With four runners in the ultramarathon and one in the half marathon Slaney Olympic continued it’s love of long distance running in Connemara on 7th April.

In the Ultra Maurice, Marie and Joanne had run the course before but it was a first outing for Seamus at anything over marathon distance. Conditions on the day were were testing with a brisk south easterly wind blowing all day. The wind favoured the runners in the early stages as they headed west from Maam Cross. Turning north through the Inagh valley and through the marathon start at 13 miles it was still a side wind. Then as they turned east near Kylemore and looked forward to the descent into Leenane the expected advantage of gravity was more than counteracted by the ever strengthening wind in their faces which was with them to Leenane where they joined the half marathon route. The last 13 miles south through the Maam Valley offer some very testing ascents made more demanding by the headwind funnelling up the valley.

Maurice, steady as ever, ran a terrific race finishing the 39.3 miles in 5 hours 26 minutes just seconds behind Shane Whitty. Marie looked as fresh at the finish as she had when we had last seen her at 14 miles and took an amazing one hour off her time in 2011 with a finish time of 6.31. Seamus put in a really gutsy performance in his first ultra coming home in 6.52. The ever cheerful Joanne ran a great steady race finishing in 8.26.

John Chapman competed in the half marathon. Not alone was it an uphill route but the wind was in his face the whole way. Despite that he finished the course in a very creditable 2.14