After over three years of injury, Catherina McKiernan will tomorrow make her long-awaited return to competitive running at the Lotto Cup cross country in Roeselare, Belgium. It will be the first cross country race since January 1998 for the four-time world championship silver medallist, writes Ian O'Riordan.

"I'm happy now with the way I was able to train for the last six months," said McKiernan (right), who also gave birth to her first daughter last March. "I don't know exactly where I stand at this stage, but I'll find out quick enough with a race like this."

Though she turns 33 at the end of the month, McKiernan still has ambitions to return to the top of world athletics. Depending on how tomorrow's race goes, she may yet compete at the European cross country championships in Croatia on December 8th, a title she won in 1994.

McKiernan's class over the country has never been disputed, and the 6.1km race in Roeselare, which will feature some decent international competition, should be the perfect opening test.

"It does feel great to be running pain-free again," she added, "especially doing the faster sort of training with my spikes on.

"The first 1,000 metres of the race should tell me how more I'll have to do to get fully fit, but I am really looking forward to it."