Longford Marathon 2010

MARATHON
It seems that Gerry Duffy still hasn't shaken off the marathon bug and he was first man home for Mullingar in the Longford Marathon last Sunday 29th August, finishing 36th overall out of 205 finishers in 3:31:35, which was 7th in his master age category. Conditions were far from perfect, with quite broken weather and wind, rain and the odd bit of sun, but that didn't faze Gerry at all. Also unfazed was Kieran Nolan, next home for Mullingar and very pleased to be well under the 4 hour mark, in 3:50:30. PJ Ballesty meanwhile decided to race walk the 26 mile distance where he finished 3rd walker overall. Former member Nollaig McEntaggart showed why he was regarded as one of the very best in the Country in his heyday with a 10th place finish in 3:06:31, easily winning his master category by a wide margin.

MARATHON RELAY
An interesting feature of the Longford Marathon is the Marathon Relay Race where the relay teams run alongsde the regular marathon runners and Mullingar had 2 teams this year, looking to regain the title they won in 2009 in a record time. In all, 15 relay teams took part, with the Mullingar teams called "Looby Mullingar" and "Glennon Mullingar", not terribly imaginatve, but our lads meant business and snazzy names obviously weren't important!!

Tom McGrath led off Team "Looby Mullingar" and opened a small 4 second gap over eventual Marathon winner Sergiu Ciobanu (Moldovia) on the leg from Longford to Tarmonbarry, before handing the armband over to Martin Lyons for the leg from Tarmonbarry to Roosky. Martin opened the lead up to 1 minute and 4 seconds, before handing over to Paddy Kelly who ran very strong from Roosky to Newtownforbes but with Sergiu giving chase, the lead was reduced to 4 seconds again at the hand over for the last leg, run by Maurice Looby who was suffering from bronchitis but still ran a very good final short leg of 4.2 miles from Newtownforbes to Longford, and was eventually passed by Sergiu, but took the Mullingar team home to victory in a new course record of 2:30:52, bettering last year's mark by 90 seconds.

Team "Glennon Mullingar" meanwhile with Justin Murtagh, Mark Carroll, Matt Glennon and Tommy Carr were simply too good for the other teams and came home in 2nd place in 2:46:38, to give Mullingar an excellent 1─2 finish in the Team Relay event.

HALF MARATHON
In the Half Marathon meanwhile, no surprize that Eddie Newman was first home for Mullingar in 13th overall with a new personal best time of 1:20:17 and was 1st in his master category. Enda Finnerty was next and very pleased with his time of 1:38:44. Sandra Finnerty was 5th in the women's half marathon, with a great time of 1:39:58.

5KM ROAD RACE
On the Friday evening before the Marathon, when conditions were ideal for running, Longford AC hosted a 5km Road Race in the Town and Mullingar filled the top three places with Liam McGlynn 1st, Matt Glennon 2nd and Mark Carroll 3rd. Well done to this great trio.