The Dublin Marathon is the biggest marathon on the island and 21 North Down AC runners were among more than 16000 finishers on Sunday 29th October. In cool, damp conditions, punctuated by heavy rain showers, Ethiopia’s Kemal Husen reset the course record by more than a minute, winning the race in 2:06:52. Several North Down runners lowered their own PBs or set course PBs on the looped course starting and finishing in the city centre and passing through Phoenix Park twice. Despite the weather the crowd support for all the athletes along the 26.2 miles was incredible. First of the North Down finishers was Dale Murray in 2:36:16 closely followed by Ross Murray in 2:36:48. Declan Magee set a new PB of 2:48:51. Matty McParland ran 2:49:10 and Fiona McQuillan was the next finisher from the club in 2:55:59, a course PB only 5 weeks after the Berlin Marathon, taking 4th place in her age group and 19th female overall. Aaron McAuley rounded off the sub-3 hour finishers in 2:58:03, an incredible PB of over 30 minutes! Andy Lowry will undoubtedly have his eyes set on a sub-3 time after setting a new PB of 3:02:12. Andy Belshaw completed his 50th marathon in 3:04:57 ahead of Paul Floyd 3:11:18 and Sarah Gibson 3:20:45. Helen Byers returned to marathon distance in 3:28:06 before Colin Caldwell took 11 minutes off his PB to finish in 3:43:14 followed by Andrew Muir 3:44:52, Donald Smith in a course PB of 3:46:17 and Philip McDonough in 3:48:51. John Ferguson ran his first marathon in 3:54:37 narrowly ahead of fellow marathon debutante, Sarah Connolly who completed the course in 3:56:18. The next club finisher was Richard Garrad in 4:17:13. Andrea Green took nearly 13 minutes off her PB to finish her first Dublin Marathon in 4:45:49. Suspicions that Darren Hamilton wasn’t taking this marathon as seriously as some of his sub-3 hour marathons during completion of the Abbott World Marathon Majors were confirmed when he donned a leprechaun hat and beard at the start line and set about researching the isotonic properties of Guinness along the course but he passed a far more enjoyable 5:23:59 than his clubmates. Glenn Frazer rounded off the north Down runners finishing in 5:52:50.
