An athlete at the top of her game
IN 2019, Ashling Smith was named as Masters Woman of the Year at the Wicklow Athletics Star Awards. It represented the culmination of a fruitful, prosperous year for the current chairperson of the Bray Runners Athletic Club.
‘That was fantastic. That was very surreal. I really appreciated that moment at the time because I know that it won’t happen again,’ she said, reflecting on the prize. ‘You are up against the likes of Fionnuala McCormack and her sister, Una Britton. It is usually a senior athlete that wins it.
‘It was a very special moment. There are quite a few members from Bray Runners who get awarded master athlete of the year, as well, so I am in good company, You know that they say, ‘if you want to be good at something, hang around with people who are better than you’, and that is often the case in Bray Runners.
‘We have a very talented group of runners, and then we have a very talented group of athletes who are in it for the sport and for the love of it. They may not want to compete, but they are just as welcome. We don’t prescribe to any sort of elitism within the club. Every member has equal value. It doesn’t matter how you choose to perform or how you choose not to perform. If racing isn’t your thing, that is okay, too.’
The recognition that she received was certainly warranted. That same year, she set national records in both the 1500m and the mile, both of which will have gone a long way towards winning the masters gong. What made it more special is that it came just four years after she took back up jogging with the Wicklow club.
She started running as a teenager with Donore Harriers, in Dublin. It was the same club of which her father, who spent the 1960s and 1970s as a club runner, had been a member.
‘I knew the whole set up because I had been going there with my dad since I was very young, so I was familiar with everyone. There was one coach – who is long since passed – named Eddie Hogan, and he was very much ahead of his time. He would talk about subjects like menstruation, in regards to athletic performance and he knew it was very important for young, female athletes to look after themselves.’
She joined that particular club when she was 14 and started competing shortly thereafter. However, as is the case for so many young athletes, life and college got in the way in subsequent years. After being given a six-month recovery prognosis for shin splints and starting her third-level studies, she fell out of running, which she would not revisit as she went through her twenties and thirties.
That all changed in in the early-2010s. While walking through Shanganagh Park, she encountered a group of joggers from Bray Runners Athletic Club training. In amongst the group were Sean Clifford and Richard Kavanagh, the latter being someone about whom Ashling couldn’t speak higher.
‘He is the backbone of the club. I would have seen them thundering around the part a few years prior to that.
‘When I was ready to pick back up my running shoes, I made the link with them. I had decided to run a marathon that year. The worst decision you have possibly make. January, I said to myself thatI would do a marathon in October which, you know, you have not built up the cycle of two years that you should have.
‘I said that I would get some advice and I joined Bray Runners. When Richard heard my goal, he just sort of shook his head and said, ‘y’know, do you have to do it this year?’ and I said, ‘yes, I have to do it this year.’ To be fair to him, he guided my through it and made sure I did not get injured.
‘It was a disaster, as it should have been. Eight or nine months was not enough when you have been doing no running.’
Despite the initial protestations from her coaches, and what she described as a disastrous end result, that October marathon is what kicked off her tenure with Bray Runners that would ultimately culminate in her setting national records, winning the Wicklow Stars Master Woman of the Year award, and taking up a role as chairperson of the entire club. to If you would like your club Focus feature in our weekly Club slot in the Bray and Wicklow People newspapers then email
or b.lawrence@peoplenews.ie phone 086 1239788 for more details