Mulcaire: 'There’s absolutely no way I’d still be running if I hadn’t gone to the US'

Kevin Mulcaire has been in the US for seven years and has been “injured for five and a half of them”.

BACK IN GREEN: Kevin Mulcaire has overcome many injury obstacles but is now fit and healthy and ready to run for Ireland at the European Cross Country Championships.  Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

There is a certain risk, an unwanted hazard, of being a teenage prodigy: the burden of pressure and expectation that must be carried to senior level. Kevin Mulcaire knows it all too well, tracing the path back eight years to when, at the age of 17, he broke John Treacy’s Irish U-20 5000m record, which had stood for 40 years, clocking 14:02.30.

But when things fell apart in the years after, his body breaking down time and again, did that early success make things more difficult? “Yeah, it definitely did,” he says. “I didn’t want to be one of those stories: someone who was good as a junior and got distracted by drinking, getting a job or getting an injury and throwing in the towel. That did kind of weigh on me.” 

He was once the next big thing. Then he was forgotten – another young star who’d burnt out or faded away. Mulcaire has been in the US for seven years and has been “injured for five and a half of them”. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but in this game, progression is rarely a linear path.

It was early in 2016 when things began to unravel. Mulcaire missed most of that year with a broken navicular bone and in 2017 he went stateside, to Oklahoma State University (OSU), where his body kept failing him: achilles tendinitis; a torn meniscus in both knees; a groin tear; patella issues; a stress fracture in his femoral neck – it was a sadistic game of whack-a-mole with his own body, a new issue popping up as soon as he’d beaten another.

Mulcaire used to go to the office of OSU coach Dave Smith and “kind of cry, like, ‘I want to be done,’” but Smith always talked him out of it. In his early 20s, he felt like a has-been. The one plus? It showed him who truly cared. “I’d a lot of support from people back home. Being injured, falling out of the limelight, brought me closer to my family and friends. A lot of people did stick around.” 

He could blame the NCAA system for what transpired, but his issues predated that and Mulcaire does the opposite. “There’s absolutely no way I’d still be running if I hadn’t gone to the US – I was surrounded by so many determined, motivated people and the support I got from Oklahoma State, I can’t imagine I’d ever have come through the injuries without being around the good people.” 

After finishing up at OSU he moved to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to do a master’s. With his scholarship reduced, he stayed afloat with financial help from his parents. The shutdown of racing during the pandemic allowed him to take his time in training, for once, and over the past 18 months he’s been healthy, consistent. At the start of 2023, he switched coaches to Annie Richards, New Mexico’s assistant coach, and since finishing his NCAA career his old coach at Ennis, Pat Hogan, has steered the ship from afar in collaboration with Richards.

Mulcaire is still based in New Mexico, working for the university in data analytics, and last month he returned to Ireland for the first time since 2018. His main motive was to see his family but he made a “last-minute” decision to race the National Cross Country. He hadn’t raced since May, but had been churning out 90-mile weeks in training.

The day before, his parents asked him if he’d make the top-20 and Mulcaire, half-joking, said he’d see them at the podium. He surprised everyone, including himself, to contend for gold until the final metres, eventually settling for silver behind Cormac Dalton. “Seeing my parents at the finish was a very special moment, one I’ll carry forever,” he says.

He ran 94 miles last week, the most he’s ever managed, and he’ll make his senior debut for Ireland at tomorrow’s European Cross Country Championships in Brussels. It’s his first appearance at the event since 2015, and Mulcaire feels a very different person now.

“As a junior I was never really grateful for the success I had winning nationals. I’d come home and be in bed at 8.30 or 9. I remember reading in my injured years where Sonia (O’Sullivan) wrote that if she could do it again, she’d be more grateful for her victories. That’s something I want to do for the rest of my career – enjoy the victories.” 

He brings up Ciara Mageean, and how the lost injury years in her early 20s allowed her to mature later, peaking now, in her early 30s. Mulcaire, 26, hopes to do the same: “I’m enjoying being healthy, trying to stay in the moment.” 

Tomorrow, he’ll be back in green for what could be the first of many senior caps. No longer the forgotten man. Ready, once again, to show the permanency of his class.