Michelle Finn: 'I’m actually getting faster so I’m not retiring'

Cork athlete Finn carved a whopping nine seconds off her best in the 3000m steeplechase in June and won her first National Cross Country Championships last month

Tue, 07 Dec, 2021 - 11:03

Cathal Dennehy

Back in 2019, as Michelle Finn grinded through the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics, she’d often tell herself she was “absolutely retiring” once it was behind her.

But after the Games got pushed back, with Finn laying down another 12 months of consistent mileage, of steady development, she had a change of heart. The reason was simple. “I’m actually getting faster,” she says. “So I’m not retiring.”

The Cork athlete is 31 now, which might be getting on for many events but is very much the prime for a distance-runner. In June, she carved a whopping nine seconds off her best in the 3000m steeplechase, clocking 9:29.25, and at the National Cross Country Championships last month she claimed her first national title over the natural terrain with a performance as bold as it was brilliant.

Early in that race, the leading contenders were drifting along at a sedate pace, waiting for someone else to make the move, when Finn decided she wasn’t having it, injecting a huge surge and daring her rivals to go with her or die trying. None of them did.

If it backfired, she could have run herself off the team for this Sunday’s European Cross Country Championships. But Finn’s willingness to roll the dice went back to 2019, when she was fifth at nationals and missed out on European selection, watching from home as the Irish women won team silver.

“I was like, ‘nothing I do on this day is going to make me more disappointed,’” says Finn. “I’m going to take a risk because if I die and miss out again, I’ve been there before.”

Between 2014 and 2018 she raced the Euro Cross every year, her best finish being 23rd. On Sunday, she hopes to surpass that in Dublin. Although the course in Abbotstown has been in superb shape all autumn, that might change after a week of inclement weather.

“I’ve run Abbotstown muddy and I’ve run Abbotstown dry so I should be some degree ready no matter what,” she says.

When Dublin last hosted the Europeans in 2009, Finn was a 19-year-old spectator who no one — including herself — would have touted as a two-time Olympian and European finalist in the years that followed.

But after two years at UL and four at Western Kentucky University in the US, she developed into one of Ireland’s top female distance runners. Finn returned home in 2014 and worked under Leevale coach Donie Walsh until 2018, lowering her steeplechase best from 9:57.89 to 9:43.19. As she juggled full-time teaching with 90-mile weeks her progress stalled in the years after, and in 2018 she moved to coach Feidhlim Kelly at the Dublin Track Club.

In 2019, 2020, and 2021 she lowered her PB each year, the big breakthrough coming last summer — the one that showed Finn what might be possible. On Sunday, she’ll stand front of the line for the Irish alongside Fionnuala McCormack, who’s circling back just seven days after the Valencia Marathon, where the 37-year-old clocked a superb 2:23:58.

“I’ve so much respect for Fionnuala,” says Finn. “I like the way she does her own thing, is not in the media, and she comes out, bangs out a really good result, then does it again and again and again.” Finn is of the same mould — rarely running a bad race and never singing from the rooftops when she runs a good one.

“I’ve made so many different championships, and I’m always disappointed,” she says. In Tokyo she ran a solid 9:36.26 for the steeplechase in oppressive heat, carrying the early symptoms of a kidney infection that would leave her deeply unwell in the days that followed, though Finn is quick to add she’s “not making excuses” when it’s mentioned. “In hindsight, I think I did as well on the day with what I had as I could have.”