Mother-daughter duo set new half-marathon world record

Aileen Kearney, alongside mum Sarah Kearney completed the Run Aintree Half-Marathon on May 9 and raised £2,234 for the charity.

In the process, they set the Guinness World Record for the fastest mother and daughter combined-time half marathon in a collective time of 3:06:42 – beating the previous record holders by half an hour.

Sarah Kearney said: “Once we had decided on our challenge, we knew that we wanted to run in honour of the families we know personally who are struggling with cancer.

A picture taken from before the start of the race

“The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre does such great work locally to research cures, treat patients, and support families dealing with cancer, it was the obvious choice for us.”

Aileen Kearney added: “Raising money for the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre is definitely worthwhile and helps them to carry out really impactful work in the local community.

“Supporting such a meaningful charity helped to keep us motivated and inspired us to stay on track with our training.”

The idea came from dad, Ronan, who suggested the world record attempt.

Ronan, Sarah and their six children have achieved considerable success in their athletics careers and coach endurance athletes through Wirral AC’s Endurance Program (WEP).

Last summer, Aileen, pictured, returned home from Oxford university. During her degree, she was very focused on academics and wanted to get back into running

Aileen, originally a sprinter, had never ran further than 10km and transformed herself into a marathon runner in just 10 months – even running a half-marathon on her 23rd birthday.

Sarah said: “We are a running family so taking on a running challenge together came naturally to us.

“WEP was working hard to keep its young athletes motivated and involved in the sport – we had to think outside the box to come up with new ways to inspire them – and that was when Ronan came across the mother and daughter combined time half-marathon record.

“We are both very grateful to everybody who supported us on the day including the event staff, the people out on the course who collected video evidence and cheered us on, and Mark Smith and Nicola Harris from Wirral AC who both ran with us on the day.

Sarah, pictured, has represented the country in running events and so far, three of her children have earned national vests

“We are both now focusing our energies on training WEP’s young athletes who have now returned to competition following the relaxation of COVID restrictions.

“We would advise anyone thinking about taking on a new challenge, especially in running, to prepare for it well in advance and make sure that you have done all the necessary training.

“Also, if you take on a challenge in partnership with someone else, as we did, it helps you to stay motivated as you can lean on each other for support when the going gets tough.”