Kildare native Claire “Molly” Hyland ran an inspiring race to lead the women home in the 2026 WLR Waterford Viking Marathon in a time of three hours, two minutes and three seconds.

Despite only taking up marathon running in the last 12 months and only deciding to run the full marathon distance late in the day Hyland put in an inspired run to beat all comers and secure the victory. Speaking to Ollie Carroll after the race Hyland told WLR “I was hoping to beat three hours but having not finished the Cork Marathon 2 weeks ago I’ll take it to have just crossed the line”

Amazingly Hyland went on to outline how she took up the sport in support of her boyfriend who wanted to run the Galway Half Marathon and the promise of a weekend away had persuaded her to enter the race.

Molly went on to describe the mental challenge of having to overcome her failure to finish the Cork Marathon two weeks ago and how she had to hide the news from her Dad following the event. “after I ended up in an Ambulance in Cork, he told me that running is going to kill you, so I just let it slip last night at dinner that I was running the full marathon today”.

Molly is a woman of many talents and is also in the middle of her Solicitors exams as part of being a trainee Solicitor with A&L Goodbody and has just passed her PPC exams.