O’Reilly leads Irish charge on the streets of New York

The streets of New York became an 'athletes only’ zone on Sunday when the city’s famous marathon got underway with Meath’s Karl O’Reilly putting in a strong performance to become the first Irishman to cross the line in a time of two hours, 34 minutes and 16 seconds. A former senior footballer with Ballinlough O’Reilly’s performance was made all the more impressive as this was the first time he has taken part in a marathon. O’Reilly’s performance helped him secure 72nd place in one of the world’s most famous races which attracted thousands of runners to the Big Apple. The winner of the men’s race was Gebre Gebrmariam of Ethiopia in 2:08:14, while Kenya’s Edna Kipcagat won the ladies category in 2:28:20. From Kilskyre, O’Reilly played nine years in the colours of Ballinlough when they were in the senior ranks and one of his last games was the relegation play-off that consigned the club to the intermediate ranks. O’Reilly emigrated to New York in 2007 where he works in the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre on the site where the Twin Towers were destroyed on 11th September 2001. He is a project manager with scaffolding company owned by John and Michael Breslin from Kells. The 31-year-old who lives in New Jersey, only started running competitively two years ago and took part in the New York and the Philadelphia half marathons before focusing on the 26 miles last Sunday. “New York is the first marathon I have taken part in and it’s a tough race because there are a lot of hilly sections,” he told the Meath Chronicle on Monday as he sought to recover from his exertions. “To run 2:34 is not professional but not far off it and I was happy with my time. Around 17 or 18 miles in I started to get a little bit of cramp and I would get a dart every so often and I had to manage the last couple of miles. I had trained for over four months seven days a week so I knew I was in shape to be in and around that 2:35 mark.” The race started on Staten Island and finished in Central Park in cool, dry conditions O’Reilly described as “ideal.” He added that he was “over the moon” to realise he was the top Irish runner in the race. Another runner with Meath connections to take part in the famous race was Fr Martin Mulvaney, the parish priest of the Johnstown/Walterstown parish. He was running as part of a drive to raise funds for Walterstown GAA club.