Olympic dream is still alive for Marie

IT’S never easy for an athlete to admit they got it wrong, but Marie McCambridge has done so just hours before she goes into action in at the World Indoor Championships which open here today.

McCambridge runs in the heats of the 3,000m this morning and, along with James Nolan in the 1,500m tomorrow, they are the only two Irish athletes who will compete in the middle and long distance events.

That is in contrast to the past when the Irish team was made up of 1,500m or 3,000m runners, with the likes of Marcus and Sonia O'Sullivan of Cork, Frank O'Mara of Limerick and Galway man, Paul Donovan, bringing home an impressive haul of five gold medals and two silver.

No fewer then eight of the other 11 individual Irish athletes over the weekend are sprinters with Gary Ryan, Paul Brizzel, Paul Hession, David McCarthy, Robert Daly, Ciara Sheehy, Karen Shinkins and Joanne Cuddihy spreading themselves between the 60, 200 and 400 metres.

But of all the qualified athletes it would be fair to say McCambridge is the most surprising of all after performances in last year which suggested her big time racing was over.

And Marie herself agrees. "Last year was an absolute disaster," said the friendly Dubliner, reflecting on the many mistakes she made while training in South Africa of last year.

"Basically I just ran myself into the ground while training out there, thinking and believing that by doing so I would come home and run everyone into the ground.

"Instead I came home and ran so pathetically poor that I was totally puzzled and frustrated and just could not figure out where everything went wrong.

"But very soon I began to realise that I clearly overdid it in South Africa, believing that the more miles I did in altitude the faster and stronger I would become.

"Instead the reverse was the case. At home in Dublin I considered 80 miles a week as very big mileage but in South Africa I did as much as 120 miles a week which was pure suicide.

"I look back on them now as just pure 'junk miles' which did me absolutely no good and just drained every ounce of strength from my body and left me so week that running a few miles back home became agony.

"The problem was that the weather and the running conditions in South Africa were absolutely brilliant and there was nothing else to do but run, run and run twice a day except that instead of benefiting me I was doing myself untold harm."

The error of her ways was brought home to Marie when she came home and challenged Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan in the Dublin mini-marathon and finished in the next parish.

"I was totally mystified and I don't think I ever felt so rotten in a race before. I remember walking away at the finish and feeling like hiding some place because at that moment I don't think I ever felt as low about any performance."

For an athlete who had promised so much the previous two years, collecting valuable experience with her participation in the 2001 World Championships and the Europeans in Munich and helping Ireland to the bronze medals at the World cross-country at Leopardstown, this was like a dagger through her confidence.

The year had started so promisingly with the cross-country and a lifetime best of 9:03.68 for 3,000m at the World Indoors when she came within two hundredth's of a second of making the final.

But now there was only one thing to do take a break and work out where everything went wrong.

She missed the world championships in Paris and ended up losing every penny of her Irish Sports Council grant. "I was cut to nothing," was how she put it bluntly.

She sat down and discussed her running crisis with her husband, marathon runner Gary Crossan of Donegal, and together they agreed that a long rest was necessary, not to mention a change in her training programme.

"Basically we changed everything over the winter by cutting the weekly mileage in half and doing things much faster than before" said Marie. "There was no point in running many miles if you could not keep up with your opponents."

And, surprise, surprise it all worked. Marie came out for her first indoor race of the season and ran a lifetime best with 9:02.10 when taking the silver medal for the 3,000m at the AAA's in Sheffield.

And better still was to follow a week later when she made every yard of the running to win the Irish title in 8:56.48, second only to Sonia O'Sullivan on the Irish all-time list.

"That was such a fantastic feeling compared what I had done last summer and now I'm feeling great with a real appetite for my racing again.

"I really feel that I have more improvement left and my ambition here is to make the final. I think I have learned from my mistakes and Gary has been a great help as well as being my sponsor now that the grants have been cut.

"After Budapest I want to try and have a shot at making it to the Olympics. That dream is still there."