Alan Turing was very close to Olympic qualifying time.
As an aside, this is absolutely excellent cc @Fagan_ODowd
2 Likes
Oh I’ve heard about that. Must check!
1 Like
I’m not a bit surprised to see Robben go under 3
I’d be surprised if he didn’t so long as he has the training done
It wasn’t his first rodeo either. He cramped last year late on and did something like 3:15.
2 of the lads I train with ran 2’53 and 2’55. They’d been doing 100/120k per week so had the training done. LAd that ran 2’ 53 hadn’t been under 3 before.
4 Likes
His bib there in the image says 2022
Huge Tullamore contingent alright & Edenderry too. Fair point on the toilets, they rely on the existing park facilities which consists of 5 or 6 portaloos & the toilets in the cafe. The increase in race numbers in recent years probably warrant another raft of portaloos. I’ll bring this feedback to the organisers!
1 Like
A lad from our club did bang on 3 hours but managed to run an extra km. I’m still not sure if the course was wrong or he fucked up but I’m assuming the latter somehow. He said it would have been a PB only for the extra km
Based on Strava? There’d be huge variations on Strava depending on the watch and how they pick up the satellites. It went from 41.8k to 42.8k for the 3 lads I know who did it. I’d be confident that the distance would be right for a major marathon like Rotterdam. Winner ran 2’03 so he definitely didn’t run a km too much.
1 Like
Within the 2 yellow circles it looks like he’s doubled back on himself so wondering if he took a wrong turn
I think it went out and back in couple of sections from looking at the lads Strava. It’d be almost impossible to take the wrong route in a big marathon like that without everyone else doing the same.
Will put it down to him having a dodgy watch then. It also has him not going above 140bpm for the whole thing which I’d have my doubts about!
Looks like the lad who ran 2’54 started in the middle of the river and swam the first 800m. His watch is always off. His heartrate was mid 170s at the end. He got his pacing spot on.
2 Likes
Kipchoge being dropped in Boston with about half an hour left. 5 lads have kicked on and left him for dust. Either he’s blown up or they’ve gone way too early. He’s back in 7th now
1 Like
Now yer talking
Lovely trail to the side of that boulevard
The boulevard is interesting. Made up of massive stone slabs some of which look like they may once have been gravestones 
Anyone with an Indo sub able to copy & paste this?
I’ve invested the princely sum of 2 euro in one of these bad boys. Smaller than a tennis ball. Bigger than a golf ball. Some yoke to get into the knots in the calves and glutes. Seems to get in deeper than both of those and the foam roller
4 Likes
My mam’s still struggling’ – How being around addiction drove marathon champion Courtney McGuire
Irish national marathon title holder Courtney McGuire was at today’s Jerry Kiernan Foundation announcement. The Jerry Kiernan Foundation, established in 2021 to support elite athletes in their development, has named 12 Irish athletes who will benefit from funding in 2023. Photo: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Cathal Dennehy
April 18 2023 07:07 PM
Sometimes in races, when the pain is at its peak, Courtney McGuire will tell herself, ‘This is nothing’. When you’ve dealt with what she has, it brings about a certain realisation – that a marathon can’t really hurt you.
Last October, the 23-year-old shocked everyone to finish third in Dublin, winning the national title in 2:32:52. When she met her training partner at the finish, she cried, and those tears, and that pain, were of a very different kind to what she’d once been used to. Why tell her story now? “If it helps someone, I’d rather put it out there,” she says.
It starts in Clonmel. McGuire’s mother was pregnant with her at just 14, gave birth to her at 15. At 16, she gave birth again, this time to a boy. As McGuire takes you through her childhood, there’s no scorn in her words, no judgment, just an understanding of what it must have been like for a girl with two kids to care for in her mid-teens. “Her way of dealing with it was using substances, trying to take her mind off things,” she explains.
There were house parties at home where drugs were passed around like popcorn, gardaí called countless times. As a kid, McGuire thought it was “great craic” to have so many people around, but she didn’t know the consequences – how her mother was sliding deeper into the throes of addiction, moving from cocaine and ecstasy to something even more dangerous. “It was heroin,” she says. “It still is.”
McGuire and her younger brother spent years going back and forth to their grandparents, until their mother’s addiction meant being in her care was no longer possible, the attempts to get clean always failing. McGuire remembers how angry it would make her when her mother, in a methadone-induced trance, would fall asleep mid-conversation. The anger she felt over the situation lasted years, and running was one way to channel it. At Presentation Secondary School in Clonmel, David Kenneally introduced her to the sport and she loved it – the fresh air and open road working wonders to clear her mind.
Was her talent obvious then? “Oh Jesus, no,” laughs McGuire. “I don’t think I even had a watch until my second year of college; I was just going for jogs.”
She studied psychology at the University of Limerick, where she hit a pivotal crossroads. In her first year, McGuire was “naive” about drug use among students, but while living in College Court in second year, that changed.
Courtney McGuire shocked everyone to finish third in the Dublin Marathon last year, winning the women’s national title in 2:32:52. Now the 23-year-old has her sights fixed on the Paris Olympics next year, with the help of the Jerry Kiernan Foundation. Photo: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
“Everyone was on stuff. I was absolutely determined: ‘I’ll never, ever take anything’. But I wouldn’t give out to people or try not to be around people who were, because it was just absolutely everywhere.”
Her evenings were spent in the library or at the gym while so many of her peers were out socialising.
“People were probably calling me a bit of a freak, but I was determined to stay away for my own sake as I knew if I took something, it was more likely I’d be addicted to it as the family link was there.”
Her younger brother fell into addiction in his teens but managed to recover before doing an apprenticeship as an electrician.
“He did a complete 180,” says McGuire. “I’m wicked proud of him.”
Her mother endures a different fate. “It got worse. I meet her every now and again, ask her how she’s getting on. Where she’s living – I’m not really sure. She’s still struggling, but hopefully she comes out of it eventually.”
McGuire was the first in her family to go to college, graduating from UL last year after doing her thesis on substance addiction.
“It was a huge day. My grandparents had never been to anything like a graduation and the night before they were panicking: ‘What do we wear?’”
Since last year, she’s been coached by her club-mate at Clonmel AC, Seán Tobin, who’s one of Ireland’s best distance runners. Before she’d done her own thing, training “arseways”, running 10 miles every day and often getting injured. But Tobin brought planning, structure, professionalism.
She didn’t plan to do a marathon for “10 years”, but when Tobin suggested Dublin last September, she decided to give it a go and did an eight-week training block. To avoid injury, she ran just four days a week, totalling about 60 miles, with the rest of her endurance work done on an elliptical. At the Dublin Marathon, she ran with Irish international Ann Marie McGlynn for much of the race and couldn’t believe how easy it felt, as if she was “jogging”.
She hit the finish in third, behind two Ethiopians, and McGuire was the headline story that day. That run showed her the Paris Olympics next year are possible and she must put down two strong marathons over the next 12 months to qualify. She’s all-in on that dream now, training full-time despite the lack of funding for those at her level. It’s why support like that of the Jerry Kiernan Foundation is critical.
McGuire is among the dozen athletes who’ll get a bursary this year from the foundation, which will make a huge difference. She’d never been on a plane until January, when she did her first warm-weather training camp in Portugal. She’s hoping to do an altitude camp in the summer to prepare for the Dublin Marathon in October, and then likely the Valencia Marathon in December.
Down the line, she wants to go into addiction counselling or else become a teacher, though McGuire is also weighing up a master’s in exercise and performance psychology. She has many options now, having made all she could of the hand she was dealt, turning it into a winner.
10 Likes