{"id":152674,"date":"2025-10-30T04:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152674\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T04:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:21:14","slug":"limericks-dublin-marathon-hero-has-strong-link-to-manchester-united-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152674\/","title":{"rendered":"Limerick&#8217;s Dublin Marathon hero has strong link to Manchester United legends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Ava Crean has taken the Irish marathon scene by storm, claiming national victory at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/245\/sport\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025 Irish Life Dublin Marathon<\/a> with an astonishing finishing time of 2:34:12,\u00a0finishing sixth overall, and became the youngest person to win the women&#8217;s national title.<\/p>\n<p>\n Crean, from Mungret, Raheen, began running during Covid, training initially on a treadmill, she only made her marathon debut in Manchester in May, finishing in 2:49:26, before lowering her personal best to 2:43:39 in Limerick a week later.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n &#8220;I still can\u2019t believe it. I couldn\u2019t have done it without my coach, my family, and my friends,&#8221; Crean said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n &#8220;When I first started looking at marathons, I saw Anne-Marie had won this race two years in a row. Seeing 2:34 today, I just can\u2019t believe it!&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n Crean tracked Ann-Marie McGlynn (Strabane AC) for the opening 25k, with the Tyrone athlete having to settle for national silver this year, having won back-to-back titles.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n McGlynn crossed the line in two hours, thirty-six minutes and twenty-four seconds, with Nichola Sheridan\u00a0of Bohermeen AC winning national bronze (2:39:56 PB).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n The young athlete is currently studying exercise science at University Academy 92 in Manchester, an accelerated course co-founded by Manchester United legends including Gary Neville and Paul Scholes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n Despite the intense schedule, Crean has rapidly progressed in the marathon world.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n &#8220;John Kinsella is my coach. When I won Limerick, he contacted me and started proper training. Every day after work, he came out to train with me around Raheen. It\u2019s been incredible having that support,&#8221; she said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n Crean reflected on her journey from starting with 500m intervals on a treadmill to winning a national marathon in under three hours.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n &#8220;I started running\u00a0during Covid and couldn\u2019t even manage 500 metres without stopping. Now I\u2019ve run 2:34. If you\u2019re starting out, just get outside. You can stop whenever you want. Just start.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n She also drew inspiration from elite runners like Anne-Marie McGlynn, who kept pace with her in the early stages of the Dublin course.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n &#8220;I just wanted to stay with her as long as I could. She missed the Olympics by four seconds and is 46. I want to be like her,&#8221; Crean concluded.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ava Crean has taken the Irish marathon scene by storm, claiming national victory at the 2025 Irish Life&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[52,18,19,17,1844,18486,9214,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-152674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dublin","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-limerick","13":"tag-mungret","14":"tag-raheen","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115461205727880635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}