Irish off to training camps in warmer climes

While Sonia O'Sullivan has once again returned to high altitude training at Falls Creek in the mountains of southern Australia, a number of home-based athletes have also headed for warmer shores.

The high plains of the Bogong mountains has been attracting most of the top Australian distance runners at this time of the season for over 30 years and O'Sullivan made full use of the ski resort-turned-national distance camp in her build up to the double success at the World Cross-Country in Marrakesh.

National 10,000 metre champion Noel Berkeley, however, has decided on the more exotic and yesterday left for a month's training in Kenya. He will be based in the mountain town of Eldoret - some 5,000 feet above sea level - and will link up with a number of leading Kenyan distance runners, including former cross-country runner Andrew Masaai.

"The whole idea of training in Kenya is something I've been thinking about for a while now," said Berkeley. "The altitude will be a great boost at this time of the year but it will be nice to get a bit of sun as well." He will return next month to focus on the national cross-country championships in the hope of gaining selection for the World Championships in Belfast in March.

Top 1,500 metre runners Niall Bruton and Shane Healy have decided to head west to prepare for the summer track season. Earlier this week Bruton returned to his former American university town of Fayetville in Arkansas after being based in Dublin for the past two years. He has struggled to regain the standards that brought him to a World Championship final four years ago although he is hopeful that the familiar surroundings at Arkansas will revive his form. His first challenge will come in a number of indoor races in the States, including the Wannamaker Mile at the Milrose Games next month.

Healy has also been residing in Dublin since reaching the semi-final of the Atlanta Olympics but has suffered a similar loss of form and spells of injury ever since. Next week he leaves for a three-month training spell in Gainsville, Florida, although he will continue to be guided by his coach Eamonn Coghlan. "I'm injury-free and fairly fit now but you really need to get some better training conditions if you want to keep progressing in the next few months," he says. "The World Championships this summer is the one big aim and I want to give myself every chance of qualifying as early as possible."

The main problem, according to Healy, is the huge difficulty in getting into Grand Prix races during the summer. "You have a situation now where all the top races are booked up two of three months in advance," he says. "There are too many greedy agents around now putting up to 10 of their athletes in the elite races which makes it very difficult for the rest of us to even get near the starting line. Then you have to run about 3 minutes 30 seconds to get any recognition which means smashing the Irish record by about five seconds."

Meanwhile, Mark Carroll is also back in Gainsville after a brief spell at home for the holidays. His immediate target is the 3,000 metres at the Millrose Games, an event he has won for the past three years. Susan Smith, still training in her adopted home of Atlanta, has also planned some races on the American indoor circuit and is targeting the World Indoor Championships in Japan next March.

Additional athletes training overseas include national 10 km Walk champion Pierce O'Callaghan, who has gone even further afield for a three-month stint in New Zealand along with fellow Irish walker Jamie Costin. Both will compete in a number of competitions in the next few weeks with the similar aim of getting an early qualifying time for outdoor World Championships in Seville.