A truly jam-packed report sees us start with yesterday’s major event at the Wicklow Athletics Road Championship, this year held in Avondale. We then pivot back to May for ten more results, including a race win on the roads and Keith Mulvey’s epic adventure at Everest.

Results from our own fund-raiser Lap of the Gap and the Glen to Glen Half-marathon were omitted from this report due to forgetfulness on part of the organiser! They will be included in the next report.

WICKLOW ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP 2026

The club has competed in the Wicklow Road Championship every year since its inception in 2015. Across 11 editions, Glendalough AC has now posted 108 results, averaging almost 10 runners per event, with a high of 14 runners in 2023.

Aaron Cullen produced the standout performance of the night, lowering his own PB and the overall club record from 16:44 to 16:16. Gavin Kennedy also improved his previous mark, knocking five seconds off his standing 18:23 PB. Paul Duffy, our second man home on the night, took a PB by the slimmest of margins, shaving one second off his 2025 championship time to finish in 17:56.

There were individual medals for Donna Quinn, who took Silver F45, Paul Duffy, who won Silver M45, and Christina Byrne, who claimed Bronze F70. The M50 team also took Bronze through the efforts of Graham Bushe, Angus Tyner and Jimmy Cullen.

The strategy to focus on the masters category, rather than having our fastest masters support Aaron Cullen in the senior men’s team, unfortunately backfired. With our top four runners, we would have won Bronze in the senior men’s category. Instead, the masters men finished 5th, while our masters women’s team finished 4th.

KEADEEN

On the same evening in West Wicklow, Alan Kennedy and Eoin Phelan continued to be nearly ever-present racers on this year’s IMRA calendar, taking on the 10.1 km race at Keadeen.

Result: Keadeen

EARLIER IN MAY

TORY HILL

A missing result from earlier reports: Eoin Phelan travelled west for the hill race at Tory Hill on the 9th of May.

Result: Tory Hill

SLIEVE DONARD

A week later, Eoin continued his relentless quest to become the club’s most prolific racer ever. He was our sole competitor in the North for the Irish Championship race at Slieve Donard.

Result: Slieve Donard

ARDGILLAN

We move back to the 20th of May for the Ardgillan race, where Aaron Cullen finished a superb 2nd behind former Irish international Barry Minnock. Eoin Phelan, of course, raced as well.

Result: Ardgillan

COOLEY HALF-MARATHON

Three days later, further north, we had a surprisingly big contingent racing at the Cooley Half-Marathon. It was a welcome outing for Johnny Conway, who lives local to the race. Johnny was our third club man home after the in-form Ian Bromley and Stephen Kennedy, with Anne Bromley our first and only female competitor home.

Result: Cooley Half-Marathon

SUGAR BOWL

The Sugar Bowl Leinster League race was next, and Graham Bushe had offered up yet another challenging route for the Wednesday enthusiasts to feast on, with plenty of ups and downs. Alan Kennedy was first home for the club and 2nd M55, while, as so often, Loraine Creane was only seconds behind, winning the F45 category on the night.

Result: Sugar Bowl 2026

EVEREST MARATHON

The month of May came to a close with a truly epic adventure, as long-term member Keith Mulvey completed the iconic Everest Marathon from Base Camp at over 5,000 metres, running — sometimes! — downhill to 3,300 metres. Keith finished in just over 10.5 hours in the thin air of Nepal, in what was surely the adventure of a lifetime. Until the next one, knowing Keith.

Result: Everest Marathon

BEARA WAY CHALLENGE

During the same weekend as the relay, Eoin Phelan once again showed he is geographically flexible, travelling to the Beara Peninsula for the 24.5 km Challenge event, which ran alongside the Beara Way Ultra and Lite events.

Result: Beara Way Challenge

WEXFORD RUNNING FESTIVAL 10K

Back on the roads a few days later, Louis Byrne took a rare road race win for our men’s section when he stepped onto the top of the rostrum with a 40:09 performance at the Wexford Festival of Running in Enniscorthy.

Result: Wexford Running Festival 10k

SCARR

Our third club championship counter was on another local hill: Scarr. The race used a slight variation on previous courses but still took in the formidable murder kilometre along the wall.

Paul Duffy showed great form to lead us home, taking 2nd M45, with Graham Bushe not far behind in 3rd M55. We had a great attendance overall, with nine runners taking part in this Club Championship counter.

Coach René ran, as is now his usual, with son Cillian on the 5.1 km short course, which still inflicted the murder kilometre on legs young and old.

Result: Scarr 2026 Long Course

Result: Scarr 2026 Short Course

GROCER’S 4 MILE

Eoin Phelan was first out of the blocks for racing in June when he joined over 660 other runners at Leopardstown Racecourse for the Grocer’s 4 Mile.

Result: Grocer’s 4 Mile

Two road marathons and two trail races in our backlog of reporting.

ROTTERDAM MARATHON

Report pride of place goes to Catherine Devitt whose fantastic 3:01:39 marathon debut in Rotterdam knocked 13 minutes off Donna Quinn’s overall and F40 club records.

Brighton Marathon

David Murphy enjoyed good sunshine taking on the Brighton Marathon and reported: ‘Tough day, but got it done. 👍’

Westport Marathons

Wind, sun and hills were on offer at the Westport marathon where Nora Butler ran well to secure 4th female spot overall on a day where the course record was lowered to 2:33 by Sean Hehir.

WEXFORD 10K AND HALF-MARATHON

Before we turn to the trails, we had a few more road races – with Eoin Phelan building his lead in ‘Most Prolific’ racer to 11 running despite broken ribs in the half-marathon where new member Owen O’Connor ran in the 10k.

Inis Oirr 10 km

Tivon Tyner ran the Lee Road ParkRun with his father – long-term club member Angus Tyner – in 22:52 (Angus ran 20:10 for 3rd overall) and then headed over to run the very bump Inis Oirr 10 km race in 48:55 – a club best for men aged 18-19 years in our club.

STREETS OF KILKENNY 5K

The most recent result of our bunch where club secretary Donna Quinn had won tickets to the Streets of Kilkenny with daughter Lily (member of Parnell) to the Streets of Kilkenny 5k and ran a solid time while enjoying a night away!

Maurice Mullins 50k

Only three GMACers took on the Maurice Mullins this year and it was Philip O’Brien leading the team home ahead of Graham Bush and James Heggie.

Strahahely Woods

Becky Quinn took yet another victory as she extends her women’s win record with IMRA with Graham Bush taking the M55 and Joe Lalor the M70 at Stranahelly where James Heggie DNFed.

GAELFORCE BELMONT 10K

Edson participated in another Gaelforce event – this one in Belmont with Laura Cardiff also finishing.

A bumper report follows from the World Mountain Masters Running Championship in Canfranc, the Dingle Half and Full marathon, the ‘2x Lakes’ races in Wicklow (Lakers 10k in Roundwood and The Lakes 10k in Blessington) spiced up with action from Ratoath, IMRA, and more! We have four medals, one podium and three PBs in today’s report….

we will start with the World Master’s and work our way back to some older results…

WORLD MASTERS MOUNTAIN RUNNING CHAMPIONSHIP

We had runners competing in all three of the races at the World Masters Mountain Running Championship in Canfranc that began with an uphill 6.5 km race on Friday.

UPHILL 6.5 K

Recent joinees Becky Quinn and Joe Lalor opened their World Master’s event at the Uphill with Becky securing an impressive Bronze medal in the women’s F50 category. Graham Bush was second home from the club and began his quest for three races in three days…

LONG TRAIL 34K

aforementioned Graham Bush made it two races out of two and it looked briefly like he and the Irish M55 team had secured a Bronze medal but a disqualification for Vasiliy Neumerzhitskiy (for discarding his jacket before the finish) meant the Irish teams was bumped out of the medals! Becky Quinn unfortunately had to pull out after the first checkpoint.

UP/DOWN CLASSIC 17K

On the final day it was time for Paul Duffy and Kevin Doherty to join the fray and for Joe Lalor to have his second outing. Paul Duffy was our first man home and second scorer for the Irish M40 team that secured team Silver ahead of the Italians. As a funny anecdote three men from Baldoyle had an involvement – Ian Conroy (first man home), Paul, and Kevin Doherty (who just missed out on scoring – coming in fourth Irishman).

Joe Lalor was third scorer for the Irish M70 team who won gold and got their turn on the top part of the podium for the national anthem.

This put a fine finish to a successful championship yielding one individual and three team medals (one gold, one silver, two bronze).

DINGLe MARATHON

Aoife O’Brien raced along three other members including partner Aidan Redmond and secured and impressive podium on the tough marathon course in Dingle.

RATOATH HALF-MARATHON

Eoin Phelan clocked another race and another PB lowering his half-marathon best to 1:35.

DRAGON’S BACK WALES

John Conway was on another adventure with wife Laura and friend from Parnell: Michael Dowling taking on the 6-day Dragon’s Back stage race event over some of the roughest terrain Wales’ has to offer. In the end Michael Dowling was the only finisher of the trio with Laura succumbing to injury and John having to throw in the towel after stomach issues after 3 days and just over 33 hours of running.

MEDIC HALF-MARATHON

Kevin Ferguson knocked 56 seconds off his PB to run 1:34:22 for the half-marathon at the Medic Half-marathon with wife Niamh knocking nearly 27 minutes off her own best.

NAV CHALLENGE 1 – BARRAVORE

Locally, Chris Willoughby tried his hands at the navigation challenge finishing 18th.

CARLINGFORD FOX’S ROCK

Angus Tyner and Graham Bush went head to head at the northern Leinster Championship counter in Carlingford and Angus used his navigational skills to get himself home first in a fine 5th overall with Graham Bush two spots behind. despite the lofty finishes Bernard Fortune took the M55 with Angus and Graham 2nd and 3rd.

THE LAKES 10 KM

The trio of Aoife, Colm and Donna travelled to Blessington to attend the always worthwhile Lakes 10k. While there were no PBs, Donna secured 2nd F40 with Aoife improving on last year’s time.

ROUNDWOOD ‘RUN FOR LAKERS’ 10 KM

Same day, same distance and nearly the same name – a runner could be forgiven if they turned up on the trails of Roundwood instead of the roads of Blessington but thankfully our only representative – Nora Butler was where she was meant to be and finished well up in 34th out over over 300 starters in a great time of 45:50.

ZUIDERPARKRUN 5 KM

Meanwhile in Holland Richard Costelloe ran his second fastest 5 km of the season finishing 2nd in the Zuiderparkrun.

We begin our report by extending congratulations to our finishers of the various Quest Adventure Race distances this weekend: John Conway, Corrie Adams, Britta ???, and Mark Willoughby.

MAURICE MULLINS 51K

There are still some errors with early starters in the Maurice Mullins 51k results but we have tried to manually adjust and report below.

ROSSLARE 10K

Another ‘legacy’ result we missed was Jonathan Cody running in the Rosslare 10k.

RESULT

1. Paul Doran () 0:34:06
   ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
2. Jonathan Cody 1:01:26

ANNAGH HILL

Wet and muddy climbing on hands and knees was the order of the day at the always tough Annagh Hill course once again on the IMRA calendar in a slightly changed variation.

WINDMILL 5 KM AND 10 KM

Aran Lynham and Nora Butler took on the 5 km and 10 km distances respectively at a windy ‘Windmill’ run. While PBs were not on the cards, Aran helped himself to a 5th place overall while Nora secured PB in the 10 km which doubled up as the Dublin County 10k championship.

5 km

10 km

PARIS MARATHON

Donall Flanagan reported from Paris that while things didn’t quite go to plan, he was still relieved to get through this big city marathon.

DARGLE 4 PEAKS

The most recent results came at the tough and muddy Dargle 4 Peaks unmarked mountain race where a strong field including several Irish internationals and the legend that is Robin Bryson (now competing in the M60) had a go at a route which is point to point and can be run either clockwise or counterclockwise.

Graham Bushe was our first runner home followed by the Wicklow Wolf women Grace Curham and Rebecca Whineray.