A fantastic performance from the club today in Athlone at the 3/4 marathon. Lots of the Dublin-in-training crew hit the streets with some very speedy times.

Mick Rice ran a superb 2:02:54 to place eighth overall and third in the M40 category.

Full results attached. Club performances to be added here later!

In the meantime here is Marie O'Connor's race report.

Marie O'Connor's Race Report:

Sunday October 2nd had been my target from early this year. I had imagined finishing the race, clapping myself on the back and dropping back in mileage for the rest of the year, but as everyone knows the best laid plans can be easily changed. So, in June when Frances Egan mentioned Dublin City Marathon to me my arm was easily twisted and so today’s race became part of the journey to Dublin.

I travelled with Elaine Quinn, Edel Mulry and Maria Long, arriving nice and early for registration. Id time to meet my sister for a quick natter; she was acting as chauffer for a friend of hers who was competing, before myself and the other girls met the rest of the Athenry gang.

There was a great buzz about the place, there were people planning to run the race as a race, those who simply wanted to complete it and those using it to get them to Dublin. It was the first race I have entered where so many people had the same game plan as me, to simply use it as a training run albeit a hilly one.

Just after 11am we hit the roads of Athlone, they were interesting roads, filled with hills and mansions too. I took great pleasure in eying up the plush homes that passed me by and one gorgeous garden at about mile 12 also caught my eye. Jealous is an understatement.

Frances Egan ran with me for the first two quarters of the race, we ran along easily, chatting away and enjoying the race, we felt good!

The course seemed to be one continuous rollercoaster; we were either going up a hill or going down one. I can’t remember any hill in particular standing out in the first two quarters but I do know I was climbing a lot and I was thankful to a certain Chapel Hill. At about mile 7 I passed out a work colleague and of course the competitive side sat with me for the rest of the race where I pictured her on my shoulder, waiting to pass me, thankfully I managed to stay in front!

A few people stood outside their homes to cheer us on and the water stops were very friendly junctions, water, sweets and fruit were on offer at all water stops. I must say I took a liking to the fizzy cola bottles... yummy.

As I went through the mat at 13.1 miles all was great. My first quarter of the race was ran in 1:13:47 and the second quarter in 1:13:13. Nice and evenly paced, life was good.

That was until we hit mile 14 and suddenly my legs turned to lead, I knew I had to pull the pace back and hoped they would reawaken soon. I told Frances to leave me as she was flying it. So it was a case of gritting the teeth and plodding along.

At about mile 15 I met two girls from Craughwell and ran with them for about a mile before finding myself on my own again. I managed to switch my mind off and just kept running along, by about mile 17 my pace was back on track and all was fine.

Just before mile 18 there was a considerable climb, I ran up it telling myself I was almost home and there was no option but to run it and get to the finish line. As I hit the top of the hill I sort of became possessed… it happens every so often in a race.

There was a gentleman walking just in front of me and there were two gentlemen behind me, I knew the guy walking in front was struggling and I had heard the two behind me cursing a bit. So, as I approached the walker I suddenly started screaming “come on, ye can’t let this bas**** beat us, we are nearly home, come on, lets go, we are so close, don’t let it beat you”.

I turned to the poor stunned guy and told him to start running with me and we would get home together, he stayed with me for a few strides, I think he was too scared to refuse to run with me. After a few strides he dropped off me and of course, I had to scream a second time, he may have thought about having me committed at that point. I think I scared my legs too as they started to take off, I dropped down to 9 minute miles for the last mile and a bit, it did help that the run in home was a downhill.

Elaine, Maria and Edel were standing about 500 meters from the finish and screamed at me to go for it, my legs were hopping, I started to sprint for home, passing out a few more before hitting the finish line. Frances was at the finish to cheer me in and after a brief moment of “will I throw up, wont I throw up” I smiled over at her and we congratulated each other, we had spent so long talking about this race and now it was over! My last quarter was 1:17:04, not perfect but I was thrilled, the overall chip time was 3:44:04, which equalled my 20 mile training run on a flat course.

As I was stuffing my face with fruit at the finish line I met the guy I had screamed at, he thanked me for my outburst saying it helped get him home and he had managed to run home, so you see, everything does happen for a reason!

The race really was fantastic, it was a challenging course, but who likes an easy one? There were stewards on every corner, plenty of water and food at the water stops. Our technical T-shirts are class and we got a 500ml water bottle – not all that easy to come by -. Okay, so there were no medals but do we really mind? I know I don’t. I was glad of the use of the Glassan Golf Club; they provided changing facilities and showers, which I really appreciated, it meant there were four some way clean people in my car on the way home instead of four smelly runners!!!

Roll on our next day out in the big smoke…. Hopefully we will all get to the starting line fit and ready.

The full results from today can be found at the link below:

http://www.redtagtiming.com/results/Athlone3Quarter2011.pdf