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Ciaran O'Lionaird Making A Comeback

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  • 12-01-2017 6:48am
    #1
    El Caballo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,137 ✭✭✭


    Seen this coming over the last few weeks but it's official now, COL is running the mile at UW indoors on Saturday which marks his return to competitive racing since retiring last year. Hopefully got some sort of grip on his achilles to say he's willing to return to racing. Seems to have being doing a lot of track work with OTC over the last few weeks judging by instagram. Hope it goes well for him

    http://paulmerca.blogspot.ie/2017/01/a-quick-glance-of-entries-for-saturdays.html?m=1


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    #2
    KielyUnusual
    Registered Users Posts: 1,900 ✭✭✭KielyUnusual


    El Caballo wrote: »
    Seen this coming over the last few weeks but it's official now, COL is running the mile at UW indoors on Saturday which marks his return to competitive racing since retiring last year. Hopefully got some sort of grip on his achilles to say he's willing to return to racing. Seems to have being doing a lot of track work with OTC over the last few weeks judging by instagram. Hope it goes well for him

    http://paulmerca.blogspot.ie/2017/01/a-quick-glance-of-entries-for-saturdays.html?m=1

    Great to see. Would love to see him get a good injury free run and see what he can do.


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    #3
    Sacksian
    Registered Users Posts: 1,895 ✭✭✭Sacksian


    He had been hinting (very unsubtly) at it on twitter and he made a comment about the age profile of the guys at the Inter Clubs xc
    "Looking at Interclubs result and wondering..where is the talent coming through to senior level. I'm 28 and these results make me feel young!"

    (He also tweeted loads about the road vs xc debate in the same thread - made me warm to him a bit more).

    So I reckon he was thinking he'd love to be out there running and in amongst them, even at 95%! It'd be great to see more of our elite athletes growing old gracefully doing what they love doing. I played a football match against Mick Meagan, who'd won a title with Everton in the 1960s. He was in his 60s and was probably the best player on his team (who were pretty sh1t, to be fair)!

    COL is still plenty young to make a couple more championships, if he stays fit. I could see him running the 3000m Euro indoors qualifying time anyway.


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    #4
    El Caballo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,137 ✭✭✭El Caballo


    Sacksian wrote: »
    He had been hinting (very unsubtly) at it on twitter and he made a comment about the age profile of the guys at the Inter Clubs xc



    (He also tweeted loads about the road vs xc debate in the same thread - made me warm to him a bit more).

    So I reckon he was thinking he'd love to be out there running and in amongst them, even at 95%! It'd be great to see more of our elite athletes growing old gracefully doing what they love doing. I played a football match against Mick Meagan, who'd won a title with Everton in the 1960s. He was in his 60s and was probably the best player on his team (who where pretty sh1t, to be fair)!

    COL is still plenty young to make a couple more championships, if he stays fit. I could see him running the 3000m Euro indoors qualifying time anyway.

    This was favorite to be honest:pac:

    https://twitter.com/GoCiaran/status/811982187775918081

    I agree, even after all the problems he had early last year and the year before, he still opened up with 3.41. I know a lot of the standards for London have been tightened but I always seen him as a guy that could go well at 5000m if he wanted. A lot of people forget he's one of the fastest 10k guys we've had this century, only behind Cragg. He's even faster than Kenneally over 10000m despite rarely running the distance. Of course, the 1500 is his event but just saying, he's an all rounder.


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    #5
    KielyUnusual
    Registered Users Posts: 1,900 ✭✭✭KielyUnusual


    4.15 for Ciarán in the mile, so nothing so stellar just yet. Would love to know the back story behind this and what kind of training he's been doing since he 'retired'. He was down for the 3k too, so was maybe pacing some laps in that and might go some way to explaining the performance in the mile.

    Edit: Looks like he paced the first mile of the 3k at a pace that would have been pretty much equivalent to his mile time so maybe it was more of a training exercise.


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    #6
    Itziger
    Registered Users Posts: 4,016 ✭✭✭Itziger


    KielyUnusual wrote: »
    4.15 for Ciarán in the mile, so nothing so stellar just yet. Would love to know the back story behind this and what kind of training he's been doing since he 'retired'. He was down for the 3k too, so was maybe pacing some laps in that and might go some way to explaining the performance in the mile.

    Edit: Looks like he paced the first mile of the 3k at a pace that would have been pretty much equivalent to his mile time so maybe it was more of a training exercise.

    Kiely, I'd love the guy to get back to where he was at one stage and I can imagine that a fella like you, targeting the same distances would take an even greater interest in Mad Len's progress....... BUT, I'd be amazed if he manages to get anywhere near the form of the old days. He retired cos the injury just wasn't playing ball and he couldn't run as fast as he would have liked. How much has changed in the last 10 months?? Still, fingers crossed for him.


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    #7
    El Caballo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,137 ✭✭✭El Caballo


    KielyUnusual wrote: »
    4.15 for Ciarán in the mile, so nothing so stellar just yet. Would love to know the back story behind this and what kind of training he's been doing since he 'retired'. He was down for the 3k too, so was maybe pacing some laps in that and might go some way to explaining the performance in the mile.

    Edit: Looks like he paced the first mile of the 3k at a pace that would have been pretty much equivalent to his mile time so maybe it was more of a training exercise.

    His training is limited going by a few tweets of his, about 40-50 minutes at most which would be something similar to what he was running as a junior on quantity. He was pacing Centro in the 3k about an hour and a half before the mile, ran the mile and then did a post-race workout with Centro on astroturf after the race. I've a feeling his training isn't much different to what he was doing while retired and he's only trying to build back up in the last few weeks and see where he is. All speculation of course but that seems to make sense from what I've read. It's a starting point for him anyway and maybe exactly what he needs, no pressure on himself to run fast so he can build patiently and mind his injuries.


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    #8
    Bugsy2000
    Registered Users Posts: 497 ✭✭Bugsy2000


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyd8RM4jY0

    Interview with Len about where he is at the mo...


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    #9
    pconn062
    Registered Users Posts: 5,370 ✭✭✭pconn062


    Bugsy2000 wrote: »
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyd8RM4jY0

    Interview with Len about where he is at the mo...

    Has certainly lost his Cork twang anyway.

    I think this type of setup where is working fulltime and training secondary to that could be good for him, when a guy is as injury prone as him it is very difficult to train at the highest level in a professional setting with more robust guys. A more relaxed training approach could reap big rewards for him, he has the talent to do super things and is at his peak age to do it.


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