McGlynn breaks legend’s record at Belfast meet

ANN-MARIE McGlynn broke Anne Keenan-Buckley’s long-standing Irish women’s over-40 track 5K record in Belfast at the weekend during North Belfast Harriers Afternoon of 5000s.

The Strabane woman produced a stunning performance at Mary Peters Track, during which she got stronger as the race went on before finishing second overall behind Scottish athlete, Annabel Simpson.

Despite finishing second, McGlynn was thrilled with her overall performance, and particularly with beating one of her hero’s records.

“Anne Keenan-Buckley is a legend,” Ann-Marie enthused. “She ran World’s and Olympics, she was a senior athlete when I was a junior at European level and she was senior manager when I came back after my ‘retirement’.

“She’s a lovely lady and I respect her so much because when I was a young girl she was a legend, someone I looked up to.

She was just brilliant and that was a really good record that has stood since 2002.”

On the day, Fife AC’s Simpson made her break earlier than McGlynn fancied, engineering a healthy gap ahead of the final lap during which the Letterkenny AC runner closed in a lightning pace. Unfortunately for the Irish international, Simpson was able to hold on to finish in a Scottish Commonwealth Games standard time of 15.44:87 minutes, which was a new PB.

“With 1200 to go I knew Hannah [Irwin] had slowed at the front and the pace had dropped, so I had to go to the front to do something,” she explained.

“That’s when I went to the front to make something happen and I said to the girls ‘we need to go and do something if we want these numbers’ so I picked it up and then the Scottish girl came around and got away from me.

“I was disappointed to lose that lead but you don’t want to go with 1200 metres to go, it’s a bit early.

“But my last two laps were my fastest, I definitely finished strong and if I had another 100 metres or even 50 metres, I had her.”

McGlynn also earned a new PB in beating Anne Keenan-Buckley record in a stunning time of 14:46.08 minutes, which has given her a massive boost ahead of the 10K at Highgate in London where she hopes to achieve the Commonwealth Games standard so she can compete there, as well as in the European Championships.

The mother of two had qualified to race the marathon at both major events, but with only a fortnight between the two, she was left with a tough decision to make.

In the end, she has decided to represent Ireland over 26.2 miles at the Euro’s and she hopes to don the Northern Ireland vest in the 10K in Birmingham, should she achieve her goal on May 14th.

“Saturday’s race was really a stepping stone into Highgate and onto the track,” McGlynn added. “It’s about recovering now until then and hoping that the stars align again!”