A County Armagh marathon runner will mark a magnificent milestone when she completes her 500th big race in the city this weekend.
Elaine McAnulty has travelled all over the world to compete in some of the most famous and challenging marathons.
But it will be a great source of pride come Sunday that her native county will be where she will now hit that tremendous 500 tally.
Not one for fuss or fanfare, it was friends, Matthew Nicholson and Clive Nesbitt, the team behind ‘Run Armagh’, who decided to arrange the event as they did not feel they could let such a record pass by unnoticed or unmarked.
Now all are invited to come out and join in the celebrations and run alongside Elaine – with all abilities welcome.
Elaine, who owns the Retreat Beauty Salon in Banbridge, is originally from Divernagh, near Bessbrook, and attended school in Markethill.
She is proud that family will have the opportunity to come along to the Armagh event on Sunday – and grateful to Matthew and Clive for organising it.
“I’d be good friends with them and they found out when my 500th was going to be. I really don’t like to say too much. I just rather do my own thing and pull the shoes on and away I go,” Elaine told Armagh I.
“The two boys put them on once every month or six weeks or every couple of months or whatever
“But they knew it was coming up sometime soon, so they actually put this event on to mark it. I have to do 499 on Saturday in County Offaly, and then 500 will be in Armagh on Sunday.
“There’s a full marathon, a half marathon and a 10k, so people can actually even just go and run or walk or whatever they want to do so that they get the medal, even just by doing the 10k.
Elaine previously celebrates completing her 400th Marathon, with the 500 milestone now in sight in Armagh this Sunday.
“The pair of them also decided they would design a medal with my picture on it. They said send us a picture and I went, ‘no’, and they went ‘if you don’t send us one we will pick one’. So they have my picture on it. I like to wear a wee bit of sparkle here and there, and they would call me, Mrs Bling, so that’s why they called it ‘Mrs Bling’s 500th Marathon’.”
For Elaine, she has been actively running marathons for the past decade.
It was never her goal, but she has actually become the most prolific female marathon runner in Northern Ireland and is ranked among the most active in the world in terms of races completed.
“I’d done the odd one or two, but it probably really only took off about 10 years ago,” said Elaine. “Most of them are at home, a few of them are in England, like, London, as well as the likes of Berlin, New York, Paris, Chicago, The Bahamas.
“I don’t even think anybody’s got 400, but I’ll be the first female definitely to have 500 marathons in Northern Ireland. There’s a list that comes out every year and I am now, in females, in the top 100 in the world.
“This year in marathons I’m 96th female in the world with the marathons that I’ve done. But I never started out for any of this. I mean, I just did one and didn’t do another one for a few years and then sort of got into it a bit more. They just sort of tally up then at the end of the year.
“I’ve 52 done this year, so that’ll be 43 marathons and nine ultramarathons this year since January.”
Sunday morning’s event will follow the traditional Armagh 10k loop, beginning at the bottom of College Hill, making its way out the Portadown Road and turning left at the Elm Church. The route will eventually arrive back into Armagh, a distance of six miles.
“With the marathon, we do just a wee bit at the start to get the 2k, and then we do that loop four times,” explained Elaine. “The half marathon will do it twice and then the 10k will do it once.
“It’s open to anybody at all. There’s members of my family that have never done anything and they’re coming to do the 10k.
“Everybody’s welcome, no matter what their abilities are. They can walk it, there’s absolutely no bother – a nice wee dander round Armagh on a Sunday morning!”
Consider yourself invited, readers… Elaine and the Run Armagh team would love to have you along on the day for such a special event – and to acknowledge such an incredible achievement.
Elaine McAnulty pictured competing in one of her earlier races.
So how, then, does it feel coming so close to reaching such a milestone?
“I just wish it was over to get on to the next one, 501, and away we go again!” Elaine jokes, before adding: “I suppose there’s a bit more pressure because the event’s put on especially for you, but I’m just happy to get the shoes on and, like every race, just get it started and get it finished, injury free, and that’s it. That’s the main thing.”
Since she started running marathons, Elaine has used the opportunity to raise money for charity, whenever it is appropriate to do so.
And she always opts for the same good cause, knowing that the work which it does is both valuable and vital.
“If I am raising money it’s always for Cancer Focus because it is a local charity and all the money stays there,” she explained. “Obviously, if I’ve done 52 marathons this year, I can’t go and ask people to sponsor me 52 times. So it would just be a big event like this. If I know that there is a bit of interest in it, well that’s when I’ll open up a link for Cancer Focus.
“I run a business here in Banbridge and you don’t want people saying, ‘I’m not going into her again, she’ll be looking sponsored’. I wouldn’t do that to people. There’s a wee sponsor board there or you can do it online or there’ll be a bucket sitting there and there’ll be a bucket there on Sunday; if people want to put a few pound in, that’s it, and if not, it doesn’t make any difference.”
They say that behind every man is a great woman and the same surely rings true in reverse.
And for Elaine, her husband David – as well as her family as a whole – have been very supportive with her marathon efforts over the past 10 years.
“I have a great husband, but he would have been an international hockey player, so he knows what’s involved with the commitment,” she said. “The rest of my family just think I’m absolutely daft! I suppose because I’m doing it, they just think that’s probably normal. I don’t know. It’s probably not very normal!
“My mum would say I didn’t phone you, I didn’t know where you were going to be. You could be in Kilkenny starting at 7 o’clock in the morning or could be on the North Coast starting at 8 o’clock or could be in Galway starting at 9 o’clock. Sometimes the marathons are the easy part. It’s the logistics of getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning to drive somewhere, get home and get up at half three the next morning to drive somewhere else.
“I would just like to thank family and friends and all the race directors for putting the races on. Sometimes it’s hard for us out in the wind and the rain, but it’s a lot harder for them, standing out in the wind and the rain, setting up courses and listening to us all moaning and groaning and clearing up the courses afterwards, so a big thank-you just to the race directors for doing it all for us.”
Now that Mrs Bling’s 500th Marathon is just days away, Elaine is really looking forward to the occasion and to seeing faces both old and new.
And she is grateful that having it in Armagh – as well as the pride and satisfaction that brings – will allow her to share the occasion with her parents and other family members too.
“I just wanted to do nothing, but whenever Matthew and Clive said about doing it, I thought, well yes, that will be nice because it’s only 10 or 15 miles down the road, so at least hopefully my mum and dad can be there,” said Elaine.
“If it wasn’t this weekend, hopefully 501 will be close to Dublin, so there’s a chance – they’re farmers and you never know what goes on on a farm in a morning – hopefully a chance that they’ll maybe make it to Armagh. They certainly wouldn’t have been making it the following week, so it was nice of the boys to actually put that on.”
If you would like to take part, you can register your interest here.
And if you would like to make a donation to Cancer Focus, you can do so here.
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