At this year's Flatline Half Marathon wereMick Murphy pictured with the three first men home, first was Niall Sheehan, second was David Mansfield and third was Peter Mooney. Photo: Ann Hennessy.

End of the road for Athlone Half Marathon

HAVING been staged in Athlone for the past five years, the Flatline Athlone Half Marathon has come to an end, the race organisers have confirmed this week.

According to David Seery, the race committee came to a decision that it was no longer feasible to continue 'due to their own commitments and the level of work involved in organising the event'.
The race started out in 2012 and was the idea of eight Athlone locals who had competed in triathlons and sporting events around the country. The eight are Des Howlin, David Seery, Michael Murphy, Nick Friel, Richard Ross, Tommy Murray, Adrian Dolan and Stephen O’Reilly.

Having completed the route on several training runs, the group decided to try to organise a half marathon in Athlone and the event snowballed from there.
Having secured the support of the race headquarters St Aloysius College, Clonown village and Westmeath and Roscommon County Councils, the Flatline route was son confirmed and certified by Athletics Ireland.
“All we needed then was the runners, so we set about trying to establish the event and targeted 250 to 300 on year one,' said Mr Seery, a member of the organising committee.
“We were astounded to see 800 runners show up at the first ever event and the rest is history. The event grew and grew every year after. We tried to learn from our mistakes and improve the event each year and due to the race route, we capped the race entry at 1,200 – and still the race sold out every year, which proved how popular it had become,” he added.
Organisers, who always promoted the race as the ideal preparation for the Dublin City Marathon, facilitated requests to host a 10k and even a full marathon one year, with the race undoutbedly becoming firmly established on the Irish running calendar.
“We were extremely fortunate to have excellent weather every year,” said Seery.
“But the reality is that the event became so big and was organised to such a high standard, that the workload became too excessive for those involved. The majority of the committee have decided to compete in Ironman Barcelona next year, so we really had no time to commit to organising such a sizeable event. 'The committee members also changed over the years due to the workload and we felt, collectively, that we had given all we could and could no longer continue. We were pulling from the same group of friends and family to help each year and the event became so popular it was hard to sustain the level of help required. We hope that local runners have gained from having this event on their doorstep and will continue to support other local races in Tullamore, Longford and Roscommon and so on,” he added.
The event had attracted several elite runners to the event over the years with past winners like Maria McCambridge going on to win the Dublin City Marathon only weeks after competing in the Athlone event.
“The committee are extremely thankful to all those who helped in any way over the five years,” said Mr Seery. 

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