McGroarty sets a new national record in Italy

ED McGroarty played the captain’s role to perfection at the IAU 24 Hour European Championships in Italy over the weekend where be broke his own National record.

The Raphoe man had been named as Team Ireland skipper before the event and he was keen to mark the occasion in style. He had hoped to move his own previous best from 256 kilometres over 24 hours to 261 but he was more than happy to finish on 258.820 kilometres.

“I knew I had it in me to keep improving but you don’t know until you’ve actually done it, so I’m delighted to be able to do it on this occasion,” beamed the Bray native.

“My target going out was to try to break the 260 kilometres because I had gone to 256 on my last time, so really you’re looking to get over that 260 mark and it was close.

“I got to 258.8 so it was just one or two laps short but I wasn’t disappointed!”

To finish as Ireland’s top performer was as rewarding for McGroarty as his new national record because he was keen to impress in his role as captain.

“It felt fantastic just to be asked to be captain, it made me feel really proud,” he beamed.

“And then to go through the process as Irish captain and to lead the team over there gave me an immense feeling of pride and it made me think I had to go and earn the captaincy.

“It motivated me to push when things were getting tough because I couldn’t come home as the last finisher – they’d never make me captain again!”

The Lifford Strabane Athletics Club runner was part of what was Team Ireland’s strongest teams to date even though seven of them were running for the first time in a European Championships.

A squad of six women and eight men had qualified for the event with the original line up changing before race day.The women’s team was reduced to five and Dave Andrews, with a PB of 244.417km, was brought in to replace the injured Daragh O’Loughlin.

When the race started there were 29 Federations with 236 athletes on the start line it’s no surprise that with those numbers all running simultaneously, McGroarty was glad the event wasn’t solely track-based.

“It was run over a 1,525 metre loop, so just under a mile,” he explained. You entered the track and that’s where the crews were, so you did a full loop of the track and then 1.1 kilometres outside around the track and then you came back in again.

“I don’t mind the track but the problem is it gets busy and it can get crowded and the more you weave around people you’re logging up big distances but it’s not going to count because you’re off the racing line.

“I’m fine with the track, but not with those sort of numbers all on it at once!”

After a gruelling 24 hours of running, McGroarty finished inside the top 20, and Ireland’s women’s team finished in eight position with a total distance covered of 636.462km and the men were ninth with 727.715Km completed. Meanwhile, the individual titles went to Aleksandr Sorokin from Lithuania finishing with a new world record distance of 319.614Km and Patricja Bereznowska of Poland with a distance of 256.250Km.

Ed will take a short break from competition before running a 24 hour track race in Kildare on New Year’s Eve. Then, in the new year, he’s hoping to run a 48 hour race, possibly in Omagh, which is an IAU Bronze Label race.