He had planned to compete in the Houston Marathon a couple of days earlier than that but those plans were ruined when he was refused re-entry into the US over a visa problem on his return from the European cross-country championships in Spain.

Since then he has been back home in Mullingar where he continued his training — albeit in vastly contrasting conditions to those he experienced in Flastaff, Arizona, where had been training with Greg McMillan’s elite group of athletes.