic team mate, Jamie Costin, who claimed his 3,000m record in Cork a week earlier and, to cap it all, picked up the Athlete of the Meet Award and the €1,000 that went with it.

The Togher man surged clear of Costin two laps into the race and, throughout the remaining 23 laps he burned off the frustrations that he took with him into the race. He was already battling a hip injury when, with the help of his long time sports masseur and technical advisor, Liam O’Brien, they went to an altitude training camp in Lavino, Italy, where facilities were non-existent.

“To be honest it was terrible and I had to change my plans pretty quickly,” he said. “There was a 5k stretch there, really hilly. One day I did a 30k and it was 15k out and back — through tunnels on the side of a mountain — you could not hear the cars in the tunnels and I had to stop or I would have been killed.