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Irish three-time Olympian had many rollercoaster rides during a career that delivered two world indoor titles, but a trans-Atlantic journey to Seville brought an unexpectedly satisfying conclusion
Expo 92 Meeting, Seville, May 28, 1987, 3000m, second place, 7:42.99
Every indoor season, I said I wanted to save a bit for the outdoors. In 1987, when I won my first world indoor title, I finished eighth in Rome at the World Championships. I’d had a chance. With about five laps to go, John Ngugi went to the front and Said Aouita and I went with him.
Ngugi pulled out to lane two, looking for one of us to take it on, but Aouita didn’t and neither did I. I should have, and I might have gotten away, but I stayed back there and then the pack caught us two laps later, they kicked on and I came eighth.
When I look back, I should never have moved up to the 5000m. I should have stayed at the mile but, when I was sixth at the 1986 Europeans behind Steve Cram and Seb Coe, my coach took me up to longer distances.
It did mean I was strong because we did a lot of training: 100-110 miles per week. I always had a really good base of fitness with some speedwork a couple times a year. My biggest problem with my career was I remained on an American schedule. I was always peaking in June, not in August around championships. It happened to a lot of American-based guys, and resulted from sticking to the college schedule. One year, I think I had the fastest times in the world over 10,000m, 5000m, 3000m and the mile in June and I was gone by the end of the year.
Steve Ovett said to me once that my greatest enemy was that I had a very good finish. Unfortunately, I relied too heavily on it on occasion so I could generally cope with a degree of separation from the other guys. Sometimes it didn’t work for me but sometimes it did.
Frank O’Mara (Mark Shearman)
There was a race early in the summer of 1987 in Seville, Spain, when it did work. Getting there was crazy. I was meant to leave the USA on a Tuesday and get into Spain on a Wednesday but I couldn’t get out of the country. I flew from Detroit the next morning to catch a daytime flight out from JFK in New York to London.
However, the next day there was an air traffic controllers strike in France so we spent a full day at Heathrow airport. I was with a buddy who was running in Spain as well. He got flustered but we just had to sort out the travel plans all over again. That night, we finally got to Barcelona and then the next day – which was day four of this trip – we flew to Madrid, dashed on to Seville and got in at 1.30 in the afternoon. The race was at five.
I went to boarding school when I was a kid. I learned all about compartmentalising things, being totally regimented and disciplined – that there’s a time for words, a time to be happy, a time to stress. During the travel chaos I just convinced myself to relax, get a book, sit in the corner and not be fussing continuously for updates. I always knew to stay in the present. Worrying about tomorrow is pointless. I don’t think about worst case scenarios in any situation.
When the gun went off at the race, José Luis Gonzalez – who went on to win 1500m silver at the worlds – blew to the front because he was after the Spanish record. I decided to head to the back and hide out so I wasn’t seen because I felt so awful. I’d thought: “I’m probably going to collapse.”
But I suddenly realised: “Hold on, I’m starting to feel good.” And because I was familiar with his pacemakers, I had a feel for what was going on at the front so I moved up and swept by Gonzalez with 150m to go. Then he came back at me down the home straight and beat me by six-hundredths of a second, breaking the Spanish record. It’s a race that always sticks in my mind.
Frank O’Mara
I had just one coach for 17 years, Joe McDonnell. He’s an Irishman as well, and he’s won more titles than any other coach. I did leave him one year to be coached by Alan Storey and I did more work by myself. I found that, in an ideal world, it’s better to have the company than do it by yourself. I should have made a change earlier on. Joe was just focused on his college athletes and it was a roaring success for him. He won 42 NCAA team championships.
Said Aouita offered me the chance to go and train with him in Siena in Italy and perhaps I should have taken that opportunity.
I applied many of the lessons learned in athletics to business. I was curious, which is an under-rated attribute in looking at improving processes. You don’t want to play it too safe. As my friend Sonia O’Sullivan says, you have to be a little crazy to be truly great. You can’t have too much balance in your life. Although I felt I was all in during my athletics career, in hindsight I hedged my bets by staying in university in Arkansas for 11 years.
As told to Mark Woods
FACTFILE
Born: July 17, 1960
Events:
800m/1500m/3000m/
5000m/10,000m
PBs: 1:47.75/3:34.02/
7:40.41/13:13.02/27:58.01
Major honours:
1991: World Indoor Championships
3000m gold
1987: World Indoor Championships
3000m gold
1983: NCAA Championships
1500m gold
Frank O’Mara’s new memoir, Bend Don’t Break – A Memoir of Endurance, recounts his life and experiences as an elite runner as well as his 14-year battle with Parkinson’s Disease
» This article first appeared in the February issue of AW magazine, which you can read here
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