HOME AND AWAY: RÓISÍN McGETTIGAN: IAN O'RIORDANtalks to the Wicklow athlete who is still based in Providence, Rhode Island, 10 years after leaving home following her Leaving Cert

IT’S THE summertime when the Wicklow countryside is in full bloom that Róisín McGettigan starts to miss home. Luckily for her it’s the time of year she does actually get home, although there’s not much time to enjoy the endless delights of the Garden of Ireland.

Although born and raised in Wicklow town, McGettigan now considers her home-from-home as Providence, Rhode Island – where for the past 10 years she’s been part of the increasingly strong Irish running community that includes Mary Cullen, Keith Kelly and Mark Carroll. Not that it feels like 10 years.

She can vividly recall first leaving home in the summer of 1999, shortly after finishing her Leaving Cert, to take up a running scholarship at Providence College. At that point she certainly never envisaged still living there, 10 years on, as a full-time athlete, and having made the Irish women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase record all her own.

It was during her final college years in Providence that her coach, Ray Treacy, suggested she try the steeplechase. The event had just become part of the women’s international programme, and having run some sprint hurdles events during her schoolgirl days in Wicklow, it seemed like a natural progression for McGettigan.

“I wasn’t so sure,” she admits. “I had done some hurdles events starting out in school, but it was only six or seven years ago when the event came in on all competitions that my coach convinced me to go for it. I always wanted to be 1,500 metre runner, but he told me I could make another level in the steeplechase.

“Thankfully that’s the way it’s worked out. The event is still progressing the whole time, but I’d hope to progress my times as well. It can be a tough event though, especially dealing with the 35 hurdles. You can’t race too often. You do need to be fresh.

“And even still you have to concentrate very hard. The hurdles come around very quickly, and even if you’re feeling good with three laps to go, you better watch out. A lap later you could be feeling a lot worse. You really have to conserve your energy.”

Three years ago she set her first Irish record of 9:32.04. Then in 2007 she improved that to 9:28.29 – also making the final at the World Championships in Osaka.

So she went to the Beijing Olympics last summer with high hopes, and in one of the best Irish performances on the track, finished a close second in her heat to the Russian Tatiana Petrova, running a season’s best of 9:28.92. Unfortunately things didn’t go as well in the final, where she finished 14th, but there were no regrets about the way she approached her event. “I had my own personal goals. That’s what was important. I was disappointed with myself after the final. It didn’t matter what anyone else said. I ran a good heat, so I experienced the highs and the lows, and I look back with mixed emotions really.

“But the London Olympics are looming the whole time. You have to take every year as it comes, but if I keep on loving the sport, keep progressing, I certainly hope it will all peak at London. It’s going to be a great event, so close to home. But the World Championships in Berlin in August is the big goal for this year.”

The early part of this year suggested that everything was going to plan. In February she ran an Irish indoor mile record of 4:30.06 in Boston, and a few weeks later at the European Indoors in Turin, she fell inches short of a medal over 1,500 metres.

To give herself every chance of peaking in Berlin, McGettigan last month spent a few weeks at high altitude training in Boulder, Colorado, although like a lot of athletes, she had a difficult time making the adjustment. “After Christmas I went to Australia with Mary Cullen and trained for two weeks at Falls Creek. The altitude there is not very high, and didn’t affect me too much.

“Boulder was a lot higher up and I did find it difficult. I wasn’t really able to do the quality work. It’s always a bit of a risk trying out altitude, but you do have to mix up the training a little as well, just to see could I take things to another fitness level. It’s not an exact science. I was only there for three weeks, and I think I may need to spend a little time longer. I also raced a little too soon afterwards.”

She’ll be back in Wicklow later this month and is likely to have her first big steeplechase in Rome on July 10th. Berlin is the obvious goal for the summer, but there are several other events looming on the horizon, including the European Cross Country in Dublin next December, and the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona next summer.

Still it’s not easy being a full-time athlete these days, and McGettigan, who turns 29 in August, feels another benefit to living in America is the greater opportunity for shoe contracts. “I’m certainly not flushed with cash, but I’ve been very lucky the Irish Sports Council provide the funding. I wouldn’t survive without that, no way could I train full time, and I also have a shoe contract with New Balance. They supply all the gear and a small salary as well.

“Ideally I’d like to think I could make enough money from the sport so that I wouldn’t need a grant, but that’s getting more and more difficult in athletics. I think living in the US it’s easier to get a shoe contract. It’s a bigger market, and because I mostly race out here, it makes more sense for them to support me here.

“Still I never thought I’d be here this long. All along I was thinking it would be four years in college, and then I’d be somewhere else after that. But every year has been a good experience, and that led into to the next.

“Providence is just a great training environment, having lots of other athletes in the area. It’s about finding people with the same lifestyle, the same commitment. That makes it easier. The winters here can be rough enough but come the spring and summer it’s lovely, great for training.

“I do miss home, but the good thing is I am able to spend most of the summer at home. So I get to experience both. When I’m home I get into my old routine. And eventually I would like to see myself living back in Wicklow.”