Every 5,000m race ebbs and flows between the struggle and the sustainable, the tactics and anxieties, and any sudden premonitions between success or failure. For Sarah Healy, Tuesday’s final at the European Championships is also about staying the distance long enough to deliver her already proven finishing kick.It’s an exciting prospect, the 25-year-old rounding into the sort of form which saw her win the European Indoor 3,000m title in March last year.But Healy is still far more experienced as a 1,500m runner, and therein lies the intrigue. There aren’t many similarities between the two distances, and Healy is still learning about the 5,000m. Tuesday’s 12 laps will reveal all, the straight final (7.25pm) meaning she won’t get to test herself against any of her more seasoned opponents. Nadia Battocletti from Italy is chief among them, the defending champion from two years ago looking to complete another 5,000m-10,000m double. She doesn’t have any weakness in this event, nor does Maureen Koster from the Netherlands, who is the fastest European this season with her time of 14:33.56 set at the Rome Diamond League, where she also beat Battocletti.Healy clocked her lifetime best of 14:48.88 in that race, her first proper run over 5,000m in the senior ranks. It shot her straight to number two on the Irish all-time list, behind Sonia O’Sullivan’s national record of 14:41.02, set when winning the silver medal at the Sydney Olympics 26 years ago before Healy was born.O’Sullivan was also twice a European champion in the distance, first in 1994, then as part of her 5,000m-10,000m double in 1998. She also took silver in 2002 behind Spain’s Marta Dominguez, who was later banned for a series of doping offences.Sarah Healy during the 1,500m final at the World Championships last year. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho As well as trying the longer distance this year – the Dubliner also intends on doubling up in the 1,500m at the weekend – Healy’s adjusted her racing schedule to ensure she has come to Birmingham in peak condition. Having struggled to maintain her best form last summer for the World Championships, she’s only raced four times this summer, but that included another lifetime best of 8:25.63 over 3,000m when finishing third at the London Diamond League last month.“My last few races before Tokyo didn’t go well,” Healy said after finishing 10th in the 1,500m final. “That I wasn’t able to deliver the performance I thought I was capable of, or my best performance on the day, that’s the disappointment. I have been able to do that before quite a few times this season.”This has been Healy’s fourth season working with the husband-and-wife coaching team of Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows at their M11 Track Club near Manchester. The almost-30 strong international training group includes British stars Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell, who’s the favourite for the 1,500m title. Hodgkinson, meanwhile, will be gunning for gold in the 800m.In an interview with reigning European 1,500m champion Ciara Mageean on RTÉ last week, Healy spoke about her motivations this season, no doubt inspired by Mageean’s beautifully timed run to strike gold in Rome two years ago.“I also want to compete in the event where I’m going to be the most competitive on the world stage,” said Healy, “and I thought this year was a good year to try with it (5,000m), being Europeans.“It’s been different. It’s been hard and challenging,” Healy added. “I think it will probably work out for me, or I hope it will. But I do feel prepared. I want to be competitive and fighting for a medal, just making sure I put myself in it.”