Colm Walsh had planned on breaking three hours at the Longford Marathon on Sunday 30th August but the strong wind took its toll and he suffered over the last few miles and finished in 3 hours 8 minutes, which is still a very good result under the circumstances.

An interesting feature of the Longford Marathon is the Marathon relay, which the Mullingar team of John O’Reilly, Paddy Kelly, Tom McGrath and Matt Glennon won in 2:32:10, a new team record, despite reports that Tom dropped the baton at 20 miles. Judging by the difficulty the US teams seemed to have getting the baton safely around the track in the recent World Championships in Berlin, perhaps Tom picked up some dodgy practices during his US College days? Luckily, given the distance involved, there was plenty of time to recover, so no harm done!

In the half marathon race, Maurice Looby finished 7th in 78 minutes, Martin Lyons in 81 minutes, and Eddie Newman in 83 minutes, which was a new personal best for Eddie.

In the race-walk category, PJ Ballesty competed well and congratulations to him. All in all, these were great performances by the Mullingar athletes.