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flattening out, and before long she simply fell out of love with the sport. ‘In 2006 I decided to stop,’ she says. ‘It was by choice rather than injury. I was losing a bit of interest and making the jump from junior to senior was tough. I felt like a little fish in a big pond. It’s all or nothing for me, and I wasn’t giving it 100 percent.’ Ann-Marie got married the following year to Trevor McGlynn – the national junior 60m hurdles record holder – and the couple settled in his hometown of Strabane, Co Tyrone. They had their first child, Lexie, in 2010 and their second, Alfie, in 2012. McGlynn stayed active by going to gym but, truth be told, she didn’t miss running, and was never really tempted to make a comeback. ‘I was happy,’ she says. ‘I had no intention of going back. I missed the girls, meeting up with them and the banter, but I didn’t miss the training or the racing.’ In the end, it was the most challenging of circumstances that made her lace up her shoes once again. Little Alfie, just three weeks old, got bronchiolitis and suffered a collapsed lung. ‘It was touch and go for a while whether he’d make it,’ says Ann-Marie. ‘At that time, I felt I had a lot of sadness in me. I was always one for “can you not just snap out of a depression?” but I could feel myself getting pulled in, and I knew this feeling wasn’t right for me. I thought, I need to do something.’ That something, as it turned out, was a run: ‘I said I’d go for a jog/walk for a couple of miles, and it helped a lot. I’m not somebody who goes out and listens to music when I run; I just run and think. I like to clear my head. ‘I’d do that every couple of days. Then after a while I realised I was getting fitter, starting to like it, and getting the bug back. I was getting fitter, and Alfie was getting stronger.’ Upward curve As her progress continued, the competitive fires of old were stoked, and a few months after starting back she ran a 5k road race and posted 19:40. ‘It was the hardest 19 minutes of my life,’ she recalls, ‘but I just kept going with it, and my times started coming down really quickly.’ At that time, she was coached by Kevin Connolly in Lifford, but when he left the club she made the move to Teresa McDaid in Letterkenny. Together, they targeted the European CC in December 2013, and she got there, finishing 49th. Last year – still on an upward curve – she targeted the same event, intent on doing better, but on the week of the National Intercounties she got sick: ‘I raced it anyway, but I had to work really hard and just about made the team.’
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In 2006 I decided to stop; making the jump from junior to senior was tough – I felt like a little fish in a big pond
She was named captain for the Europeans in Samokov, and it was a role she wanted to fulfil by contributing to the team score. And so she started conservatively, determined to come through the field rather than risk going out hard and fading. Her memories of the race are patchy, but she can recall members of team management shouting team positions. When she heard no updates for the duration of the last lap, she assumed they were finishing fourth or fifth. ‘When I crossed the line I just wanted to know if Fionnuala (Britton) had won an individual medal, because I was really rooting for her,’ says McGlynn. Of course Britton had finished sixth, but that disappointment was forgotten in an instant when the team filtered through the mixed zone and were told by Irish journalists they had bagged bronze.
The six – Fionnuala Britton in sixth, Sara Treacy 12th, Michelle Finn 23rd, McGlynn 46th, Siobhán O’Doherty 47th, and Laura Crowe 53rd – had pulled off a notable coup for Irish athletics. Upon arriving back in Ireland, McGlynn was treated to a homecoming reception and found the whole thing slightly surreal: ‘People came out and welcomed us home! I was in shock – I thought, I’m only running. To me, it was normal, but for everybody else it was a big thing.’ Indeed, when her children get a bit older, they too will begin to understand just how big a thing their mother achieved at the age of 34. It hasn’t been easy, but McGlynn seems to have finally found the right balance. ‘I live in Strabane, which is 20 miles from Letterkenny,’ she says. ‘I go in and train with Teresa’s group twice a week, then do my strength and conditioning with JT Physiotherapy in Letterkenny, who’ve helped me so much.’ These days, running plays a secondary role in her life; it’s slightly ironic, then, that she’s now achieving more than when she allowed it to become allconsuming. ‘My family comes first, running comes second, and that can be a good thing. Years ago it was all run, run, run, but now it’s not. Nothing is set in stone, and it’s more enjoyable because I appreciate it more now. I’m glad to be where I am.’
Irish Runner 51