![\"Ava](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/c6383ef6-668b-4a93-86c6-3325d2c5ca5c.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCrean, 19, had never run competitively before her marathon debut just six months ago in Manchester, but her time of 2:34:11 saw her finish sixth overall and carve over nine minutes off her previous best of 2:43:38, with national silver going to Ann Marie McGlynn in 2:36:24 and Nichola Sheridan taking bronze in 2:39:55.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still can\u2019t believe it,\u201d said Crean. \u201cFrom the third kilometre I was like, \u2018How am I supposed to keep this pace?\u2019 I was getting cramps here and there but I kept pushing. With 10 kilometres to go my legs seized up. I never felt so much lactate in my legs before. I couldn\u2019t even believe it until I saw the finish line. In my head, I was fighting demons the whole time. But I just kept pushing, kept pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For David McGlynn, a graduate of Providence College in Rhode Island, the day also marked an arrival of sorts \u2013 the 26-year-old Waterford AC athlete hacking over four minutes off his previous best to finish fifth overall, clocking 2:10:59 to win the national title. He was followed home by Ryan Creech of Leevale (2:11:46) and Paul O\u2019Donnell of Dundrum South Dublin (2:12:11).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to put it into words,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have these dreams that if the perfect day comes together you could pull off something like that, but when it actually happens, it\u2019s just surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The race set off in cool, damp conditions from Leeson Street Lower as runners embarked on a 26.2-mile journey through Dublin\u2019s city centre, the Phoenix Park and surrounding suburbs before finishing at Mount Street Upper. There was a record-breaking turnout, surpassing the milestone 40th-anniversary event in 2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ava Crean celebrates after winning the women’s national title at the 2025 Irish Life Dublin Marathon<\/p>\n
News in 90 Seconds \u2013 October 26th 2025<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s race, 45-year-old Ann Marie McGlynn was targeting her third straight national title but was unable to match the pace of Crean over the final 10km. There may be 26 years between Crean and McGlynn in age, but there was rarely more than a couple of metres between them for much of the race, with both passing 10km in 36:51 and Crean leading them through halfway in 1:17:13, just over five minutes behind the leaders (1:11:46).<\/p>\n
When Crean began to learn about the sport earlier this year, she had looked up McGlynn\u2019s winning times of 2:34 for the past two years and felt they were out of reach. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh my God, that\u2019s amazing,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cListening to her and the story that she missed out on the Olympics by four seconds and she kept running, and she\u2019s still running at 45 \u2013 I want something like that. That\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wearing the colours of the Back 2 Boston Running Club \u2013 which was started by her coach, John Kinsella \u2013 Crean broke clear of McGlynn approaching 30km and extended that advantage all the way to the finish, raising her arms aloft as she approached the line. \u201cThe guys on the course and the crowds were amazing,\u201d she said. \u201cThey kept saying, \u2018Keep going, hold on,\u2019 and that\u2019s what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
A native of Raheen in Limerick City, Crean did climbing, karate and camogie in her youth but took a four-year hiatus from sport towards the end of primary school before taking up basketball, earning a place on the U-17 national team academy. She started running purely as a way of staying fit during the pandemic, and after enrolling at University Academy 92 in Manchester last year, she signed up for the Manchester Marathon, listing her target time as 3:30 but finishing in 2:49.<\/p>\n
Her run in Dublin puts her second on the Irish women\u2019s marathon top list for 2025 behind Fionnuala McCormack\u2019s 2:30:16 and moves her 13th on the Irish all-time list.<\/p>\n
![\"Winner](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/6e4b1d73-178d-42b6-8139-ea63acacfb47.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Winner of the Men\u2019s race at the 2025 Irish Life Dublin Marathon, Daniel Mesfin<\/p>\n
For McGlynn, silver felt almost as good as gold, having torn her hamstring six weeks ago, which left a question mark over whether she could compete. \u201cGetting on that start line for me was winning,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make excuses, but I wasn\u2019t myself today.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGlynn had run the race in honour of her husband\u2019s grandmother, Margaret, who passed away on Friday. But bypassing the race was never on the table. \u201cIf it was any other marathon I\u2019d have thought, \u2018lay down,\u2019\u201d she said. McGlynn had Crean\u2019s \u201ccard marked\u201d before the race and paid tribute to the new champion: \u201cShe showed up today and she was full of running.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the front of the race, four women had passed 30km together but by 35km, the race for glory was down to two with Addunyaa joined by Ethiopian compatriot Kena Girma. Addunya had the better strength in the closing kilometre and came home four seconds clear of Girma (2:26:32) with fellow Ethiopian Atsede Baysa third in 2:27:12.<\/p>\n
In the men\u2019s race, Hiko Tonosa led the way for the Irish until 30K but, as it was at the recent World Championships, he was unable to reach the finish, stepping off the course soon after as he was fading out of contention.<\/p>\n
Up front, the men\u2019s race boiled down to a duel between Mesfin and Siyum and at the last water station it looked as if Siyum had stolen a decisive lead when Mesfin stalled to take a drink, but the US athlete ran down his rival and surged clear with a kilometre to run. Sweden\u2019s Samuel Tsegaye rounded out the podium in 2:09:28.<\/p>\n
McGlynn had passed halfway as the fourth Irishman in 1:04:58 but he overtook Tonosa just after 30km, holding his pace admirably in the closing kilometres to clock 2:11:01, which moves him 10th on the Irish all-time list.<\/p>\n
He had logged 200km a week in training while on an Athletics Ireland altitude camp in Font Romeu, France, in preparation. \u201cWhen you\u2019re running that much, it\u2019s hard to tell what shape you\u2019re in because you\u2019re so tired all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this week, you start to taper and feel really good and think a big day could be on the cards. But I don\u2019t know if I even expected something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his hamstrings were \u201ccramping pretty bad\u201d in the closing kilometres. \u201cThe last few miles, the atmosphere was all that kept me going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thousands of charity runners and familiar faces were among those on the start line at another memorable edition of the fabled race. Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley and assistant manager Glenn Cronin were running to raise \u20ac100,000 for Oscar\u2019s Kids, while former Irish International footballer Damien Duff was running in support of Heart Children Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crean, 19, had never run competitively before her marathon debut just six months ago in Manchester, but her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45574,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-105048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-dublin-marathon","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}