By Micheál O’Mahony
Silver Olympic medalist and former World Champion Sonia O’Sullivan has described the highs and lows of her career, and stressed the importance of life balance to help recover from set-backs.
In an interview broadcast this week, the running star also reveals one of her favourite running spots in her native Cork.
Highs and lows
Speaking on UCC 98.3FM’s The Health Zone, Sonia said the Atlanta Olympics 1996 was the lowest point in her career.
She said: “I was world champion the year before and all of a sudden, I was nowhere near it.”
At those Olympics, she was favourite for a gold medal for the 5000m, but had to retire early from the race due to illness. Afterwards, she turned things around. She changed coaches and began to “approach similar things in a different way”.
Sonia said winning the world championships in 1995, breaking a string of Irish records in 1994 and winning the world cross country in 1998 were among the high points in her career.
“It took me a good few years to enjoy running at the level I was at,” she said, adding she appreciates her World Championship wins more now than when she was winning them.
Training then and now
Speaking of the biggest changes in training methods between the peak of her career, and now, she said athletes were now more focused on recovery.
“I would have definitely been of the mindset of training really hard every day. I had very few days off,” she said.
Back then, she said, “we didn’t use other methods of training as recovery methods.”
However, she said the current focus on recovery was very beneficial. She said: “Everybody thinks that they have to go out train very hard, but it has been proven that the ability to recover between training sessions and races is what allows the body to get out there and perform better.”
Talking about depression in sport, Sonia said that it could be easy for athletes “to fall into a depressive state” when they experience a low, because they reach such highs in their lives.
She stressed the importance of having a balanced lifestyle because “when you have those highs and lows, you can put them into perspective a lot easier (if you lead a balanced life) than if you don’t have anything else in your life.”
As for Sonia’s favourite running spot in Cork? She said she loves running around Fota Island, which is half way between Cork and Cobh.
“It’s just a lovely spot. And they have really developed the trails in there over the past few years. (It’s a) great place to run,” she said.
You can listen to the full interview here.
The Health Zone is produced and presented by Micheál O’Mahony, with a focus on health and wellness. It airs every Thursday between 8am and 9am and repeats between 5pm and 6pm on UCC 98.3FM. You can listen to previous podcasts of the show here.