Christie sets his sights on the track and 1,500m

THE cross-country season may be just getting into full swing but Mark Christie, who led Ireland’s junior team to the silver medals at the European cross-country championships on Sunday, is already thinking of summer and the track season.

He has his sights set on returning to Germany for the European U-23 championships in Erfurt in mid-July and the world student games exactly a month later in Izmir, Turkey. But, while his best performances to date have been over the longer distances, he said yesterday he will be concentrating on the 1,500m next season.

He ran a career best of 3:46:08 for 1,500m last season and had back-to-back 4:04 and 4:03 runs for the mile at the Milers’ Club event in Tullamore in early June and the Morton Mile in Santry.

He admits he has never really trained for the shorter of the middle distances and when he broke John Treacy’s 3,000m record on a miserable night in Santry he was having his first track race of the year.

“Those performances have given me something to build on,” he said.

“I have a lot of work to do and I am looking forward to it and to running some fast times over 1,500m.

“Obviously the 5,000m wouldappear to be my distance but the 1,500m will help my speed and I would hope that an improvement there will be reflected in the longer races.”

The Mullingar athlete has had time to reflect on Sunday’s race, in which he finished fifth with his old sparring partner, Andrew Ledwith from Meath, finishing fast to take seventh place and the others all finishing well.

“I was disappointed that I lost a place over the last 500m but I went for it,” he said.

“It was a great team performance and for me it was a great way to end my career as a junior.

“This is a team for the future and I would like to think we will have the opportunity to race together again and that AAI will find some races for us.”

After they had won the team contest at the big international in Ghent, where Christie won the race from Danny Darcy with Joe Sweeney fourth, Jamie McCarthy fifth and Andrew Ledwith 10th, there were big expectations of a ferocious battle at the inter-counties championships in Dungarvan.

However, that never developed as Christie won by more than half a minute, leaving people wondering just how good the team was.

Two years ago it appeared as if he was all set to take the traditional transatlantic flight to the US with a number of colleges there chasing him.

In the end he opted to stay at home, got a sports scholarship to DCU and went from strength to strength.

“The temptation was there to jump at a US scholarship and I thought a lot about it. But I made the right decision. I stayed back in Ireland, I was able to work with my coach, David Burke, and Enda Fitzpatrick had put an excellent programme in place at DCU.”

People may be looking forward to seeing him in action at the national inter-club championships in Santry next March but he may not compete in that event.

“I think 12k might be a bit too far for me at this stage and right now but we will wait and see how things go,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tullamore Harriers have drawn up their busy schedule for the festive season.

The programme of activities consists of charitable outings on Christmas morning, commencing with the 49th annual toy run to the General Hospital and the traditional GOAL Mile on the Tartan Track.