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An Irishman Abroad

Catherina McKiernan: Paying It Forward

An Irishman Abroad

Jarlath Regan

Society & Culture, News, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture:personal Journals, Personal Journals, Politics

4.8834 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Catherina McKiernan joins Jarlath for a fascinating and rare conversation about the highs and lows of her life and career.   Catherina is an Irish sporting legend and yet she often looks back on her glittering career with mixed feelings. She opens up about her battles with remaining in love with the sport when the business side of things took over. We hear about her realisation about the importance of striking a balance after becoming burned out relatively early in her career.  Catherina was 92 seconds away from setting a world record time in the marathon in Amsterdam and yet she says it does not haunt her. Jarlath asks why and gets an answer he wasn’t expecting.   For more information on Catherina visit https://www.runwithcatherina.ie/   To hear every episode in full and to gain access to the entire back-catalogue of over 500 Irishman Abroad episodes that are not available on iTunes for just the price of a pint every month visit www.patreon.com/irishmanabroad Supplementary research provided by John Meagher. Our charity partner is jigsawonline.ie. In these tricky times, Jigsaw provides a range of resources, advice and care for your people to help them strengthen their mental health and the skills needed to navigate life. Please visit their website and consider making a donation. For updates on future episodes and live shows follow @jarlath on Twitter, visit www.jigser.com or email the show directly on [email protected]. Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Irishman Abroad podcast is clearly and accurately provided.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Katrina McKiernan to the Irish Man Abroad podcast today

0:07.0

when Katrina found running. She was just a young girl living in Cavan running around her father's

0:12.5

fields barefoot for the pure joy of it. There was no stopwatch splits, speed sessions,

0:19.2

personal bests or even long runs.

0:21.1

It was just running because she loved it, regardless of how fast she was going.

0:27.2

It only became obvious that her talent was on a different level to all those around her

0:30.9

when she won the Ulster Novice Cross Country and the All-Ireland Schools events.

0:36.2

She tells me here, over the next few years, it became a business.

0:39.4

She competes at the highest level, wins gold at the European cross-country championships,

0:43.5

wins an incredible four silvers in a row at the worlds, wins the London and Amsterdam marathons,

0:50.6

and sets a marathon record that still stands today. In the process, she admits here that she

0:59.6

falls out of love with it all. We get to talk about how that happens, whether it could have been

1:05.5

avoided and how now with her running workshops and chi running, she didn't just rediscover the joy of running.

1:14.3

She made it her business to pass it on.

1:17.3

We also get into how the media tried to engineer this rivalry between herself and our friend

1:22.0

Sonio Sullivan, but neither of them would allow it to happen.

1:26.4

We ask whether coming 90 seconds outside of a world record in the marathon ever haunts her

1:34.1

and why sometimes she wishes people didn't know about her previous life at the top of World Athletics.

1:42.1

This is a crowdfunded podcast paid for by you

1:46.0

and people that can afford to support us.

1:48.7

If you feel like you're one of those people

1:50.4

and want to see Irish Manor Abroad continue

...

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