Congratulations to DSD’s Síofra Cléirigh Büttner, who continued the fine form of the Irish middle-distance athletes, with an impressive 4:09:67 PB in a high class 1500m field at the World Indoor Tour in Boston on Saturday February 13th, when she finished 3rd. This new PB for Siofra (indoor and out), is a Club record (indoor and out) and a Euro Indoor qualifier. This stunning performance places her second on the Irish All-Time 1500m Indoor listings, and currently the 7th fastest European this season.
Síofra managed to get back home for a couple of weeks over Christmas and gave DSD’s John Eves a promising update on how her 2020 autumn preparations had gone very well with solid and consistent mileage since September. “The autumn build-up has been very strong, with 4 ½ weeks spent at altitude with my focus on tempos and fartleks. I’m a lot stronger than I ever was before which is exciting and I’m feeling good about it.”
And, returning to her Boston base, with the hope of an indoor season, “Goal for the winter season is to get stronger and more confident in my strength so that I can hang in the top races and compete.” Well, hang in she did, with an awesome performance at the weekend!
Like any top athlete, Síofra has made herself see the positives in the current Covid-19 pandemic, keeping her eyes fixed on when things return to normal, “It’s definitely been tough without races and chances to take it to the next level and show all the work and training we have done. However, I haven’t struggled with motivation, I have learned to appreciate training and the journey/process a lot more. It’s not all about the races; if you don’t enjoy training hard, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Whether the Covid-19 restrictions scupper her chances of competing at Euro Indoors, Saturday night’s result shows Síofra is certainly on the right track, and with talk of high-quality racing coming up in the US, posting valuable results for Tokyo qualification are on the horizon.
Comments