Donegal duo complete Dublin marathon for worthy charity Ability Rocks

Two Donegal men completed the Irish Life Dublin Marathon last week as a fundraiser to help children with additional needs in the county and have described it as a “great experience.”

Glenties native Martin Doherty (53), and Joe Boyle (54) from Ardara ran a marathon after four months of intensive training to fundraise for a local cause Ability Rocks, which was established by Martin Shovelin in Narin, Portnoo.

“It is run by locals who work as coaches, they take in children from all around the area to participate in sport,” Martin Doherty told DonegalLive.

“A few years ago Martin Shovelin probably saw that his son Cian would not have the opportunity to participate in sporting activities so Martin set up an initiative where he got local people to come in as coaches and children to participate from all around the area. 

“What they have done was provide a service for those who wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity. Cian is now attending St Columba’s Comprehensive School Glenties and is getting on great.”

Ability Rocks was set up to facilitate children with additional needs to participate in sports with coaches helping them. The group meets every Monday evening in the Dolmen Centre, Portnoo and the coaches take the children on a one-to-one basis and practise a variety of sports. The group currently has 40 children and 40 coaches. 

“I am from Glenties and my running friend Joe is from Ardara, so we knew we wanted to fundraise for a worthy cause.  At first, we were going to pick an individual charity from our local community. Then we spoke about it and decided Ability Rocks covers everywhere and it is a great opportunity for both of us to work together and raise money.”

The Dublin Marathon sees thousands of participants gather and fundraise for various causes. This year, over 22,000 participants took part in the marathon. 

“We had been running for several years, we meet on a Sunday morning,” Martin Doherty added. “This past 16 weeks we have set up a programme to set a structure for our training to prepare for the Marathon.

“We would have done about 18-20 miles every Sunday for the first number of weeks and then in the weeks coming up to the marathon, we wind down a bit so we’re ready when the marathon comes around.

Both Joe and Martin have previously ran marathons, but this was the first time they had done one together. 

“I have done one marathon previously it was in Derry in 2014 and it was always in my head since then to do one again so I suppose with the two of us training and last year it didn’t work out this year we seen an opportunity to try and push on and do it,” Martin said.

Joe Boyle ran the Irish Life Dublin Marathon in 2022 despite sustaining an injury previously, “I ran the Dublin marathon last year and about six weeks before I sustained an injury and I could not complete the full training, after about 11 miles I knew the injury was still there it went into a tight knot, I got finished but it was way above my time,” Joe told DonegalLive.

This year Joe and Martin undertook the challenge together, sceptical about injuries but driven to complete the marathon together. 

“The marathon was what we expected, we had little injuries going into it and we were worried something would happen a few miles in but everything went well,” Joe added. 

“We saw numerous people pull in, especially from about twelve miles onwards. Everything went great, the two of us were very happy and we had a plan in our head for our time frame. We came in at three hours 34 minutes which we were delighted with.

“It wasn’t the best weather, it was torrential rain to the last mile which didn’t help, but were very happy with it, it went very well. The two of us trained all summer together, we did all of our hill work and speed work, we talked about everything so the two of us stayed together, we pretty much ran at the same speed so we came in at the same time. The two of us are so happy to get it done this time injury free and it was a great experience”.

If you would like to donate to Martin and Joe's fundraiser, you can do so by dropping money into local shops in both Glenties and Ardara. Alternatively, you can donate to Martin’s PayPal martindoc40@gmail.com or Joe’s Revolut 087-4119459