The plan, the prep and the moment of truth: A Hall of Famer’s guide to properly punishing yourself

Ireland's Mark Carroll stands with his gold medal after winning the men's 3,000m, during the 26th European Indoor Athletics Championships, Gent, Belgium. Pic: Brendan Moran/SPORTSFILE

25 years later, Mark Carroll can still see it all. Mohammad Mourhit hitting the front early, the threat of pre-race favourite Rui Silva behind him, the pace rising and falling, his strategy, getting stuck in seventh and the weather. And then he stops.

“That’s actually not my favourite race you know,” he says, the blur of emotional and sensational memories in his mind separating as one surges to the front. It was 25 years last week that Carroll claimed gold in the Men’s 3000m at the European Indoor Championships in Ghent, Belgium. A different medal cuts right to his heart.

“One of the ones I’m most proud of was the European Outdoor Championships in Budapest, 1998. The way I raced. Because I had a look around with about 600 metres to go, I want to say there were 12 of us. This was a very, very slow race. There was a big bunch and I just thought… 

“It was instantaneous. It wasn’t planned. We had no race strategy, nothing. I was coming around with 500 metres to go and I just decided, Okay. Boom. I’m going here and I’m going to win. I laid it down. And I ended up with bronze but that’s kind of what I am most proud of. I took a crack. Do you know what I mean? I got passed by two Spanish guys, but I laid it all out there.” 

This is his creed. This is what drew the Knocknaheeney native to his calling. It started with two loops of the old North Monastery, chasing the eventual winner down the home straight and falling short. There was pain. A burn in his legs and lungs. He loved it. He loves it.

Carroll is one of the country’s best ever middle-distance athletes. His glittering career was honoured with a place in the Athletics Ireland Hall of Fame in 2023. He won medals, a bronze at the European U20 5000m, NCAA indoor Gold, a win at the famed Wanamaker Mile, a European champion and all kinds of records. Some have been broken but the 3000m mark of 7:30.36 still stands.

He did it his way. Carroll is currently the Director of Performance and Head Coach for the Boston Athletic Association; he is speaking from New Mexico where they are currently based for high-altitude training.

“I grew up thinking the harder I push myself, the faster I will be. There is an element of truth to that, but there is also the risk of injury and overtraining,” he says. He should know. Carroll qualified for the 1996 Olympics but missed it due to injury. He was 24. He felt something. He tried to run through it. He suffered a stress fracture. His Games ended in the Blackrock Clinic with a shattered dream.

“It’s about the race. That is the thing with training and racing. I've been in many, many these situations during my career, where 2000 metres or so into the race and I’m completely on the rocks. I mean everything is telling me stop. Your muscles are screaming. Your brain is going crazy.

“What you can’t teach… When I was at my best, I could block that out and I could go really deep, deep, deep. Maybe it's a stubbornness thing, but I see it when people run. I've seen some talent that will only push so far.

“They reach a point and that’s it. They are not going any deeper. Then you have other people who will run through a brick wall. I see it in training. I have athletes and some workouts are meant to be at about 90%. They are not meant to be all out, especially if it is base building.

“But I have some athletes that just want to punish themselves like I used to do myself. They’re the athletes I have to hold back and convince; ‘You got to bring this on race day. We do a little bit of fast stuff. We do a little bit of the hard stuff. This is to get you ready. Save those monster efforts for the races.’” 

Ireland's Mark Carroll checks the clock as he leads the field during his heat of the Men's 5,000m in the 2004 Olympics. Pic: Brendan Moran/SPORTSFILE

Carroll coached at collegiate level with Auburn University and Drake University before taking his current position. His passion for this pursuit is undeniable. It floods out in a curious blended Cork-Boston brogue. Over a decade ago he interviewed for a position in Ireland as the national endurance coach. The pitch was unsuccessful.

“I felt at the time Irish athletes weren't - I choose my words carefully now - I wouldn't say necessarily training hard enough but I did think that the training was off. For instance, a lot of our milers were coming at it from a kind of a speed-based approach. And the point I was making was if you look back at say Eamonn Coghlan, Marcus O'Sullivan, Ray Flynn, even Frank O’Mara, these guys that had really good 1500 metre or mile times. They also had very good 3000 times and very good 5000 times.

“They were all for the most sub-13.20 5000 metre runners. Of course they did speed, but you know they were coming at it from a strength approach. Irish athletes could tweak the training, not necessarily 100 miles a week or anything like that, but tweak the training to be more endurance based.” 

It is a constant challenge. There aren’t the same coaching supports at home. The weather takes its toll. Every summer, Carroll would return to the Mardyke and run 1000 metre repeats. Every time, he’d be a few seconds slower than he was in the States and it would wreck his head.

The lack of groups is an issue as well. The US has a host of pro alliances now between Nike, Adidas, HOKA and the New Balance group in Boston. They train together and push each other. Paris Gold medallist Cole Hocker emerged from a group in Virginia. The same is true of Yared Nuguse and Grant Fisher. When he looks back on his career, the one change he’d make is join a group early, maybe somewhere like Flagstaff to benefit from the altitude.

Look back now. What else does he carry with him? He was headstrong and iron-willed. Throughout it all, Carroll was outspoken about doping in the sport. He called for stricter EPO testing in Sydney. At those games, he missed out on a final spot by one place. Ali Saidi-Sief from Algeria won the heat. At the 2001 World Championships, he missed out on a final by one place again. Saidi-Sief later tested positive at that championship and was stripped of his medal.

Every element of his work now is shaped by his own experience. As a runner, it got under his skin. What about as a coach?

“I hate seeing it. It made me angry when I was running,” he says with a grimace. “Racing people when you knew they were cheating you out of performances and finances.

“We kind of focus on the training, focus on being the best athletes, given our athletes the best support. We focus on what we have control over. We have no control over what others are going to do. If they cheat and they get caught then so be it. We are seeing a fair bit of that these days unfortunately, but also, we can do is just kind of look after ourselves and get on the start line in the best shape possible with the best attitude.

“I have to admit there were some periods during my career where I probably did let it get to me a bit too much, you know? It is just frustrating. At times, looking back in it now, I probably should have blanked out a lot of it.” 

The game has changed. There was once a generation that pointed to the advantage of synthetic tracks compared to cinder ones. Training methods improved. There are so many super shoes. Sodium Bicarbonate is in fashion now as an aid to reduce the build-up of lactic. Times are tumbling. It all means the work of recruitment has changed too. Carroll can’t look at the clock anymore. He watches closely to see how prospects perform. Are they “gamers” or “floaters”? Do they commit.

“My old coach used to say there is a moment of truth in every race. There's a moment of truth in every race for every individual. And that moment of truth can come at a different point in the race depending on how fast it is from the start. So, if it's 5000 metres, if it's absolutely all out from the start, that moment of truth is going to come very early in the race. It can come in the first mile. We are all screeching by and it’s like, ok class is in session today! That question is being asked of you by your competitors, right?

“The flip side is you could have a championship type race where let's say, the first few miles of a 5000 might go very slow, and someone is going to break. Jakob Ingebrigtsen for instance, we know what he is going to do. He will either make it fast from the start of he is going to pick a point and boom. That’s tactical, so you need to be yourself in the right position. Jakob drops the hammer and that is the moment. Now or never. You gotta go. You gotta go! So, you gotta be ready to go.” 

That is the hardest part of coaching. Watching the clutch moment come in the race without power to impact it. He blames the grey in his hair on his athletes who get caught in a box or don’t follow race tactics. It is not that he is always trying to right the wrong turns he made. They stand to him now. Ultimately, when he thinks about his career, he is content.

“I just got stuck in and I raced hard. I had the philosophy, why do this, if you're not going to do it 100%? Why give anything less.

“I can't remember who said it to me, but when I was younger they said after every race, regardless of the time or regardless of where you finish, if you can look in the mirror and know that you could not have done any more that day, that you gave your absolute best, you can be content with that. For most of my career, I achieved that.

“Sure, sometimes I ran like an idiot and I made mistakes tactically. I’d get really mad at myself. But for the most part, after most races I ran, I was happy. I had given my best.”