Kildare legend Doyle clocks outstanding Dublin Marathon personal best

Former Kildare football star Johnny Doyle proved once again that elite sporting standards do not fade easily as he produced a superb personal best of 2:55:58 in the Dublin Marathon on Sunday.

12 months on from completing the 2025 marathon in what seemed like an outstanding time of 3:15:57, the 48-year-old completed the course 20 minutes faster, smashing through the three hour barrier, a benchmark regarded as one of the sport's most significant milestones and a feat achieved by only a small minority of participants.

Averaging just under six minutes and 44 seconds per mile, or approximately 4:11 per kilometre, Doyle maintained a remarkable pace from start to finish.

After scoring the goal that helped keep Allenwood in the Joe Mallon Motors Senior Football Championship in last year's relegation final, this is the first year since 1996 that Doyle hasn't featured for the club's first team. He has clearly been keeping himself fit, however.

His seriously impressive time saw him finish 629th out of 19,172 runners, placing him in the top 3.3 per cent of the field, while he was also 86th out of 2,060 competitors in his age category.

As well as preparing for the marathon this year, Doyle is still involved in high level GAA as a coach alongside his long-time friend and former team-mate Ronan Sweeney with Portarlington in Laois.

After securing a county title there, the duo will lead Portarlington in the Leinster Championship, where they play Carlow champions Rathvilly in the quarter-final on 15 November.