Gary Thornton - Olympic Hopeful

Local man Gary Thornton is currently in training in an attempt to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London this summer. He has been running since he was 16 but first got into the sport just to get time off school.

“There was a city sports cross country up in St Mary’s School and I had never done any running before but I figured there was a half day in it from school, so I went up and tried my luck and I think I came second that day.

“PJ Coyle was there and Oliver Geraghty, two guys in local club Galway City Harriers, and they asked me to come up to train with them and that was it really. Once I got up there, I just loved the idea of running and there was a really good social outlet there too with a load of lads from school,” he says.

Gary currently lives in Shantalla but originally comes from Ardilaun Road in Newcastle. He went to school at St Patrick’s in the city and then onto the Bish before doing a BComm in NUI Galway. After some travelling, he worked in Dublin for fours years before studying primary school teaching in London in 2006. One year later, he got the position at Claddagh NS that he retains to this day.

Gary has continued running since his first foray into the sport, but admits he only really became seriously dedicated to it in the last five years.

“I applied myself really well and, basically, in the last year I have set out that I want to get the standard for London,” he says.

In his athletic career, Gary has won numerous All Ireland titles at underage level. He has also won Irish and British national universities championships, was the 2010 Irish 10,000 metre track champion and has been selected to represent Ireland on several occasions.

As part of his qualification efforts, Gary made his marathon debut in Amsterdam last October. A qualifying standard for the Olympic Marathon is two hours and 15 minutes and Gary finished in two hours, 19 minutes and 27 seconds. It was towards the end of the race where Gary says he began to falter and says he is looking to make big improvements before his next marathon at Rotterdam in April.

“It was a great learning experience and I have implemented a lot of stuff that needed to be implemented after Amsterdam to try to get to the standard in April. The main thing I learned was that my body was not ready to run the required time and that’s why my legs fatigued in the last 10km. 

“I suppose I just needed to do a lot more long runs, so that my legs and body are used to the feeling you get in the last part of a marathon, plus, the pace I’m running at, I need to be running more at that pace. I think it is achievable to get down to the 2:15,” he says.

The qualifying standard is the equivalent of running 11.7 miles per hour for over two hours, or just over five minutes per mile for 26 consecutive miles (42.2km). In order to compete at such a high level, Gary runs twice a day six days a week covering 120 miles. These miles are primarily covered on the city streets, Dangan fields and Dangan track.

His decision to focus on qualification for the Olympics meant that Gary needed to devote all of his time to that endeavour. This meant making a big change in his life and taking a year off from his career as a primary school teacher in Claddagh National School. He says it was a difficult decision to make but one that he feels will be worth it in the end.

“It’s a great school down there. There is a great staff and great kids, but I just couldn’t achieve the goal that I wanted this year if I was going to be teaching throughout the year. It’s just not possible. For instance I had a session this morning and I was up at 9.45am and didn’t get back until after 1pm.

“So the workouts are longer, there’s more volume there and it requires more time and more dedication and, if I was in teaching, as much as I like it, it just wouldn’t be possible. I wouldn’t be able to attain what I wanted to,” he says.

Qualifying for the Olympics isn’t the only challenge facing the Galway native this year. In October he will take another marathon step when he marries his fiancée Elaine Barrett. 

“I’d be pretty confident that I might get to the Olympics and I would be pretty hopeful that Elaine would meet me down the aisle. It would be a great year if I got both,” he says.