T HREE weeks after Beijing, Rob Heffernan fetched up in Guadix, his occasional training base in the northern foothills of Spain's Sierra Nevada.

He'd taken some time after the Games to blow off steam and now it was time to ease himself back into the heat of competition. Nothing exacting though. In a 5k race against a field of local journeymen and young, aspiring hopefuls, Heffernan was top dog. The man to be respected and feared.

His face creases into a grin at the memory now. He came sixth. Sixth! The sheer holy mortification of it. At the finish he tumbled to the ground in an ungainly heap, clawing around on his hands and knees, gasping for oxygen like a wiry, old sheepdog. Wiped, he says. He figures he walked the 5k slower than he had the 20k in the furnace of Beijing. If they'd tied his shoelaces together, he thinks, he couldn't have gone much slower.

It amuses him to think about it. And that's the thing. A few years ago it would have perplexed and tormented him. The humiliation would have torn at his soul and destroyed whatever sense of composure was holding him together. Not now though. Not with the experience and sense of awareness the years have bequeathed him. Not after the intense voyage of self-discovery he has undergone.

For Heffernan, Guadix carried no crushing mystery. The malaise was easily diagnosed. It was a nothing day and on such days he has always found it difficult to stir himself to any great degree. Without the company of world-class athletes and the electricity of the big occasion, he felt flat, dragged down to the level of those around him. "When I switch off, I really switch off," he says. "That's the way I am."

At the start of the year he marked two dates in his calendar: the European Cup in Metz in May and the World Championships in Berlin in August. Nothing else mattered. He took a longer winter break and wrote off his early season races, a strategy which brought him into mild conflict with his coach, the legendary Polish racewalker, Robert Korzeniowski. The Pole questioned the wisdom of Heffernan's narrow approach. And while once he might have hung on his coach's every word, now he had the confidence to devise his own plan and the bottle to stick with it.

"Like, he wanted me to do a race in Poland earlier this year. I didn't do it. Robert says you have to do it in every single race. I'm like, 'no, I don't think so'. I want to prove I can do it in the championship races. He's Polish. He has a different personality. I respect him so much but what works for Robert might not necessarily work for everybody."

When his early-season races went poorly, he hung tough. He spent April training hard in South Africa and, on his return, posted 38.48 in a 10k race in Cork, the fastest time in the world this year. He hadn't anticipated such a performance but he understood where it had come from. In his home town, in front of his family and friends, he felt the competitive juices returning. The stimulus was there and his response was automatic. He went to Metz to medal, a logical progression from his eighth place in Beijing. He finished fourth and it destroyed him but in a good way.

Tactically, he had decided to force the issue, hit the race hard and hope to fend off those who preserved their energy for a late charge. In brutal conditions, he knew it was a high-risk strategy. With 800m left he was passed by the Italian, Jean Jacques Nkouloukidi, a bronze medal whipped from his grasp.

"I took a chance and it nearly worked. It was hard to take but that's racing. Maybe I wanted the medal too much. You just want to get out there and give it everything. Don't doubt yourself. If you want something too much, you can tense up. Getting passed so close to the line was a killer.

"Mentally I felt it was a step up for me though. I'm not saying I was over-awed in Beijing but you feel more comfortable every time you're up there in that position. Like, in Metz I remember racing next to [Ivano] Brugnetti, who was Olympic champion in 2004, and thinking this is where I should be. I feed off the energy of being around these guys. I'm getting closer all the time."

* * * * *

HE likes to look back sometimes to see how far he has come, to wonder once more at the breadth of his journey. A little while back he was talking to Pierce O'Callaghan. O'Callaghan was the national champion when Heffernan first arrived on the scene and, to the reigning monarch, the challenger showed little respect. "That," O'Callaghan said admiringly, "was your greatest asset." He was raw and hungry. Too young for fear.

He thinks of the opening ceremony in Sydney in 2000. The pyrotechnics left him unmoved. He was bored. He wanted to race. When it came, he dashed off with the leaders and stayed with them for 10k. Then they left him for dead. A few weeks before he'd won a 35k race and broke the Irish record. At the finish he'd been on world record pace for 50k and, momentarily, had considered racing on. Mad stuff.

"Every race was a peak. I wanted to break the world record every single time. I didn't know any different. Just go out and hammer everything. I remember the World Cup in Cheboksary last year. I was at the front early on and I saw a couple of Germans and the Australian Luke Adams next to me. I said to myself 'these guys are stupid. They won't last'. And that was me back in Sydney. Didn't know any better."

All he knew were days in Cork when he would meet up with Gillian O'Sullivan and the pair would push themselves to the limit, driving each other on, stoking the fires of their collective ambition. Looking back, he sees they were being professional without even knowing it. For all the savage intensity of their sessions, their work lacked structure or organisation. It was what he needed most: a plan.

Awestruck by Korzeniowski's displays in Sydney, where the Pole won two gold medals, Heffernan had approached him in the athletes' village seeking an autograph. The following January he went a step further, sending a hopeful email, which was both fawning missive and a cry for help. He didn't expect a reply. Then, in mid-February, his phone rang. "This is Robert Korzeniowski," the voice said. "Quit clowning around Pierce," Heffernan laughed. Soon, though, he was on his way to Johannesburg for a training camp.

The benefits were immediate. In his first race after the camp he smashed the Irish record and later that year he finished 14th in the World Championships in Edmonton. From 28th in Sydney it was a steep climb. The following day he met Korzeniowski at the track. "What happened?" the Pole enquired. Heffernan mumbled something about the national championships. "Don't talk to me about national championships," Korzeniowski spat. Then he stormed away.

"I was a bit shocked at the time," says Heffernan, "but I went home that night and when I thought about it I knew he was right. I had been preparing to do a lot faster than I did. For what I was capable of my performance wasn't good enough. It might have been good enough for Ireland but it shouldn't have been good enough for me."

Over the years their relationship has changed as Heffernan developed as an athlete. At first he craved the older man's approval but realised quickly that Korzeniowski didn't value it. That wasn't how he worked. To the Pole, things were black and white. You had to race with a clear, unburdened mind. Emotional or needy athletes didn't win many medals. You couldn't teach that, though, as if it was a racing technique. You could only learn through harsh experience.

When O'Sullivan was racing to a silver medal at the 2003 World Championships in Paris, Heffernan's body was suffering the first of its major breakdowns. Not just his body but his life too. In that year his daughter Megan was born. She is the apple of Heffernan's eye but he would be lying if he said her arrival was the result of a planned arrangement. He was a struggling, 24-year-old athlete. Starting a family was the furthest thing from his mind.

Amid the emotional turbulence, he scraped into the field for the Athens Olympics a year later but was in no frame of mind to do himself justice. He was lying 12th, just about holding on when he was disqualified and reacted to the disappointment in the only way he knew. "I came home and trained like a lunatic. The next year I was like 'bang! I'm going to hit it hard. Make up for the Olympics'. I just kept getting injured. Mentally, I was all wrong."

A couple of times he saw a bright light on the horizon but they turned out to be false dawns. He went to Helsinki for the 2005 World Championships and, with 3k left, he was in eighth position. He needed a top 12 finish to guarantee his Sports Council funding and, critically, he let the mind race away with the thought.

"I was like 'oh yes, eighth position. My grant will go up to 20 grand'. I was seeing dollar signs, debts cleared. And then bang! Disqualified. I was so distraught. I couldn't even train afterwards. My motivation was gone. I thought that's the end of my funding now. I'd be on the scrap heap, signing on the dole. Two Olympics, all those World Championships and nothing to show for it. That was my lowest point."

He spent the next six months injured, putting on weight and feeling worthless. Redemption came the following year when a double hernia was diagnosed as the root of his problems and, once off the bottom, he scrambled quickly towards the surface. That summer he achieved the A standard in a race in Copenhagen and his funding anxieties were eased. A year later he went to the World Championships and finished sixth in the sweltering heat of Osaka. For the first time he was truly a medal contender. He just had to believe, Korzeniowski told him. Why couldn't he believe?

By then, he had settled into a relationship with Marian Andrews, a 400m runner he had known since his days as a youth in Togher Athletics Club and they have a son, Cathal. Like Heffernan, Andrews is a qualified sports therapist and, if there seems something distinctly unpromising about two driven athletes coming together, theirs is a blessed union that works.

"Marian is very laid-back whereas I'm more opinionated. She was always very talented but maybe didn't have that edge. Now she's getting that. Picking up some of my traits. I tell her I liked her better before, when she used to let things go. She says now I know what it's like to get a taste of my own medicine. But she's been great. When I was injured she kept me going. And she's made a massive breakthrough. I admire her so much for that."

When he went to Guadix last month to work with his training partner, Francisco Javier "Paco" Fernandez, he brought Marian and Cathal with him. After every 2k he would see them at the side of the track, waiting to hand him his drink. After two weeks mother and son went home and Heffernan knuckled down to the more intensive work. He didn't plan it this way, of course. The perfect routine just evolved.

He sees no clouds on his horizon. He has his grant and his programme. In his last five major races he has been in the mix for a medal each time and, because he is doing well, he has found plenty of businesses in Cork willing to support him. Sometimes, he tells Marian, he feels like that cocky, carefree kid in Sydney but with a purpose and a structure.

When he goes to Guadix, he sees the fame Paco enjoys, how he is considered a superstar throughout Spain. Every morning Paco hires a bus to take the group to the track, a small gesture given the vast wealth he has accumulated. Heffernan sees no need to envy his friend's success, though. For all Paco's money and status he only finished one place ahead of Heffernan in Beijing. With another small push, Heffernan knows he can take him.

"Sometimes in training Paco and the boys laugh at Ireland. They think we are unprofessional. I remember when Alberto Contador won the Tour de France and Paco just shrugs: 'Rob, it's normal. Pftttt . . .' I said 'Paco, how many people live in Andalucia?' Four and a half million, he said. The same as Ireland. I said we'll have myself, Olive Loughnane and Jamie Costin in Berlin and I rattled off a few other names. He was stumped. Like, we have the raw material here. There's no reason why we can't have top-class athletes here. No reason."

He sees no barriers now. He sees no pressure or expectations, just the privilege of being a contender. He steps on the scales and checks the reading: 57 and a half kgs. His perfect racing weight. He had his body fat measured at the NCTC recently and the woman told him his reading was the lowest they'd seen. He feels primed. As ready as he could ever be.

He sees the beautiful city of Berlin ahead in the distance. He sees the cameramen taking their positions and the crowds lining the streets to send them off and wait for them on their return. He sees the imposing white pillars of the Brandenburg Gate where the race will start and finish. He sees the history all around him and the chance, finally, to make a little piece of his own.