ATHLETICS: The course is in as fine a condition as it could be, and it's perfect for spectators. But it's still going to come down to a survival of the fittest

I’D SOONER chew my leg off than be trapped in this mud. Wow. It’s not too bad in some parts. It’s really bad in others. It’s going to be interesting. It won’t be just survival of the fittest. It will be survival of the toughest. The meek will inherit nothing. It’s going to be true cross country running.

“You just got to go,” she says. “Go. You don’t want to change your style or anything. You just don’t want to get bogged down. The way I saw it, if you come to a muddy patch, the faster you ran, the quicker you’d get over it. That was my mindset. Rather than trying to find your feet. Just run fast. Go. And you’ll glide over it.”

She knows what she’s talking about. Catherina McKiernan won the title at the first European Cross Country in 1994, over a damn tough course. In the spirit of participation, we’ve come to Santry for a test run over the 2009 course. No one is better qualified for this than Catherina. She was a complete natural. Born to run cross country. She made some of the hardest courses look easy, and she still moves effortlessly over this sort of ground. I want to know the secret.

“Practice, I suppose. But the thing is I didn’t actually enjoy running in the mud. I was used to it alright, from growing up. So maybe I was able to cope with it a little better than other people. I mean, I trained a lot in those conditions around Cavan, so when I came to a wet course it wasn’t a problem.

“But at the end of the day, if you’re running well you can run well in any conditions. Like, when I won the Europeans it was very dry. I was just looking at pictures from that race again the other day. And there was no muck at all on my legs. And it was dry most of the time I ran the World Cross Country.”

It’s a dry day in Santry, and the winter sun is actually blinding, but that horrendous rain of recent weeks has left the ground of the old demesne pretty badly waterlogged. It’s a nice, tight course, hugely spectator friendly, and as a stage it looks fantastic. There’s good running on the top section of the course, behind Santry Stadium, where the races start and finish, but in the hilly back section, down by the old walled garden, it’s getting tricky. How tricky?

“There are some wet patches here alright,” she says. “But sure that’s what cross country is about. It is flat though, mostly. And you won’t be sinking down. But I don’t think it’s the kind of course you can easily run away from the opposition. No, it’s not. You’d want to be very brave to take it out from the start on this course. If you feel strong enough maybe, but I certainly wouldn’t be flying off at the start. Not on this course.”

It is tempting to fly off at the start. There’s a great, wide opening stretch of maybe 500 metres, before a sharp turn to the right. A treacherous turn. They’ve laid sand here to help firm up the ground. Each lap is nearly exactly a mile. The senior women will run five laps, the senior men six. With two junior and under-23 races before they start, the course will definitely get messy. It won’t be sticky, but it will be slippy. I ask Catherina how she’d approach it, her tactics for glory.

“I’d wait. Until about 1,000 metres to go. I’d have that flagged from before. That was the tactic in a lot of races I ran. Go, with 1,000 metres left. The important thing is, when you decide to go, don’t half-go. You have to really, really push it. Go! That was always on my mind.”

Word is Mary Cullen is going to go from then gun.

“Well, she might want to hold back a little bit. You can rise to the occasion too much. The cheers and all that. Maybe you’re better off staying in the pack, let some of the other people do the work. Wait till the time comes. It’s too tough a course to be breaking away early, running out on your own. It’s always hard to do that in cross country anyway.

“But Mary will have her own tactics, so it’s not for me to say. But you don’t want to be too courageous either, get carried away with the atmosphere. People shouting, and that sort of thing. That’s important. Go by your race plan.

“But running at home will help. No doubt about it. You’re going to rise to the occasion. There is some extra pressure, but once you get into the race you’re always glad of the extra support.”

We run into Tom McCormack, the man in charge of the course. For the past few weeks Tom has been nurturing the sod, as if preparing it for the Chelsea Garden Show. But there’s nothing you can do about rainfall. He’s had the Army in to help. And he’s had a class of transition year students from Rockbrook Park School working overtime, voluntarily. “It will cut up like shite,” he says. “But it’s going to be brilliant for the spectators.”

There’s only one notable hill, coming out of the back section, and to me this seems like the place to make a move. There was one brutal hill in Alnwick when Catherina won in 1994, although her victory that day came down to a homestretch duel with Spain’s Julia Vaquero. She won by one second.

“And I did have to use my elbows a little more than usual. But I was just so determined. I would have been mad had I not won. I’d already finished second in the World Cross Country, three times. I felt I was definitely the best in Europe. Like anything in life, if you want it bad enough, you’ll get it.”

So would she make a move on this hill here? “There’s a nice drag alright, and it’s dry along here, not too bad at all. But I remember at the World Cross Country in 1995, in Durham, Derartu Tulu, went on the last hill. She was urging me on . . . ‘come on, come on’. That was trying to psych me out as much as anything. She was good at that. You might be naive and think she’s trying to encourage you. That goes on.”

We finish up back at the start, and I get a small tinge of regret that I’m not 10 years younger and maybe running this course for real. I wonder if Catherina is thinking the same.

“I’ve had a few too many birthdays, Ian. This brings back memories, needless to say. But to be honest I’ve no great desire to be out there again. I’ll leave it to the young ones.”

Best advice of all.