'A time in mind': Ann-Marie McGlynn looking to retain national marathon crown

It all started, or in her case re-started, with a walk.

Now, Ann-Marie McGlynn heads for Dublin this weekend looking to retain her national marathon title at the Irish Life Dublin Marathon.

A new course, but the same old distance.

Having been the runner-up in the national marathon on her previous two visits to the Dublin Marathon, McGlynn was the bridesmaid no more when winning last year in 2:34:13.

“I will have a plan and I’ll stick to my plan,” the Letterkenny AC woman says. “You have to run your own race.

"Someone could go off really hard, but you have to be like: ‘Okay, they can do that’. I have a couple of splits on my hand for the mile marker. I’ll have 5k, 10k, 15k marks on my hand and take a quick look. I will have a time in mind.”

The 44-year-old, a native of county Offaly, lives in Strabane and wears the black and amber of LAC. Support will come from all corners.

She says: “The first year, I got a bit over-excited when I saw all my family I had huge support and I got a bit carried away. There is nothing like the home support. It’s unreal. People who don’t even know you shout you on.

“I run for Letterkenny and I’ll be wearing the Letterkenny vest; they’re.a huge support. I run the streets of Strabane every day of the week so I have huge support from them too.

“It’s my fourth time to do Dublin. I was second twice and I came back last year and it was third time lucky. I got to stand on the number 1 podium and lift the cup. For two years previously, I was looking and willing it my way. I fell short twice. It would be amazing to take it home again.”

McGlynn showed plenty of talent and promise in her early years. The then Ann Marie Larkin was the winner of national juvenile and junior titles and she had experience of junior and under-23 international events. She was awarded an athletics scholarship at UCD in 1998 and her talents were evident as she rose the ladder..

She spent some time away from the sport in her 20s but, in 2012, she laced the runners again when her baby son, Alfie, became ill at just three weeks old. The now 12-year-old Alfie came through his early ordeal and his mum recaptured her love of running.

"I just found myself in a little dark place and I knew it wasn’t normal,” she says. “I said to Trevor ‘there’s something happening, I don’t feel right, I need to go out and walk’.

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“I put on my trainers and went for a walk, then a couple of hundred metres job and then a walk again. I knew when I ran years ago it made me feel amazing and I thought I need something to get me through this and that’s what I did.”

McGlynn was within four seconds of the qualifying mark for the women’s marathon for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. McGlynn smashed her PB to set a new Donegal record of 2:29:34 at the Cheshire Elite Marathon in Wrexham, but the qualifying standard was 2:29:30.

Women's National Champion Ann-Marie McGlynn celebrates after the 2023 Irish Life Dublin Marathon. Photo: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

As well as individual successes, McGlynn has been a key cog for the Letterkenny AC women’s team and next month they will tackle the National Senior Cross Country Championships in Irvinestown.

The distance remains the same, but the tests will still endure.

“It’s 26 miles so even when I broke 2:30 I felt amazing, but at 22-23 miles you’ll alway feel that pinch,” she says. “Your muscles fatigue and you feel little aches and pains in the hips, glutes, calves. You be like ‘don’t go on me’ and you will the legs to keep moving.  You will have a bad patch, but you have to try to turn it into a positive over the next mile.

“I started running in primary school and I just kind of gradually joined a club and started to train a bit extra. I was at national championships at under-14 and winning medals and I kept it up. I wasn’t a huge talent when I was younger. I had talent in me, but I had to train to get that talent out.

“I just love it.”