These Days Coghlan Is on Last Legs : Indoor track: The retiring Irish distance runner will compete in Forum meet for the final time this week.

As soon as Eamonn Coghlan of Ireland peeled off his green warm-up suit and stepped onto the track for the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games last week at New York, the crowd erupted into applause.

The world record-holder in the indoor mile, Coghlan was making his comeback after a two-year absence.

But age has robbed Coghlan, 37, of the kick he used to become the first man to run a sub 3:50 mile indoors. He was badly beaten by Marcus O’Sullivan, also of Ireland.

“Why did I run the Wanamaker Mile?” Coghlan asked. “Because I really still believed I could win it. No one is running great. I’m not running brilliant like I used to, but I’m still running pretty good in training. With a little bit of luck, with a little bit of belief in myself, I could do it.

“But I found out for myself. I didn’t have to guess today that maybe I would have won the Wanamaker Mile.”

Is Coghlan too old to run?

“I don’t think it’s an age factor,” O’Sullivan said. “He missed two whole seasons. The key is running year after year. A three-year layoff, that’s his barrier. I believe he might be in better competitive form next year if he keeps running this season.”

Would Coghlan have preferred to go out on a higher note?

“In 1987 when I won the Wanamaker Mile for the seventh time, a friend of mine said I should have quit that night. That was the perfect way to end it with the emotion in the Garden. But maybe like all athletes who want to hang in there, I’m guilty of that. But I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Coghlan said he plans to switch from the mile to the 3,000 meters for his remaining two indoor meets. He’ll compete in the Times Eagle Indoor Games Friday at the Forum.

Although Coghlan is best known for the mile, he may be better over longer distances.

After finishing fourth in the 1,500 at the 1976 Olympics, Coghlan finished fourth in the 3,000 meters at the 1980 Olympics and advanced to the semifinals of the 5,000 meters at the 1988 Olympics before being eliminated.

Coghlan became a national hero in Ireland after the 1976 Olympics. While signing autographs at a department store in Dublin, Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, approached Coghlan for his autograph.

“If I were to walk down the street in Ireland with any American sports figure they wouldn’t recognize them but they’d recognize me,” Coghlan said. “Gosh, I’ve been in the hearts of the Irish people since 1975 when I came on the scene and broke the European record. That’s 15 years that I’ve been in the paper nearly every day.”

Coghlan had his hands full babysitting his 2 1/2-year-old son, Michael, a bundle of energy. After he grew bored playing with a toy car, Michael started playing with a cup of hot chocolate which lay before him. Coghlan ordered an orange juice to appease Michael but it was to no avail.

As Coghlan spoke with a reporter over breakfast, young Michael ran around the coffee shop, terrorizing the customers.

Coghlan threw up his hands and smiled. Mischief must be in the genes because Coghlan was a wild child, who was constantly getting into trouble.

“I was the black sheep of the family,” Coghlan said.

Indeed.

“I was terrible for missing high school,” Coghlan said. “I was gone once for weeks on end because this Christian brother in school was really tough. He used to beat the daylights out of us with a leather strap.”

Coghlan played hooky for a month, hanging out at the home of a friend, where they’d smoke cigarettes.

But his parents put a stop to it.

“One day I went home for lunch and as I was eating I saw my father’s car pull up and I said, ‘Oh, oh. I’m caught because he never comes home for lunch.’ So I ran upstairs to the bathroom and I heard my mother and father talking, asking what they were going to do with me.

“I jumped out the second story out onto the ground and I was gone for two days because I didn’t want to have to face the music.

“Eventually my father caught up with me in my friend’s house that I’d been staying at. And he just grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and kicked me all the way home.”

Although his father was understanding, he ordered Coghlan to return to school. After getting into a fight with another teacher, he transferred to another high school, where he finished his senior season.

Running was the only thing which seemed to calm him. And he was better at running on a track than he was at running away.

The top high school middle distance runner in Dublin, Coghlan won three national high school titles and earned a scholarship to Villanova.

Homesick and love sick for his high school sweetheart, Coghlan quit Villanova after his first semester and returned home.

But his girlfriend, Yvonne, gave him an ultimatum: Return to school or she’d dump him.

“Yvonne said she wasn’t going to be responsible for me quitting school and blowing it all, so she said if I didn’t go back to college she wasn’t going to go out with me anymore,” Coghlan said. “She said if I went back she’d wait. She was the sensible one. She was the mature one at the time and still is.”

Coghlan returned to Villanova, where he began to flourish under the coaching of the late Jumbo Elliott. Coghlan won back-to-back NCAA indoor and outdoor titles in the 1,500 meters in 1975-76.

And he married Yvonne after graduating.

Coghlan was depressed after Elliott died in 1982. Elliott’s death began a turbulent period in Coghlan’s life.

Jerry Farnan, who coached Coghlan in Ireland, died of a heart attack that summer. Coghlan was crushed because Farnan had been a father figure.

“With me he saw how good I was and he wanted to study my temperament,” Coghlan said. “He was a fruit merchant and he used to bring me on his truck carrying sacks of potatoes in and out of fruit markets to build up my strength.”

Although Farnan developed a heart condition, he continued to coach Coghlan. Farnan suffered several heart attacks during Coghlan’s training runs.

“Week after week and year after year he would be getting heart attacks as he was training me right on the track,” Coghlan said. “Driving to races I remember him saying, ‘Let’s stop the car,’ because a heart attack was coming on.”

After losing Elliott and Farnan, Coghlan turned to his father, Bill, for moral support.

His father came to New York and saw Coghlan win the Wanamaker Mile at Madison Square Garden in 1983.

Two days later, Bill Coghlan died in his sleep at the age of 63. Eamonn discovered the body.

“I went out for my morning run and dad wasn’t up when I got back,” Coghlan said. “I wondered what was wrong because he was always up early. I went upstairs and I found him dead in bed.

“My father was a very physically oriented person. He was always very, very fit. He never went to a doctor a day in his life.”

After returning to Ireland for the funeral, Coghlan said he considered quitting running. But his mother convinced him to continue because it was his father’s last wish to see him break the indoor world record in the mile.

Coghlan returned, but a snow storm canceled a meet at the Meadowlands.

However, CBS TV and track promoter Ray Lump scheduled a meet after the TAC championships to give Coghlan a chance to break the record. It was an unprecedented move because no indoor meet had ever been held after the TAC meet.

Coghlan didn’t disappoint a nation-wide TV audience, setting a world record of 3:49.78.

“It was a big thrill to break the record and a disappointment at the same time,” Coghlan said. “It was a great achievement but I was disappointed that my father didn’t live to see me do it.”

Although Coghlan is Irish, he hasn’t been very lucky throughout his running career, which has been marred by freak injuries and accidents.

Coghlan missed the 1982 indoor and outdoor season because of a stress fracture of his right shin and an Achilles’ tendon injury. It was the first time he’d ever been injured and he was frustrated.

“I went to Ireland and I had all sorts of quacks look at it,” Coghlan said. “I had the seventh son of the seventh son, a faith healer, touch it. I went to a herbalist and I went to a veterinary surgeon.”

Why did he go to an animal doctor?

“My mother told me that horses always injure their Achilles’ tendon and they can’t tell the vet what the problem is and a vet might be able to find what’s wrong,” Coghlan said.

“So I went to the vet and he gave me a black goopy, foul-smelling substance to rub on my Achilles, and it didn’t work.”

Finally, he went to a clinic in West Germany at the suggestion of Dr. Thomas Wessinghage, a West German orthopedic surgeon and world-class miler. Ready to try anything, Coghlan went to the clinic, where he was healed after cobalt treatments and radiation therapy.

He came back strong from that injury, breaking the world record twice in 1983, but he hasn’t been injury free since as freak accidents have taken their toll.

He went on the eat to win diet in 1986, but it turned out to be the eat to lose diet for Coghlan, who lost every race that season.

“I was trying to do something different to perfect myself, so I went on the diet,” he said. “I had a very bad stomach virus and was completely weak. I had no strength at all. I lost all my indoor races that season and it was just a horrible feeling.”

Later that year, Coghlan suffered dog bites and a broken hand when he was savagely attacked by a dog during a training run in Dublin.

“I was out running, finishing off my 15-mile run, and these kids were crossing the street against the traffic light,” Coghlan said. “And as the car honked at them, they started cursing and abusing the driver as he was approaching them. I just screamed at the kids to cut that language out. And with that they started cursing me. It was really vulgar. I picked up my speed as I was approaching them to tease them.

“All of a sudden they just got afraid and they go to the dog, ‘Psst, get him.’ And the dog started going for my feet because I was running. And as the dog was going for my feet I’m trying to get away and I began to kick the dog and as I started to kick the dog away the dog started biting me and the kids were laughing and encouraging the dog to get me.”

Coghlan was hospitalized for three days, but he returned to the track the following week.

Bad luck continued to plague him.

Coghlan missed the 1988 indoor season after he injured his lower back when he fell down a step while walking out of his house in December of 1987.

“As I turned around to say goodby to my kids I missed a step and I just tore a ligament in my lower back,” he said. “That was worse than my Achilles’ tendon in terms of pain. I didn’t think I was ever going to walk properly again it was so bad. I was on the flat of my back for a number of weeks. All together, I was out for three months. Then I started to jog again after the three months, but I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to do anything again.”

Coghlan recovered, but his string of accidents continued.

He sat out the 1989 indoor season after he injured his back, shin and arm when he was rear-ended in a traffic accident in December of 1988.

Frustrated, Coghlan announced his retirement.

“After the car accident I said ‘That’s it,’ ” Coghlan said. “I was 35 years old and obviously time had come to an end.

“I was delighted to have been finished. The pressure was off. I was drinking beers and staying out late. I was just not caring about running and I wasn’t even interested in running at all.”

Coghlan returned to the track after four months, running for fun with his former training partners.

He continued training, increasing to 90 miles a week. He also did quarter-mile intervals.

After making it through 1989 injury free, Coghlan decided to return for the 1990 indoor track season.

Coghlan he has no plans to compete next year.

“This is really it,” Coghlan said. “Athletes who get on in age still feel that burning ambition to get out there and do it but they can’t, and you have to accept that. I accepted that a year ago.

“I accepted the frustration of getting injured and now I have to accept reality. I will continue to run. I don’t want to get fat and lazy anymore. I will run a couple of years on the road just because I love doing it, but I won’t be chasing Olympic Games or world records or the high caliber indoor track and field after this year.”

Coghlan, who lives in Rye, N.Y., plans to move back to Dublin, where he has built a house in an exclusive section of the city.

“Life for me in America has been fantastic,” Coghlan said. “I owe everything that I’ve achieved to America, but Yvonne would like the kids to grow up in Ireland with their cousins and their relatives.

“The social part of our life doesn’t exist in terms of being with the people who are close to you, your blood family. So I think it’s only fair that she should have her piece of the pie.”