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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
Sonia O'Sullivan: How runners can best deal with the dreaded Achilles injury
Every athlete has an Achilles heel, and it's inevitable they'll run into an injury there at some point in their career. There's no such thing as good or bad timing, it will always feel like the wrong time, as momentum and fitness is lost and the mental battle begins to get through the non-running phase. It's also the one injury that all athletes dread to even think about. It might be an Achilles niggle, a strain, a small tear, or a complete rupture, only it doesn't always present itself in a typical way. On some days it hurts more than others, on some runs it can mysteriously disappear, but it often frustrates the athlete with its non-linear treatment and return to running. It can also strike any athlete at any time. Jakob Ingebrigtsen is off-track with his training due to an Achilles injury, the Norwegian star posting some videos on social media of his patient approach to the recovery. He also knows he's already playing catch-up on some of his rivals. Ciara Mageean also spoke last week about her slow recovery from the Achilles injury which forced her out of last summer's Olympics. Having undergone surgery last September, she's still not back on the track yet, and won't be racing at all this summer. READ MORE [ Ciara Mageean on the slow road back to fitness Opens in new window ] Some injuries are clearer cut than others. The bone stress reaction that athletes also fear is actually the simplest one deal with it. The consensus is that bone takes six weeks to heal, so that means committing to six weeks of non-weight bearing activity, then the reintroduction of weight bearing activities as the athlete sets out on the road to full recovery. There are some new theories now that bone injuries are perhaps not as straightforward as we thought, and that bone, as a living tissue, also needs some stimulation to promote healing and get back to some weight-bearing activity sooner. This is something that is still in experimental stages, requiring close monitoring by a medical provider with experience in this area. I can clearly remember back to when I was dealing with Achilles injuries in the 1990s. I was lucky that the injuries cropped up in the springtime, the least worst time, so I only missed out on the World Cross Country or World Indoor events. The outdoor season was always the priority for me, so there was time enough not to panic. Even though I was never happy to miss any races, I knew if I put my head down and worked hard on the rehabilitation then I'd be back even stronger. I can remember turning up at the Hartmann International Clinic in Limerick city, staying in the apartments above so that I could have twice daily sessions, and also access to the gym and cross training equipment. The scans revealed that I was a perfect candidate for Achilles surgery, but Gerard Hartmann gave me two options; the first was conservative intensive treatment, alongside a bucket of crushed ice where I would immerse my ankle, alternating with warm water, at least four times per day. If there was no improvement in four weeks, the second option be surgery. With option one, all I would have lost is four weeks, whereas with surgery you straight away give up at least six months. Both Achilles, left and right, caused me trouble throughout my career, and I always took the conservative option. This didn't give much leeway to any other activities outside of treatment, rehabilitation, icing, strengthening and cross training for at least four weeks. Then a slow and gradual return to running. The greatest benefit of all was the mental resilience this protocol gave me when I eventually got back racing. Putting the decision into my own hands and determining my outcome is something I have continued to carry with me through life, and pass on to athletes I work with. Including my daughter Sophie, who was in a similar position with an injury last year, just four months out from the Paris Olympics. For Ingebrigtsen, it helps that he's been down the Achilles injury route before. He had a similar issue last season, before the track season got going, yet managed things and still produced a record-breaking European and Olympic gold medal-winning season. Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Photograph: Maja Hitij/Getty The big difference this year is the Achilles has reared its head a little bit closer to his opening races. Particularly the Oslo Diamond League meeting on June 12th, where he normally kicks off his season at home. There was talk of world records over 5,000m, but this will now happen without Ingebrigtsen's name on the start list. Not everything is lost though, as there are still 15 weeks before the World Championships in Tokyo get started – just under four months – so ample time to heal and recover and get back into a high level of training. This is also off the back of maintaining fitness in the gym, on the bike, the cross-trainer and special gravity-defying treadmills that many athletes now use on their road back to full recovery. These treadmills that Ingebrigtsen was seen using this week allow an athlete to maintain their running specific training, while not carrying their full body weight. This can be adjusted as they are able to tolerate more weight and force going through the body as the Achilles begins to heal and regain strength. Unfortunately not available to all runners. Mageean has no doubt the surgery on her right Achilles will allow her to get back to compete on the World and Olympic stage in future years. She's understandably getting a little impatient, but with any injury, it's important to believe in the healing process. Mageean only needs to look at her left Achilles, and how she recovered from surgery on that back on 2013, to have trust in that process too. When you've been to multiple World Championships like Mageean, you can afford to step back. But no athlete likes to get too far away from the racing track.
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Ciara Mageean: ‘You do have to be selfish as an athlete, it's the part I find least enjoyable... But no regrets'
Without any hesitation, Ciara Mageean slips off her right shoe, rolls down her sock, and points to the three-inch scar which cuts neatly through her Achilles tendon to the tip of her heel. 'Aye, that's my wee souvenir from the Paris Olympics,' she says, beaming in the moment now, as if it's been a blessing in disguise – not like the death in the family as she described it at the time. Such is the process and healing power of not just her running, but of life. 'In the past, if I just tapped that ankle off the leg of a chair, I'd yelp. Spikes being so tight, they were the nemesis – I never wanted them on my feet. Now I can slide my shoe back on no problem. Before, it was always painful. 'My left ankle is still as good as new, so that's proof the surgery should work. I'm certainly in a place where I have a lot more respect for my body. It's just the patience phase that gets frustrating.' READ MORE With that, Mageean slips off her left shoe, rolls down the other sock, and reveals a similar three-inch scar through her left Achilles tendon, a souvenir from the exact same surgery in 2012, when she was only 20. Two potentially career-ending injuries right there, yet she's already got plans for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, when she'll be 36. 'Yeah, my focus is LA, and (I) fully believe if I just get two consistent seasons, nothing special, no injuries, I think I can still be dangerous.' She reveals one more souvenir, the Olympic rings tattooed onto the inside of her right wrist, done in advance of Paris last summer. Ciara Mageean: 'I've been running in pain for so long, seven or eight years, the aim is to be able to run and not be in pain. I just ran 30 minutes, four miles, on the flat. With no pain.' Photograph: Dan Dennison/The Irish Times 'Yeah I know, a nice steady reminder every single day!' This is an even more resilient Mageean than anticipated. It's almost a year since the glorious high of winning the 1,500m gold at the European Championships in Rome soon turned into the darkness of her Paris experience, where her third successive Olympics ended in tears . This time, before she even stepped on the track, that Achilles injury forced her withdrawal on the eve of her 1,500m heat. She's ready to talk through the entirety of it all, and though no need for the Pocket Kleenex, it turns out it's not all good news. It's Wednesday afternoon at the Sport Ireland Institute in Abbotstown, and Mageean travelled down that morning from her new home in Belfast, which she bought a few months after Paris with her fiance Thomas Moran. This is a weekly excursion to link up with Martina McCarthy, the senior S&C coach at the institute, along with other members of the Athletics Ireland endurance squad. 'Earlier in the year, I felt I was right on track. I'd set out my stall, that I'd like to be in Tokyo for the World Championships at the end of the summer. That was the A-goal, maybe a lofty one. I got back running, then had a bit of a setback. 'My ankle was just super stiff. The surgery went well, the pain I had in my heel recovered, but I think being immobilised in the boot, for so long, caused something else to tighten up. 'I'm moving well in the gym, trying to build up my on-ground running. I'm also very aware of what I'm not doing, hard sessions on the track, not even close. I'm still being positive, but realise that coming back this track season is maybe not a realistic goal, and that Tokyo won't be on the cards for me. At the same time, it takes some pressure off myself.' So it's more stretching on long rubber bands and static leg hurdling than running for another few weeks, as she also moves away from the sort of pain management more associated with a defensive linebacker. 'I've been running in pain for so long, seven or eight years, the aim is to be able to run and not be in pain. I just ran 30 minutes, four miles, on the flat. With no pain. Then all of my gym with no pain. So today was a good day.' **** It's said that Achilles himself was unwittingly killed by an arrow shot by the Trojan prince Paris, hitting his vulnerable heel. Mageean still feels she was struck similarly off guard, exactly two weeks out from the Olympics. Wrapping up an altitude training camp in the Swiss resort of St Moritz, exactly as she'd done in the summer of 2023 before finishing fourth in the 1,500m at the World Championships in Budapest, what should have been one last 200m interval promptly turned sinister. 'I wasn't trying to hit anything faster. I just felt a little bit more of a tweak in my Achilles. Not where I jumped up in the air in pain. But straight away I couldn't walk properly, then I couldn't even jog a lap. Ciara Mageean: 'It actually broke my heart, but I remember [her fiance] Thomas said "I think it's time that we moved home, because I haven't seen you smile for a while".' Photograph: Dan Dennison/The Irish Times 'Maybe I always knew that eventually it was going to give. But we made a plan, to fly straight into Paris, get the treatment there, rest as much as I could. At that stage I was still determined to race. I'd been told for years that cortisone around the Achilles was a risk, could be degenerative. But the doctor gave me the first one, and no kick. Then the second one, no kick either. 'Two days before my race, I was running on a limp foot. It was like a little peg. It would land, but there was nothing coming from it. I couldn't push off. Then the day before, I was trying some 200m, couldn't hit 33 seconds. I finished that rep, turned to Thomas and said, 'I don't know if I can even finish a 1,500m, never mind race one'.' Now, staring at the inevitable, she called her agent Ricky Simms for one last roll of the dice: 'Ricky just said, 'you're not here to participate', and I went into those Olympics wanting to medal, believing that I could. Then I look at the people I beat at the European Championships, and how they competed. [Britain's Georgia Bell, who won silver behind Mageean in Rome, won Olympic bronze in Paris.] I still haven't watched a single second of Paris, but I'm well aware of the outcome. If I'd been able to continue in that vein, you can't help but wonder, 'What if?' [ Few Irish athletes have displayed more resilience than Ciara Mageean Opens in new window ] 'Life goes on, you give yourself new goals. But I think no matter how much time is past, I'm going to find grief in that moment. You can never go back, and in sport we only get a handful of these chances.' After Sonia O'Sullivan endured her downfall at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, her father John told reporters to keep things in context, that 'no one's died'. Still, Mageean feels the comparison is justified. 'I feel your body experiences grief the same, whether it's the loss of a loved one, the loss of a dream, going through a break-up. I feel that chemistry within you feels the same. But I also know there's so much in life to be happy about.' Her family was in Paris, and that didn't come cheap, but all she wanted to do was get out of there. On arrival back home in Portaferry , she realised one of her old friends from Assumption Grammar in Down was having her hen party in Belfast, so she got herself along to that. The following morning she jumped on a bus and went incognito to the All-Ireland camogie final in Croke Park, where another old Portaferry friend, Niamh Mallon, was playing for Galway against Cork. 'Of course the first people I run into are from the Portaferry camogie club, one of them drives me back to Belfast after. And that's why the people and friends I've met though sport are probably the most valuable thing to me, more than the medals or the records.' By then the date was already set, September 9th, for a return visit to Prof James Calder, the specialist foot and ankle surgeon in London, who had performed the first operation. By then she'd also drifted away from her coach Helen Clitheroe, leaving the New Balance Manchester Group the previous March, her home for eight years. 'So one of the main people who got me through last summer was Thomas, he's been my rock. At that time in Paris as well, I was discussing with Thomas where we might move to next. It actually broke my heart, but I remember Thomas said 'I think it's time that we moved home, because I haven't seen you smile for a while'.' **** Though partly in jest, Mageean still blames Jerry Kiernan. It was Kiernan, her late coach who died suddenly in 2021, who was looking out for her in other ways back in her college days at UCD. 'With Thomas, oh goodness, we never celebrate an anniversary, but we were both studying in UCD, and in Jerry's training group. So I always knew Thomas for a long time before we started going out. 'Then I ended up moving into their house, in Rathgar, and I still laugh about this, because I'd been through a break-up, and Jerry would ring me, 'How are you?' Then we'd be at training, and he'd say, 'Sure there's Tom, a strappin' young lad'. So Jerry was also a bit of a matchmaker. Ciara Mageean: 'As an athlete, I'm well aware you can have a baby and keep racing. But I've been knocked back in so many seasons due to injury, I don't know if I wanted to willingly miss one to have a baby.' Photograph: Dan Dennison/The Irish Times 'We got engaged on New Year's Eve, and everyone keeps asking about a date. I would sooner plan an altitude training camp. I have no clue. But I feel very lucky in life to have a partner who is as invested in your goals as much as you are, sometimes he's even more invested, holds me up.' She's convinced she can still improve on her Irish record of 3:55.87, clocked in 2023. 'I look back at my 3:55, what I did before that, and if I'm not in pain, I can do that and then some. If I didn't think I could run faster than 3:55 I would retire. I know I'll be 36 in LA, but I'm determined to be there.' With Thomas she's made another commitment, one of coach-athlete, Mageean clearly also finding happiness in that decision. 'I just said, 'if anyone is going to coach me, you know more about me than anybody else'. Sometimes my emotions can come in a little too much, and he's kept me on the straight and narrow. He just loves athletics too, he's a four-minute miler, and it's just natural we find our own little groove.' [ Ciara Mageean: 'People dubbed me as the next Sonia, breaking her record meant a lot to me' Opens in new window ] Their search for a new home was originally split between Dublin and Belfast, then focused on Belfast, and then they settled on Dunmurray, on the city's southside, about a mile or so from the Mary Peters Track, close to Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park – all beautiful running spaces. 'I'm absolutely loving being home, it's been the right decision. Now we've two wee cats, we've got our name for a dog. I feel we're building a little life for ourselves, close to family. 'And I'd definitely love to start a family. As an athlete, I'm well aware you can have a baby and keep racing. But I've been knocked back in so many seasons due to injury, I don't know if I wanted to willingly miss one to have a baby. 'But post-LA, definitely, and you can only hope you'll be lucky enough and graced with the ability. 'You do have to be selfish as an athlete, and it's the part I find the least enjoyable. I don't like that selfish nature. It is all-consuming, your entire day is planned around your training. But no regrets. Well, maybe if I'd just gone back and fixed this ankle sooner. But what would I have missed?'
Belfast Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Belfast Telegraph
Ciara Mageean explains ‘pride' at running for Ireland… and NI: ‘It's something that people have challenged me on'
European champion runner Ciara Mageean is back on her feet — quite literally — after bouncing back from a severe ankle injury that saw her have to drop out of the last Olympics.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Mageean still targeting Tokyo World Championships
Ciara Mageean says she is still targeting this year's World Championships in September even though her return to running is currently confined to three days a week as she recovers from ankle surgery last autumn. Mageean, who will turn 33 next week, was forced out of last summer's Paris Olympics on the eve of her scheduled 1500m first-round heat. The Portaferry woman underwent an operation in September and says she's "on the tentative steps back to running". "I'm running three days a week. It doesn't seem like much especially for an athlete like myself but I'm learning to be patient," said the county Down woman after being one of the speakers at the launch of Sport NI's 'Be Seen, Be Heard, Belong' campaign aimed at about supporting women and girls to find their place in sport. "My aim this year is to try to get to the World Championships at the end of the summer. "It's something that's keeping me going through those tough cross-training sessions. We'll see how the rehab goes but for now I'm working my ass off in the gym." Mageean acknowledged that being unable to get in a full winter's training is not ideal in terms of plotting a summer campaign but she is remaining positive. "I'm doing every form of cross-training that I can to keep myself physically fit while slowly getting back running," added the Portaferry woman, who memorably clinched the European 1500m title in Rome last June before injury wrecked her Olympic ambitions. "My big goal is the next Olympics in LA so I have plenty of time to get ready for that. I'm probably not in the place I would want to be running wise but this is all part of the journey and success isn't linear." The comparatively late scheduling of this year's World Championships in Tokyo which take place from 13-21 September does give Mageean additional time to regain fitness. The County Down woman was giving the fitness update after speaking in typically passionate fashion about the importance of getting more Northern Ireland females involved in sport. "In my opinion, today's conference is vital," said the Ireland and Northern Ireland athletics heroine of the Sport NI initiative. "No matter what you look like, where you are from... no matter how you feel, you can find your place in sport." Mageean joined other local sporting role models including Lady Mary Peters and Tanya Oxtoby at the event while those attending included Tyrone gaelic footballer Conor Meyler who spoke of the importance of male support for the wider initiative. Meyler is currently undertaking PHD research in the area of sport leadership and gender with a particularly emphasis on the GAA. "We need more women on the sidelines coaching. We need more women in the boards making decisions," added Mageean, who played camogie for her native Portaferry before switching to athletics. "It's about encouraging women to have that confidence to step forward because there are so many more-than-qualified women out there who maybe haven't believed in themselves or taken that step because they look at the board and it's all men. "Whenever you look at women in major leadership roles across business, many of those women are participating in sport or have participated in sport. I see sport as an opportunity for me to evolve. It gave me a place to belong."
BBC News
03-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Mageean still targeting Tokyo World Championships
Ciara Mageean says she is still targeting this year's World Championships in September even though her return to running is currently confined to three days a week as she recovers from ankle surgery last who will turn 33 next week, was forced out of last summer's Paris Olympics on the eve of her scheduled 1500m first-round Portaferry woman underwent an operation in September and says she's "on the tentative steps back to running"."I'm running three days a week. It doesn't seem like much especially for an athlete like myself but I'm learning to be patient," said the county Down woman after being one of the speakers at the launch of Sport NI's 'Be Seen, Be Heard, Belong' campaign aimed at about supporting women and girls to find their place in sport. "My aim this year is to try to get to the World Championships at the end of the summer. "It's something that's keeping me going through those tough cross-training sessions. We'll see how the rehab goes but for now I'm working my ass off in the gym." 'Success isn't linear' Mageean acknowledged that being unable to get in a full winter's training is not ideal in terms of plotting a summer campaign but she is remaining positive."I'm doing every form of cross-training that I can to keep myself physically fit while slowly getting back running," added the Portaferry woman, who memorably clinched the European 1500m title in Rome last June before injury wrecked her Olympic ambitions."My big goal is the next Olympics in LA so I have plenty of time to get ready for that. I'm probably not in the place I would want to be running wise but this is all part of the journey and success isn't linear."The comparatively late scheduling of this year's World Championships in Tokyo which take place from 13-21 September does give Mageean additional time to regain county Down woman was giving the fitness update after speaking in typically passionate fashion about the importance of getting more Northern Ireland females involved in sport."In my opinion, today's conference is vital," said the Ireland and Northern Ireland athletics heroine of the Sport NI initiative."No matter what you look like, where you are from…..no matter how you feel, you can find your place in sport." Mageean joined other local sporting role models including Lady Mary Peters and Tanya Oxtoby at the event while those attending included Tyrone gaelic footballer Conor Meyler who spoke of the importance of male support for the wider is currently undertaking PHD research in the area of sport leadership and gender with a particularly emphasis on the GAA."We need more women on the sidelines coaching. We need more women in the boards making decisions," added Mageean, who played camogie for her native Portaferry before switching to athletics."It's about encouraging women to have that confidence to step forward because there are so many more-than-qualified women out there who maybe haven't believed in themselves or taken that step because they look at the board and it's all men."Whenever you look at women in major leadership roles across business, many of those women are participating in sport or have participated in sport. I see sport as an opportunity for me to evolve. It gave me a place to belong."
