Catherina McKiernan has taken plenty of encouragement from her long-awaited return to road racing on Sunday. It was her first outing since a serious ankle injury suffered last January which greatly hindered her marathon preparations for the Sydney Olympics.

Running in a 15 km road race just outside Paris, McKiernan finished in 12th place in a time well outside her best, but the most important thing was that she was able to run hard and without pain. There were no signs of the injury which forced her out of the recent London marathon and she is now eager to face further racing tests in the coming weeks.

There was also an encouraging run for Gareth Turnbull at the weekend's Penn Relay festival in Philadelphia. The Belfast runner became the latest Irishman to break the four-minute mile by finishing second in the Olympic Development Mile in three minutes 57.89 seconds.

At the same meeting, St Malachy's, Belfast retained their distance medley title ahead of the best schools in America. The team of Thomas Frazer, Francis McCaffrey, John Frazer and Conor Sweeney also took the 4x800-metre title in a time of seven minutes 38.86 seconds.

Elsewhere, Kenya's Wilson Cheriuyot was the unsurprising winner of yesterday's Belfast Marathon in a time of two hours 24 minutes 13 seconds. It was almost eight minutes outside his best but in warm, sunny conditions it was more than enough to leave him well clear of second-placed Terry Mitchell of Scotland.

Dublin's Mary Jennings was an equally comfortable winner of the woman's race in a time of three hours two minutes 31 seconds - over 12 minutes ahead of Vivian Lynch.