Lawler glad to be back in the green of Ireland

Marcus Lawlor races in the European Indoors Its Thursday evening in early March, unusually warm for the Netherlands. The stadium at the Omnisport in Apeldoorn is full and a decent crowd of Irish followers are seated near the 100m mark. Seats adorned with the Irish flags and donned in green. At ten minutes to ten, the Irish 4x400m mixed relay team steps onto the track, greeted by the tumultuous roar, rivalled only by that of the Netherlands – the home team in front of an almost exclusive home audience. Conor Kelly, Phil Healy, Marcus Lawlor and Sharleen Mawdsley, the four fastest available Irish men and women were selected for this hugely popular event. Ireland have had a great reputation in the relays this past year. Fifth in the final of the World Indoors in Glasgow, bronze in the World Relays in the Bahamas, a massive win in Rome in the mixed relay and silver in the ladies. Then the ladies team were fourth in the Olympics. The expectation from the general Irish public was enormous.

A European appearance has been a long time coming for Marcus Lawlor. The Tinryland native ran 20.74 for 200m, a new personal best at the recent Irish Indoor Championships. It was his first indoor gold in over nine years. Its been two and a half years since Lawlor donned the green Irish vest and this was his first ever European Indoors and his first time being selected for the mixed 4x400m relay. Traditionally a 100m and 200m runner, Lawlor feels more suited to the 200m distance but has dabbled in the 400m with some apparent success. Just over a month ago he ran a 400m PB of 47.03. It was that race that booked him his ticket to Apeldoorn.

After nearly three years of frustration, injuries and just not hitting the marks he had planned to do, Lawlor who just turned thirty last week, has no intention of winding down anytime soon. “It means everything to me to pull on an Irish singlet again. People thought I was nearly gone away. I know in this sport you can become just as good as your last race. Irrelevant might not be the right word, but that’s what you become very quickly. I wasn't hitting the heights, but I had my reasons.

Despite all the setbacks the Carlow athlete kept turning up for training, for races. Kept believing in himself, that he could get back, be it in a few months or being patient and extending the time to a longer period. There were the races when his form was not what it should be and he continued to work through these tough times with an end goal in mind. At the recent indoor championships the commentators dubbed him an old man at thirty – something Marcus was quick to dismiss. “Age does not define me” he said. “I enjoy running and “you have to be enjoying it, and I'm definitely enjoying it now”.

Running is in Lawlors DNA. His mother Patricia (Almond) was a champion sprinter in her day. Almond competed in the 1985 European Indoors over 400m in Greece. Prior to Tokyo Lawlor had a brief spell under the auspices of Shane McCormack (coach to Phil Healy) but has since returned to the coaching expertise of his mother. While being coached by a parent has its challenges and “I am not the easiest to deal with” laughs Lawlor, it is a good relationship that is working well for coaching at the moment. Having a parent who has gone down the same road definitely helps. What has he done differently that has led to his recent good form? His gym sessions have changed “but that is probably largely down to training age” he said. You do not need to build up the same strength as you did when you were 18. And experience is a big contributing factor. Sessions have focused on absolute top speed with volume being less than in previous years. Along with this Patricia is open to contributions from their wider network – it is always good to look for absolute expertise.

Coming back to the balmy Thursday night in Apeldoorn. The race was led off by 17 year old Conor Kelly a medallist at last years u18 Europeans. Kelly won his first senior indoors a few weeks ago. Initially “we thought that Conor would get into a good position after 150m, which he probably did to be fair. But a lot of the guys on the outside of him came on top of him, with the shape of the track”. 

The steep banks meant that those in lanes three, four, five and six had a distinct advantage and with experience coming into the mix, they put the 17 year old under some pressure. “Handing over to Phil at the back of the field meant there was more of an element of chasing for us all as opposed to being in a pack and fighting for positions” which is not want you want in big races like this. Phil Healy did try her best but handed over to Marcus Lawlor still in the same position. Lawlor went out hard for the first 200m as he felt it was the only thing to do to close that gap and put them into contention. While he did manage to close down on the fifth athlete, moving from lane one to lane six to hand over the baton (something the Irish team are not used to doing) had its consequences and a place was lost in the changeover. Sharlene Mawdsley known for her ferocity when she gets a relay baton in her hand, managed to record the fastest split of the entire race participation, but it would only move the team to fifth position. The first five teams finished very close with Ireland just a little over one second off the bronze medal.

The general public have big expectation of the athletes from the relays, based on their incredible experience of bringing home medals in 2024. 

“We need to keep our expectations in check” said Lawlor. That said it doesn’t mean the team did not turn up with expectations of their own, despite being without Rashidat Adeleke and with Thomas Barr retiring. “Our instructions were to go out there and run our own race, they way we always run our individual 400s”. 

For Lawlor being a 200m runner the challenge always comes at the 300m mark, as he just does not have that 400m work done. However based on the split time he held his own and had a good leg. He split of 46.78 seconds is the fastest he has run indoors this season. It was the race itself that panned out a little different than expected as “I had visualised being in a pack and being in the hunt rather than being in the position I was in, which was being in the chase” he added.

“I would not have done anything differently” said Lawlor as I spoke with him in the days following the race. 

“In our high performance team meetings we make decisions at that time and you just have to go with those decisions which we did. I would be very proud of all the team members that ran. We tried to put our best foot forward on the night, it just did not materialise into a medal. The Dutch team who Ireland beat in Rome, were particularly strong with Femke Bol looking very comfortable as she strode home to take the gold medals for the team.

Indoors is finished now for Marcus as Athletics Ireland are not sending a mixed team to the World Indoors in China in two weeks time. Lawlor will now turn his focus to the outdoors, especially with the looming World Relays in two months time. After that his goal will be to qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo at the end of the summer. Before then there are plenty of milestones that need to be reached, which the mother and son team will embrace along the way.