Marcus Lawlor casts his mind back to 2018 when pressed on his season's form heading into the European Championships.
The Carlow native is part of the 4x400m relay team, but the 200m is his bread and butter. A season’s best of 20.75 was achieved two months ago, but that wouldn’t have the 27-year-old in with the big hitters.
The Tokyo Olympian acknowledges the form isn’t there to match the lead-in to the 2018 Europeans in Berlin, but that meet was a reminder of the fickle nature of competitive sport.
"Back then I was going in with a big PB and probably thought I could get close to a final," he told RTÉ Sport.
"I got a very rude awakening, gone in the first round. This time I’m going in a little bit down the list of season’s best, but I’m quietly confident I can deliver a good performance.
"Hopefully a good performance in round one and then take it race by race.
"When you look at the start list, 20.40 has you ranked pretty highly, but 20.75 puts you down at the bottom of the list. But it’s such small margins.
"In 2019 I was running 20.55, but then the pandemic arrived and I just felt it might have knocked that momentum away from me.
In order to get down to 20.4 and 20.5, I’ve got to be knocking out that 20.7 consistently. I’ve ran it once this year and I also ran a couple of 20.9s that I thought were worth a little bit more.
"If I can knock out that 20.7 consistently hopefully the drop to that 20.4/20.5 range will come again."
Munich represents a third European Championships for Lawlor, and some observers have wondered whether it is 200m or 400m that allows the strength and conditioning graduate play his strongest hand.
During the early indoor season he dabbled in 400m - "one thing led to another and I ended up doing another race, and then another" - and the times kept falling, running a PB in February.
The plan was to channel all energies into 200m for the outdoor season. A hamstring issue meant he eased himself back with the longer distance, saving himself the hard blast of the 200m bend, but there’s little doubt over his priority.
"I’m a 200m runner at the moment, very much so."
In a change from his previous two Europeans, Lawler’s mother travels as a supporter rather than his coach.
Shane McCormack, familiar to Lawler from his junior and relay days and a mentor to Phil Healy, is the fresh voice needed to inject a spark at this juncture of his career.
There was no fallout or drama to the coaching change – Patricia will be watching his every step in Munich along with girlfriend Muireann – but he couldn’t see how doing the same thing would lead to different results.
"Shane is still getting to know me and even in the last couple of months, we’ve been focusing on trying to get super fast.
"There were notes passed over at the start of the year as to what does work for me, what has worked in the past, just to give him a bit of my history."
The extensive experience at 400m has led to certain subtle advantages. "To a point" it has helped in the final 50 metres of the race, and his work in the bend are also seen improvements.
Yet they are still chalk and cheese in many respects at the elite level.
"You’re trying hold 11m/s or faster for as long as possible in the 200m, where I wasn’t hitting that speed this year in the 400m. There’s a different speed and endurance element.
"Even in the last couple of months we’ve been focusing on trying to get super fast. I feel like I have a really good bend and hopefully the 400m work will stand to me in that latter part of the race."
Lawler's 200m heat is next Thursday at 11.30am.
Follow live and extensive coverage of the European Athletics Championships in Munich, 15-21 August, on RTÉ2.
