National champion Courtney McGuire's full-time focus on Paris

As Courtney McGuire weighs up her chances of achieving a qualifying standard for Paris 2024, the reigning women's national marathon champion has good reason to feel confident.

Last year the Clonmel AC athlete raised many eyebrows – not least her own – in crossing the line as the third fastest woman in the Dublin marathon behind Ethiopian pair Nigist Muluneh and Hawi Alemu Negeri.

Having decided to move away from shorter distance running, she started training a little over eight weeks out for her first ever marathon.

A time of 2:32.52 put her straight in at seventh on the Irish women's all-time list, but the 23-year-old admitted she really had no idea what to expect.

Apart from the outstanding run itself, McGuire’s optimism in chasing down a sub 2:30 time for next year’s Olympic Games stems from how she felt on the day. There was more in the tank.

"Speaking to a few people the other day at the photo launch, they were saying I had plenty of running left in me when I finished," she tells RTÉ Sport at the launch of the 2023 Irish Life Dublin Marathon.

"I did aswell. My first thought when I finished the marathon last year was, what am I going to wear tonight?

"I think I covered an extra 15km walking around the city trying to get a dress after the marathon. If I look after myself I should be OK. I would be confident I’d hit the standard."

McGuire recently spoke candidly about her childhood where her mother’s substance abuse meant she and her younger brother spent years going back and forth to their grandparents.

She wasn’t expecting her story to make so many headlines, and the response has taken her by something of surprise.

"I have received a lot of positivity from it and it seems that a lot of people have taken something nice from