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One of our newer members, Martina Fahy, recently completed the Women's Mini Marathon in Dublin.

Here's her report of the action on the day...

Congratulations on a great effort Martina

"I worked a seven day very busy shift (Ocean Race Week) in Salthill as a chef in the hottest week in the year coming up to the mini marathon. Drinking lots of water and finding it hard to keep hydrated, (no alcohol consumed in preparation).

I also had done 5 of the 5 km runs every Tuesday best PB being 22.20 so this in mind I hoped to do the mini marathon in 45 – 48 minutes.

On the day of the mini-marathon I travelled up to Dublin with the Galway Rape Crisis Centre at 9 am. I arrived in Dublin at 12:30 and had my physio session. I had to be at the start with the runners at 2:30pm in front of approximately 40,000 people. I saw some of the Athenry club members in front me. It was 29 C degrees. I remember thinking before the run that I didn’t want to do this, I was so exhausted but thinking back having done the 5km runs kept me going.

I have completed the mini marathon, lost count of how many times so I knew what was ahead. When I heard Molly Malone being sung then the excitement kicked in. The bell went at 3:00 and ran the first 2 km in 8:40 and at around the 3rd km was getting a pain in my side with the heat and found it hard to keep that pace going. I kept running on the footpath to keep cool as the trees provided shelter from the sun. The runners around me commented on how hot and nauseated they were feeling. At the 4th km mark, there was an extra water station where I sprayed myself with a water bottle to cool down.

At the 6th km the fire brigade was hosing us down with water. For the last 2km, children were throwing water over me to keep cool.

Finally, finished in 49:30, was disappointed with the time but there’s always room for improvement."

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Congratulations also to Bernadette Carter who placed an amazing 39th overall in this race in a time of 41:48 - an absolutely superb effort. If you were amongst the other Athenry AC ladies there on the day why not tell us how you got on and we'll add news of your adventures here. As far as we know we've yet to have a male Athenry AC member take part in this race but I'll personally pay Euro 100 for any photograph that proves otherwise and Euro 200 if the photograph has Alan Burke in it.

Just email me at [email protected]