Last Saturday may have been St Valentine’s day, but there wasn’t much in the way of glamour for three Mullingar endurance athletes, who ran through the pain barrier to claim first prize in the Donadea Forest Park 50k Championship event.
Colm Walsh, Maurice Looby and Gerry Duffy finished first in the team event in a race that included approximately 200 competitors at Donadea Forest Park, Kildare.
The Mullingar trio trained diligently for the event over the past 16 weeks, with most of the miles clocked up during the winter months. While the bulk of the preparation was down to tough, individual runs, they did meet up regularly for collective training in Mullingar.
“We were thrilled to win the team event because we spent all winter preparing for it and it was a great achievement,” beamed Colm Walsh when speaking to Topic on Tuesday.
“We would have been running anywhere between 60-80 miles per week in preparation for it and the fact that this was done over the Winter months made it even tougher,” he explained.
The race consisted of 10 laps of the 5k Donadea Forest Park, a lovely scenic setting with inclines that get tougher at the end of every lap. It was a very high profile event, recognised by IAU (International Association of Ultra Runners) and for the Mullingar men to win the team event was no mean feat.
It was Colm’s third time to compete in the event, while Gerry and Maurice are also very seasoned ultra runners. Running for Mullingar Harriers, their combined scoring ensured them of the first team prize. In the past they had a team in the same event, also representing Mullingar Harriers and they came third, so to win it last Saturday was sweet.
“The three of us went through the marathon distance in under three hours, which is great, but this was 50k and there was more to do. We all ran personal bests. Maurice was the first of us home in a time of 3hrs 18 mins; I was 10th overall (3.31) and Gerry finished in 18th place (3.39),” said Colm.
A stalwart of the Mullingar Harriers Club, Colm is a very experienced marathon runner and has competed in events all over the world.
The race winner, Gary O’Hanlon from Clonliffe Harriers, defended his national title, setting an Irish record of 2.57.06.
