The Marathon festival weekend in Cologne Germany is universally described as something special and exquisite. A true city course, fast and relatively flat, with streets thronged with lively and colourful spectators, race day starts early with a 10k followed by the half marathoners. Then the inline skaters kick off followed by the hand cyclists. The days highlight is of course the marathon.  Kilcoole A. C., a burgeoning club, based at the Charlesland Track at Greystones in North County Wicklow and proudly boasting ten members of AGS (Wicklow & DMR based) among its ranks.  For their 2010 trip they chose Cologne as the venue for its international voyage. 25 Athletes travelled last weekend racing over the three distances with great success and some excellent personal performances.  Of particular note for AGS was the performance in the half marathon of new comer, Crumlin based John Burke Jnr. After a solid performance this year in the Raheny 5 (35.32), Wicklow County 5k Champs (18.35), the BHAA RTE 5ml (33.08 )and Dublin 10ml (71.30) young John took on the classic half marathon distance in confident mood.  Conditions were perfect and this was by far his best performance to date, he gave his all finishing in 1.29:00, placing 234th of the 12,000 participants and second Irishman home.  With this positive personal run John slashed a sizeable 13 minutes off of his previous best set in Waterford last December. Word is he is now gearing up for the cross country season and we look forward to witnessing him wear the GAC colours in the seasonal BHAA events.
Johnny Burke Snr, still plugging away after all these years, had a go at the early moring 10k with eight of his Kilcoole teammates. In all 1,100 starters went to the line for this race and fresh from a number of events in September (the 300ml Tour De Force Charity Cycle in the USA, the Garda Cycling Champs and the Lakes 10k the previous week) his tired legs ran a credible 51 mins, placing 18th in his age group and 122nd overall.

Worth mentioning are some of our honarary members who were also in action, Richard Hourihan (nephew of SDU's Richie Mahony) placed a brilliant 6th overall in 36mins, closely followed home by well known Triathlon Coach Eamonn Tilley who finished 9th and won his age category.  Hearty congratulations to our friends from the Garden County and we look forward to toiling along side you over the coming winter.