Ann-Marie McGlynn hopes her second coming will culminate in Tokyo Olympics spot

Ann-Marie McGlynn (right) is hoping to join already-qualified Fionnuala McCormack (left) in the Olympic Marathon in Tokyo

Ann-Marie McGlynn peers down from the back of the stand at the Mary Peters Track at her eight-year-old son Alfie skipping joyfully around the lanes in between the Belfast showers.

Her little boy probably doesn't know it yet, but he is essentially the reason why this Offaly woman, who has made her home in Strabane, is talking to the BBC at this media briefing held to announce details of the upcoming return of competitive athletics to Northern Ireland at Down Royal Racetrack on 18-19 July.

Ann-Marie Larkin, as she was then, made her debut for Ireland at junior level before a gradual disillusionment set in - amid those inevitable life changes which happen to all of us - as she stepped away from the sport in her mid-twenties.

"I wasn't putting my all into training and if you don't do that, you don't get the results," says the 40-year-old.

"I just decided I'll get married, get my house, have the kids."

After marrying Irish international hurdler Trevor McGlynn, Lexie, now 10, duly arrived and then came Alfie in 2012.

But three weeks into Alfie's life, the family found themselves in the nightmare of being at his hospital bed wondering whether he was going to survive.

'Bit of a bad place'

"He took very ill. It was touch and go. I went into a wee bit of a bad place."

Amid the worry, Ann-Marie decided to locate her trainers again and run.

"I remembered that running was good for kind of forgetting things so I decided to put my trainers back on went out on the road."

Looking back now, she laughs at the memory of "being so unfit" and running out in the country away from prying eyes as Trevor accompanied her on his bike.

By the following February, with Alfie having fully recovered, the Tullamore native was finishing runner-up in the 3,000m at the Irish Indoor Championships on what happened to be her little boy's first birthday.

By now, Ann-Marie was 33 but this was no sentimental coming to the well, one final time. She was only getting started.

Ten months later, Ann-Marie was pulling on the Irish senior vest at the European Cross Country Championships in Belgrade.

"I didn't run great and wasn't a counter so I said I was going to make it my business to score on the team in the event the next year."

She duly achieved her target in Samokov as a 46th place helped Ireland land team bronze.

McGlynn (right) made a huge breakthrough at last October's Dublin Marathon when she cut nearly seven minutes off her personal best with a 2:32.54 clocking

Focus on marathon

Her next move was a strategic decision to focus on the marathon as she switched coaches to Derry-based Colin Roberts after being guided by Letterkenny AC's Teresa McDaid in the initial stages of her comeback.

"We just concentrated on my aerobic base and I got a lot more efficient running wise. I was able to take down my half marathon time by four or five minutes over those few years until I ran the Northern Ireland record of 71:59 in Barcelona in early 2019," recalls McGlynn, who remains attached to Letterkenny AC.

At the age of 39, she made her marathon debut in Rotterdam 15 months ago clocking a respectable two hours and 39 minutes but having been troubled by injury in the immediate build-up to the race which had severely curtained her mileage.

Then last October a glorious autumn day in Dublin saw her cut over two and a half minutes off Teresa Duffy's 18-year-old Northern Ireland record as she clocked 2:32.54.

She was pipped for the concurrently-run Irish Championship title by Aoife Cooke who passed her at 25 miles, but Ann-Marie's performance meant she could now legitimately aspire to chasing the Tokyo Olympics standard of 2:29.30.

Ann-Marie has filed entries for all the major European marathons scheduled to take place from 1 December, when the new concluding qualifying window kicks in.

'I don't feel 40'

For now, all is going well with Ann-Marie having navigated the perils of home schooling relatively unscathed during lockdown and getting in her regular morning and evening runs which translate to a current weekly mileage of around 85.

The postponement of the Games until next summer means McGlynn will be 41 by the time the women's marathoners take to the start line in Japan.

"But I don't feel 40," she insists.

"I didn't do huge mileage when I was younger. I was doing 20-25 miles a week and I never really ran on the road or tartan track. I ran on grass.

"I think that's why I've got where I am because I don't have huge miles in my legs."

In any case, Jo Pavey has shown that female distance runners can remain at elite level into their fifth decade, so it's not like it hasn't been done before.