SONIA O'SULLIVAN'S first race since the trauma of her collapse in the second half of the track season is now planned for Honolulu, on December 7th. She has confirmed her entry for the Hawaiian road race but is still uncertain about the quality of the opposition she will face.

The event will be the prelude to an Australian tour by O'Sullivan in which the emphasis will be on intensive training, interspersed with competitive runs at selected meetings.

In all, she hopes to race no more than four times in Australia, but there is only one definite date in her diary, a 5,000 metres race in Melbourne on February 20th.

Before heading to Honolulu, O'Sullivan will travel to Philadelphia on Friday to train with Marcus O'Sullivan, who has been a friend and adviser since Sonia O'Sullivan's entry into international athletics almost seven years ago.

One of the topics certain to be discussed in Philadelphia is whether Sonia O'Sullivan should run in the World Cross Country championship for the first time since finishing seventh in the 1992 race in Boston.

There is a body of opinion which suggests that in the long build up to the world track championships at Athens in August next year she would be well advised to avoid the pressures of an additional championship race. But the athlete herself is still unsure.

"The prospect of running cross country is attractive enough at the moment; perhaps it will be less so when I set down in Australia and start running on good, firm surfaces," she said.

"I'd like to be remembered as somebody who won the cross country championship, and in view of the fact that the distance is going up to eight kilometres next year, this may well be my last realistic chance of doing so.

"On the other hand, I realise that it's going to be a tough year on the track for me and I've got to balance that against the satisfaction that may or may not come from running over the country."

Either way, O'Sullivan is well satisfied with her progress in training in London. She believes, that she is now fully focused again after losing her way so mysteriously in the summer.

"I'm enjoying training more than at any corresponding stage in recent years and I find that very encouraging. I've been through a bad spell and now I believe that I'm coming out at the other end.

"I've been helped in a big way by the depth of good feeling that has been coming my way since Atlanta. I've had messages of encouragement from everywhere, Australia, America, different parts of Europe, and it's been a great consolation.

"Instead of being regarded as some kind of running machine, I'm now seen as very human and that's a nice feeling to experience."

The news of O'Sullivan's great rival, Catherina McKiernan, is less encouraging. After starting back into training a fortnight ago, she has suffered a recurrence of Achilles tendon trouble and will now be out for at least another month.

The tendon is not ruptured, but obviously this latest setback will be interpreted as a danger to her build up to the World Cross Country championship in the new year.