As the pre-race limit of 6,000 for the Frank Duffy 10 mile road race in the Phoenix Park on Saturday 15th August was reached before the day, the organisers had to cancel arrangements for late registration, but that meant the Mullingar contingent really had to perform well to even get noticed in the thronging crowd!

Competing over a tough 2 lap course, with all the hills included, despite the challenging windy weather conditions, Martin Lyons had a very strong run and finished 40th overall in a time of 58:40, which is a terrific result for him. Also running extremely well was Maurice Looby who finished 6th in his master age-category, followed by John O’Reilly trying out his new birthday runners, and Darragh Thornton just returned from warm weather training (not holidays, as rumoured).

Next in for Mullingar was Mary Scully, finishing 10th woman overall despite reports that she complained all the way that she’d never race more than 5km ever again, followed by Matt Glennon, and Alwyn Kinane finishing 17th woman overall and breaking 70 minutes into the bargain.

For their troubles, Mary and Alwyn received very generous gift vouchers as prizes, but that meant a stop for everyone on the way home to Mullingar to help them purchase shiny new runners, much to the envy of the men, by all accounts!