Sonia O'Sullivan is still trying to come to terms with her disappointing performance in the New York City Marathon where she finished a lowly 12th and nearly seven minutes behind winner Joyce Chepchumba.
Chepchumba won in two hours 25 minutes and 56 seconds - the Kenyan is the only woman ever to run six times under 2:26 for the distance.
O'Sullivan saw her victory hopes die at the 16-miles marker. Until then, the Olympic 5000-metres silver medallist had looked comfortable and was being tipped to win her first serious marathon as the early pace was very slow.
But on the Queensboro Bridge leading into Manhattan's First Avenue, the Irishwoman's challenge faltered as she suddenly fell off the pace. O'Sullivan quickly drifted backwards to eventually finish in a very slow time of 2:32:06.
Her immediate reaction was to apparently dismiss running over the 26.2 miles distance again. "I don't know if I will do another one," she said. "All I want to do now is have a holiday and a long rest".
Advised to take things easy, particularly in the first half of the race, a distraught O'Sullivan said: "My legs were getting stiff as I'm not used to running that slow, even in training.
"I suppose inexperience does come into it. Now I'm thinking I should have gone off and ran my own race instead of staying with the pack where I wasn't comfortable.
"With hindsight, knowing what pace I can run at, I should have gone off much quicker. But everyone had been telling me to take things easy," she said.
But there was better news for Cork's Mark Carroll, who finished sixth in the men's event, which was won by Kenyan Rodgers Rop in a time of 2:08:07.
In his first marathon, Carroll ran a time of 2:10:54, the second-fastest time ever by an Irish athlete, indicating he can challenge John Treacy's 14-year-old record of 2:09:15.
Carroll said: "Obviously I'm very happy with that. It was a great debut. I wanted to get out to the front and I did that.
"It was only around the 22 miles mark I really had to start digging deep. The last five miles were hard - but I can definitely run under 2:07 on a faster course".