As I left Dunsandle it was starting to rain, but when I got to Ballyvaughan it was a truly awful morning. A big change from the 26 degrees of 2010. The plan was 4 hours, but in this weather anything could happen, even the dreaded DNF! Keeping as positive as I could, I reached the start in good time...

On a wet Saturday morning where else would we be only standing at the start of the Burren Challenge? After a few jokes about how to get our cars out of the field they were currently parked in, Elaine Quinn, Janet Clancy, Owen Curran, Frank Burke, Liam and Frances Egan and I were off. The start was...

Mick Rice paced the three hour group in the recent Limerick Marathon and performed the job perfectly. We expected nothing less :-). What none of us realised until last night is that he and his merry band were caught on camera coming across the Living Bridge in UL at about 7 miles and printed in the...

I did not mind in the end; 3:57 – at least its under 4; girl behind me vomited over my hind leg- at least it was only one leg; crowd encroached onto the finish area making it difficult to move- adds to atmosphere, keeps me upright; only a bag of Tayto as food – it’s cheese and onion, my favourite...

I headed home on Friday last to Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan to visit my family. Normally on occasions like this I’d be packing my best sparkly top and my high heels - instead I was packing my running shorts, runners and my Athenry singlet! Oh boy have times changed... I must be getting old. I did a...

Lyall's race report from the Bay Run half marathon in Bantry on Sunday. {Deirdre's note: I was there also - I shuffled around in a training/ tempo capacity and I can vouch for the fact that Lyall had a marvellous race - the hills are cruel - worse than Connemara. To my surprise I met Lyall at the...

Elaine Quinn and I hit the road on Sunday for another half marathon journey. Elaine had collected our numbers on Friday so all we had to worry about was being at the start for our 11:30 off. Richie, a dude with some serious hair – and who I remembered from my UL days when I occasionally did his...

Almost 120 runners took to the road in the first ever Colemanstown 10k run. There was great representation from all local clubs, namely Athenry AC, Loughrea AC, Craughwell, GCH, Clare River Harriers & Tuam AC. Athenry’s Paul McNamara headed the field from early on and romped home in a fantastic time...

1. What running shoes do you train in? Asics Cumulus (am going to try some Saucony shortly – bored! Any neutral shoe works). I love my Inov8’s for trails. 2. How many miles did you run last week? 24 – Ironman training is nearly killing me, and it’s not the running! 3. What’s your favourite racing...

On arriving in Oughterard I bumped into Dee Quinn, Aoife Callan and Assumpta Feeney. We took the courtesy bus to Leenane, travelling along the half marathon route we were about to run. Everyone on the bus had the same goal, to meet, great and beat the “hell of the west”. After being met by some...

We arrived in Rome on the Thursday night, so we had all Friday for sightseeing etc, around Rome. After all the usual registration and pasta parties and everybody selling their wares at the Expo on the Saturday, it was suddenly race day on the Sunday. We choose to walk to the start as it was a...

Folks...well done to everyone who competed in the Ultra, the Full, and the Half. It was tremendously enjoyable to do the Lough Inagh, Leenane, Maam Cross loop taking photos of all three races. Here are the photos, 73 in all. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmagnier/sets/72157626357806617/show/

It was a glorious spring afternoon as we set off on the 45 min journey to the parish of Kilnaboy in Co. Clare on Sunday last (10 April 2011). A 2pm start allowed for a much-needed lie-on, which is always welcome. I was dropped off in Kilnaboy at about 1.30pm, while the rest of the gang headed for...

Spent race morning watching birds. Some black, some brown, some yellow, mostly white. Down in the turlough in Craughwell! The feathered kind, of course, in the company of a good pal and non-runner, PC. A most interesting place and one that is almost unique in the world. Go down there some day for a...

Last week I stupidly passed a remark to Valerie Glavin on how I would love to run the Craughwell Ten as close to 1:34 as I could. I should have known better. By the start line I had a nice plan, or so I thought, I'd start at 9.4 minute miles and then all going well bring it into 9.3 and go from...

They inverted the course direction and the weather pattern inverted from the last few days– instead of starting sunny and raining in the afternoon; it started foggy and the sun eventually shone through. Athenry AC had another great day out at the impeccably organised second Craughwell AC 10 mile...

A third report from an Athenry AC member down in Ballycotton last week... http://www.lyallguiney.com/2011/03/mixed-feelings-from-ballycotton/

Saturday morning started with my picking up Elaine Quinn, Martina McShane and Maria Long. As I said later to Owen Curran it was a case of how many Athenry athletes could we fit in a Yaris? The four of us landed in Kinvara just after 9am, the driver got her distances a tad wrong hence the early...

One of the many GB Shaw quotes is, "We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing". (Was he any relation to our current secretary, Iain?) In Athenry AC there's a small few of us still 'playing.' Last weekend I decided to travel to that lovely East Cork village of...

There's something special about this race. It’s my favourite race and as I sat near the finish area, completely exhausted, I was already looking forward to next year’s race and getting another shot at this course. The conditions on Sunday were very good and unusually for Ballycotton, there was no...

I was blithely oblivious to nutrition as a child. I lived on a diet of ham sandwiches and cornflakes. My mother (working full time, with six kids) took the path of least resistance – we ate what we didn’t refuse. Hence my younger sister lived on a singular diet of Coco Pops and Rice Krispies for two...