Hendricken tackles the best in the 1,500m at Monaco
The 32-year-old Carlow woman whose career took on a whole new dimension this year missed last weekend’s national championships and an 800m engagement with Sonia O'Sullivan after pulling a calf muscle in training early in the week.
She had just come off a big win at the Bupa Ireland Cork City Sports where she beat a star-studded field in the 1,500m and then, the following day, she ran a 1,500m and 3,000m for her club, St. Laurence O’Tooles, in the Mazda national league.
“I was disappointed at having had to miss the nationals,” she said yesterday from the French Riviera where she had just come away from a training session. “I think it is OK now. I stayed off it for a week - just did some aqua jogging but I trained on it yesterday and again today and there were no problems so I hope it has cleared up.” Tomorrow night’s field will include practically all of the big hitters on the Grand Prix circuit including the Romanian pair, Elena Buhaianu-Iagar and Maria Cioncan, four Russians including Olga Nelyubova, Carla Sacramento of Portugal who is former world champion and the teak-tough American Regina Jacobs, who was runner-up to her that year, and two British runners, Helen Pattinson and Hayley Tullett.
“ I have just got the start lists here and it is a very strong field all right,” she admitted. “You could be dragged through to a pretty fast time but my tactics on Friday night will be totally different.”
A former student at Providence College where she was a key member of Ray Treacy’s super team, her best time for 1,500m up to this year was 4:14 which she ran in Montreal back in 1994.
After watching girls she had competed against going from strength to strength she decided this year that it was make or break time for her.
Now coaching herself she returned to the track for the national indoor championships in Nenagh where she ran 4:17 and the roller coaster was on its way. “It was a defining moment for me all right,” she recalled. “I brought it down to 4:05 in Lausanne.” Just before that she had run a new p.b. for 800m in the Irish Milers Club race in Tullamore - the day before she finished second to Pauline Curley in the Dublin Women’s Mini-Marathon.
When the Lausanne Grand Prix was coming up she telephoned Andy Norman and he came to her and told her to get on the plane that she was in the race.
This time she did her own canvassing. “I have a book with all the meets and all the meet directors and I telephoned Monaco,” she said. “The fact that I had beaten 4:08.08 meant that I was qualified and, for a Golden League meet, they must have a certain number of qualified athletes from a certain number of countries so they took me in.”
The four-event Adidas race series, which includes the 2002 Adidas Dublin Marathon, gets underway on Sunday with the 5-mile Irish Runner challenge in the Phoenix Park.
The race has a double importance, being both the first of the new series and a special commemorative event to celebrate 21 years of Irish Runner magazine and, already, over 1,000 runners have pre-registered, despite the fact that entries will be taken on the day. Catherina McKiernan, the 1998 London Marathon winner, is a regular contributor to the magazine and will get the race under way at 11am.
Those planning to run the Adidas Dublin Marathon have been encouraged to build the race series into their training and use the race as an opportunity to test themselves at the shorter distances ahead of the October showpiece.
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