Cullen has a few scores to settle cross country

ATHLETICS:If any athlete deserves a change of luck, then it has to be Mary Cullen, whose list of injuries before major championships would fill a book

ALL HUMANS have an Achilles heel. Distance runners just know a lot more about it. We also know all about the patellar tendon and iliotibial band. We have a constant fear of plantar fasciitis and some of us have experienced compartment syndrome. Then there’s the dreaded stress fracture – which can strike any bone from the waist down at any given time.

These are some of the things that stop us in our tracks. Sebastian Coe always said every distance runner is one hamstring tear away from oblivion, and the same goes for the calf, groin or quad. If one small part of the leg is not able, months or even years of training can be very quickly and annoyingly wasted – no matter how willing the mind.

Speaking of willing minds, Edison Peña has taken that to a new level – at least in the running sense. Peña was one of the 33 miners rescued this week after spending more than two months beneath the Chilean desert. Like most of his trapped colleagues, Peña must have feared for his life, but he didn’t let that interrupt his training. A keen runner, he covered between three to six miles a day through the tunnels of the old gold and copper mine, to help clear his mind and keep his body in shape while trapped a half-mile underground. Although I strictly disapprove of running with an iPod, Peña can’t be faulted for bringing his along, particularly given his choice of music was old Elvis classics.

No surprise that Peña has earned the nickname “the Runner”, and due to his new-found fame, has been invited to next month’s New York Marathon – to either run or just watch. The hope now is that, free to run above ground, Peña won’t suddenly increase his mileage and suffer a small tear of his mid soleus or lesser trochanter, and therefore have to stop running completely. Believe me it happens to the best of them – especially if that runner is unfortunately deemed “injury-prone”.

Still it always amazes me how some runners go their entire careers without even tweaking a bum muscle, while others spend more time on the treatment table than the running track. What do they do to deserve it?

Mary Cullen has asked herself this question several times over the last three years. It’s a wonder she’s still running at all, but at age 28, and with another cross country season about to get under way, Cullen is ready to start over, with fresh ambitions and renewed determination. But a quick glance through her medical file illustrates why she might well have stopped in her tracks – permanently.

In the summer of 2008 she sustained a bilateral stress fracture of the sacrum, which ended her hopes of running the Beijing Olympics. In April of 2009 she sustained a stress fracture in her hip, and also underwent surgery to remove a small node on the side of her head. This double-whammy ruled her out of the World Championships in Berlin.

Cullen worked herself back into superb shape as last year’s cross country approached, although possibly peaked a little too soon – and her 12th-place finish at the European Cross Country in Santry last December fell well below expectations. Still, she pressed on – winning the Belfast International a few weeks later, before heading off to train in Australia, where in March she ran an encouraging 15:27.75 for 5,000 metres. Then her injury jinx struck again; first, another stress fracture of her hip, and just when she recovered from that, her calf muscle popped – and thus missed the European Championships in Barcelona.

“I don’t know if it’s just something to do with the championships beginning with ‘B’,” she told me this week – as in her missing Beijing, Berlin, and Barcelona. Naturally, she’s being a little facetious. Missing those championships hurt a lot more than the pain associated with the injury, and there were days when Cullen wondered whether her running career was all in vain.

“I’m not going to lie, and say I was always determined to get back. Sometimes I did think, ‘oh my God, there are too many signs here . . . maybe this is just not for me’. That maybe there’s something bigger out there telling me to stop. But then every runner wants to make the Olympics, and me too. And to make an impact, too. So with London just around the corner I just couldn’t give up. I feel my confidence has been knocked a lot. But then another part of me feels I have so much more to achieve. I don’t want to let go of that. It’s been very, very tough, the last three years. But then the World Championships next year are in Daegu. That’s a ‘D’ so hopefully that will be okay. Then London. That’s okay too.”

Truth is Cullen has shown enough flashes of potential to suggest she can make an impact in London. In March of 2009, she broke Sonia O’Sullivan’s indoor record for 3,000 metres, then won bronze at the European Indoors in Turin. Now she’s taking extra precaution to help ensure her injury jinx doesn’t strike again. After several years living and training in Providence, Rhode Island – having first gone there on a running scholarship – she’s now based herself in Dublin, living right next to Santry Demesne. (The other option was to move home to Sligo, but she’s convinced the northwest is wetter, colder, and much less favourable for training.)

“I’m just trying to do everything possible to keep myself healthy. I thought maybe low bone density might be a permanent issue with me, but I had a scan recently and it has improved quite a lot through extra gym work. It’s just great to be out training and racing again, and healthy. And because I am, and I hate using the word ‘injury-prone’, I have a better access to medical resources here. It’s more difficult in the US unless you have health insurance. Every time I went for a scan it cost me $1,400 (€995). At least I can get the medical back-up here without costing me a fortune.”

She’s also split with her old Providence coach Ray Treacy, purely for logistical reasons. She hasn’t yet found a replacement, but one thing is certain, Cullen is again targeting the European Cross Country, this one in Portugal on December 12th. And although she’s delaying the start to her season, and not running tomorrow’s Gerry Farnan Memorial event in the Phoenix Park, if the body is willing when she gets to that championship start line, the mind definitely surely will be too.

“I want to approach things a little differently this year. I think maybe last year I overcooked the training a little. Also I don’t think I realised at the time that I was under a lot of pressure. Especially being fourth the year before. That’s no excuse, but definitely the European Cross Country is the target. I kind of have some unfinished business in that event.”