Kiernan hoping top stars available
McKiernan, who has had one race since launching her comeback this
season, has had to withdraw from the Reebok Challenge at Stormont on Saturday while Power missed last weekend’s View From Great North race in Newcastle on account of a heavy cold.
“But I’m much better right now,” the Clareman said yesterday. “Maybe if I had run last weekend and was in flying form I would have gone to Belfast but I was not too pushed about it.
“I woke up with a sore throat and chest cold one day last week and I did not run again until Monday. I missed a few days but it is not the end of the world.
“I intend to get in a good block of training now before I race again. I will train at home until the end of January and then, on February 1, I will go to a training camp in Spain.”
He will finish off his preparations for his bid to reclaim the national inter-club title he relinquished to his training partner, Peter Matthews, last year.
In normal
circumstances Matthews would be joining him at the training camp but the Dubliner has gone through a most frustrating six months.
He returned from a race in Italy with a back injury which took some considerable time to diagnose. Then came treatment and rehabilitation. He was toying with the idea of running in the national inter-counties championships in Donoughmore but decided to delay his return.
He had a slight setback in December and then, just when everything was right again, he got the flu.
“It never rains but it pours,” he said. “Just when I was getting back into it I find myself bedridden. It was a frustrating period in my career. It took six months to cure and I only got back running in October. Even then it was slow but I was getting there.”
But the message was not to write him off for the national championships, rekindling memories of the epic struggle with Power in the mud last year at Dublin Airport.
“I would hope to get back into training in a week or so. I am not too despondent. I have had five or six years virtually injury free up to now so maybe I have been lucky in that
respect.”
Kiernan, too, is hoping he will be back as he plans for the world championships, and yesterday he was hoping Mark Carroll might make himself available.
“I know he plans a spring marathon but I am hoping he may consider taking a week off and, with him, I am confident we would make the top 10 in the men’s team competition,” he said confirming that he is seriously considering the short (4k) races for both the men and women.
“If you were to ask me right now which is the better option, I would have no hesitation in saying short course,” he said. “I know Alastair Cragg would prefer the short course and Gareth Turnbull was in the 20s in the short course last year.
“Seamus Power, too, feels he would be at least as effective in the short course and we are hoping that Keith Kelly will be fit again. The real icing on the cake would be Mark Carroll. I am pretty confident he would make the top 10 of the race.”
He was thrilled with the performances of Anne Keenan-Buckley and Maria McCambridge in Newcastle last weekend when they shared the lead up to and beyond half way before eventually finishing fourth and fifth.
“And Sonia O’Sullivan is a lot fitter than she was this time last year,” he said. “She is getting in the training now and I will be very surprised if she does not win a medal in Lausanne.
“I have heard nothing from Rosemary Ryan so far, but obviously she would also be a strong contender for a place in the team despite her injury which now appears to be cleared up.
“Catherina McKiernan would
complete a very strong team and the fact that she is back running again has to be welcomed. We will be hoping to have her in the team as well.”
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