BEST FOOT FORWARD!
Rory Hafford talks to Catherina McKiernan about her plans to get the children of Ireland running their way to better health…
CATHERINA McKiernan is looking very fresh-faced. I haven’t seen her for some time; years, actually. But, standing before me now, her little boy Patrick at her hip, she looks the picture of health.
She’s retired from top-class running, but the love of the sport that has shaped her body and moulded her mind has never left her. She carries it with her in the way she moves and in the language she uses.
She completed the recent Great Ireland Run and it had an effect on her. It brought back that buzz she used to get from running. It refocused her mind. It re-doubled her efforts to bring the same excitement to children all over Ireland.
She has a new task now: she wants to champion health and fitness in Irish schoolchildren. And, with the help of some of her running buddies, she is determined to get it over the line.
“I bet, when you came up my road, there wasn’t one child out playing,” she said, throwing me a knowing look.
She was right. The road was empty. Bereft of shouts and screams and laughter. Silence reigned. A new Ireland is born. A country ‘at play’ in front of a computer screen. Fitness levels have dipped alarmingly. Obesity stalks the nation’s children like a bloated wolf.
The project she’s working on is called K-Day and it’s designed to get the nation’s kids moving. Ultimately, it is a forum to encourage Ireland’s schoolchildren to complete a marathon jointly, by chunking it up into little, bite-sized pieces.
“The lack of fitness is frightening,” says Catherina, shaking her head slightly. You get the impression that she is at a bit of a loss to explain how we got to this point. It used to be so different.
Driven Home
“Parents have to take some of the responsibility. Kids are being driven up to the school gates and then they are being collected and driven home. No-body seems to want to walk anymore,” she tells Health News Ireland.
“Maybe it would be a good idea if we held some seminars for parents on healthy eating, because the proper food is not being fed to the kids, in my opinion.”
Life is busy for Catherina McKiernan at the moment. Too busy, in some respects. She is in great demand for her Chi Running programmes, which she rolls out around the country; she has two children to look after; and a husband with a high-profile RTE job.
Her Chi Running classes attract people from all walks of life and different fitness levels. She has been doing these classes for some time now; so much so that she has it down to a few essential bullet points:
“Chi Running is about instilling good mechanics. It’s about developing good posture. It’s about becoming more body aware. It’s about finding ways to release the tension that you hold in your body. It’s about learning to land mid-foot. It’s about working with gravity and not against it…”
There is passion in her voice as she talks about running. It’s a passion that she can, hopefully, instil in the young people of Ireland. A half-an-hour a week is set aside for Physical Education in Irish schools at the moment. It’s a paltry amount of time that Catherina describes as “crazy”. She’s driven to do something to rectify this. It’s an idea she is determined to run with…
CATHERINA McKiernan is looking very fresh-faced. I haven’t seen her for some time; years, actually. But, standing before me now, her little boy Patrick at her hip, she looks the picture of health.
She’s retired from top-class running, but the love of the sport that has shaped her body and moulded her mind has never left her. She carries it with her in the way she moves and in the language she uses.
She completed the recent Great Ireland Run and it had an effect on her. It brought back that buzz she used to get from running. It refocused her mind. It re-doubled her efforts to bring the same excitement to children all over Ireland.
She has a new task now: she wants to champion health and fitness in Irish schoolchildren. And, with the help of some of her running buddies, she is determined to get it over the line.
“I bet, when you came up my road, there wasn’t one child out playing,” she said, throwing me a knowing look.
She was right. The road was empty. Bereft of shouts and screams and laughter. Silence reigned. A new Ireland is born. A country ‘at play’ in front of a computer screen. Fitness levels have dipped alarmingly. Obesity stalks the nation’s children like a bloated wolf.
The project she’s working on is called K-Day and it’s designed to get the nation’s kids moving. Ultimately, it is a forum to encourage Ireland’s schoolchildren to complete a marathon jointly, by chunking it up into little, bite-sized pieces.
“The lack of fitness is frightening,” says Catherina, shaking her head slightly. You get the impression that she is at a bit of a loss to explain how we got to this point. It used to be so different.
Driven Home
“Parents have to take some of the responsibility. Kids are being driven up to the school gates and then they are being collected and driven home. No-body seems to want to walk anymore,” she tells Health News Ireland.
“Maybe it would be a good idea if we held some seminars for parents on healthy eating, because the proper food is not being fed to the kids, in my opinion.”
Life is busy for Catherina McKiernan at the moment. Too busy, in some respects. She is in great demand for her Chi Running programmes, which she rolls out around the country; she has two children to look after; and a husband with a high-profile RTE job.
Her Chi Running classes attract people from all walks of life and different fitness levels. She has been doing these classes for some time now; so much so that she has it down to a few essential bullet points:
“Chi Running is about instilling good mechanics. It’s about developing good posture. It’s about becoming more body aware. It’s about finding ways to release the tension that you hold in your body. It’s about learning to land mid-foot. It’s about working with gravity and not against it…”
There is passion in her voice as she talks about running. It’s a passion that she can, hopefully, instil in the young people of Ireland. A half-an-hour a week is set aside for Physical Education in Irish schools at the moment. It’s a paltry amount of time that Catherina describes as “crazy”. She’s driven to do something to rectify this. It’s an idea she is determined to run with…