True Grit – Caroline Crowley and the Crusaders women’s team strike gold in Dublin Seniors

Combine a tough hilly cross country course on an unusually beautiful, sunny and windless day at the beginning of November with a women’s cross country team that means business and there is only one inevitable outcome!

The exceptionally strong team of Caroline Crowley, Orla Drumm, Marie Hyland, Ilona McElroy, Aoife Quigley and Ailbhe O’Driscoll-Collins duly delivered.

The race, hosted by Brothers Pearse and held in Tymon Park, was for the several Crusaders who turned out to watch on a course which had a number of great vantage points, a truly excellent spectacle.

Our supporters ran all over the course to give encouragement, which was hardly needed as the commitment that was given could be seen etched in all the team’s faces.

It was for the most part dry under foot, with a couple of short muddy patches, mostly on the flat. The women had to run 3 left-oriented loops of 2K, which involved an almost immediate steep hill of about 100m up to a winding run across a plateau, followed by a steep and narrow descent of about 50 metres down into a thick grassy field, 3 sides of which were then negotiated, culminating in a short, sharp incline and a right hand turn for the last part of the loop, through a bit of mud.
The race started out fast enough with a small but top class field of some 35 runners.

Perhaps a little ambitiously, Maria O’Sullivan of Raheny took it up at the front and Caroline tucked in with the leading group on the hill, but as they headed onto the plateau after about 400 metres Caroline came right up to the front of the pack and from that moment was never headed. At this stage, Orla was lying in about 6th place leading a second small bunch of runners and as the first lap unfolded, she worked her way through the first group which began to spread out, eventually clawing her way up to 3rd place by the end of the lap with Caroline continuing to pile on the pressure with a great flowing stride up front and Ciara Durkan of Skerries trying to hang on to her coat tails. As they approached the end of the first lap, Marie was lying in 9th place with Ilona a little further back in about 14th. Aoife and Ailbhe were holding their own in the low twenties at this point.
As the race unfolded, Caroline’s lead continued to expand, a master class in front running, where she always seems to be happiest (we know this from training!).

Towards the middle of the third lap Orla narrowed the gap between herself and Ciara, but the early effort that she had made in getting to that position perhaps showed and Ciara was able to hold her off going towards the finish. On the other hand, Marie made constant progress throughout the race taking some good scalps in the process. By the start of the 3rd lap Marie was in 5th position, a place she was not to relinquish, widening the gap between herself and MSB’s Kate O’Neill, on whose shoulder she had spent some time early on.

Ilona ran a steady and solid race to hold onto her 14th position as 4th scorer and at the end both Aoife and Ailbhe were able to take runners on the run in to the line, finishing, respectively, in 18th and 19th places, only 2 seconds apart. For the record, Caroline ran the 6km in 21:44, finishing 35 seconds ahead of Ciara, who was 11 seconds ahead of Orla. Marie finished 16 seconds behind Maria O’Sullivan who was 4th and 14 seconds ahead of Kate.

So, in the final analysis, Caroline, whose return from a not so distant year-long injury has been wonderful to see, took individual gold with relative ease and Orla, whose participation had been in some doubt right up to the start because of her commitments as a junior doctor (and moreover which affects the amount of training she is able to do) produced an excellent result for bronze. With 3 of our scorers in the top 10 and our 4th not far behind, the Cru team took gold with only 23 points, Donore taking silver (two pairs of sisters: Anne and Florrie Curley and Ide and Sorcha Nic Dhomhnaill) with 52, followed by Liffey Valley with 59 points. An epic experience and hugs all round!

We fielded a team of 5 intrepid men for the 10K that followed. Unfortunately, since we needed 6 as a minimum to score, the team did not get an official placing. Nevertheless, it was an excellent workout for those that did turn out for the club and everyone acquitted themselves well. The race attracted a top-notch field of 61 runners, including a few who had competed in the marathon only 6 days earlier. It was held on the same course as the women’s race, but with a couple of more laps. Thankfully, because of the relatively dry conditions underfoot the course itself was not too churned up from the previous races of the day.

Ultimately, the race was won in 32:09 by Mick Clohisey, narrowly it must be said, from Raheny clubmate and Dublin marathoner, Freddie Sittuk, who put in a strong effort at the end, the two athletes having gone round for much of the race in a group of three with Clonliffe’s Brandon Hargreaves. There were only 6 seconds between 1st and 3rd at the end, with Sergiu Ciobanu of Clonliffe a further 17 seconds back.

After having trailed Michael Kiely for half the race, John Frazer, an athlete returning from injury and without significant training as yet under the belt, managed to pull away and come home as first Crusader in 27th place in 36:11. Michael finished only 5 places back, 44 seconds behind, with Jason Kehoe, who worked his way through the field in 28th place, 27 seconds further back. Johannes Frederking, enjoying a baptism of fire in a county XC, ran well to come home in 57th, with Gary Park, also putting in a strong effort in a strong field, completing the quintet in 59th place.

There were some marathon runs over the weekend. Only 5 days after Dublin, Kris Ryan took on the Rye River Runners’ marathon in Leixlip. On an extremely hilly course, Kris came home as first female finisher in a time of 4:10. Meanwhile, on Sunday Leo Lundy took on yet another long distance race, this time in Pegwell Bay in Kent around the Hugin Viking ship there. It was a 6 hour challenge to see how far each athlete could get in that time. Leo’s effort involved a 4:13 marathon and a 5:09 50K. He came home in 5th place out of 90 runners. Following his running in Dublin on Monday, in New York Bob Manson took on his 49th marathon, finishing in 4:41, whilst Emmet Malone, on the back of little training as the result of a recent knee injury, managed to hobble around the course in 5:52.

We had, as usual, several runners participating in parkruns on Saturday. Geraldine Clements came home as first female finisher in St Anne’s, placing 39th overall in a field exceeding 300. In the same event, Maria Pertl, fresh from her Dublin marathon experience, ran 23:29, to place 90th overall (13th female). Darina Scully was 126th overall (24th female) in 24:36 and Sorrena Megan placed 155th overall (42nd female) in 25:56. Meanwhile in Marlay, Anthony O’Reilly, finished in 14th place out of a field exceeding 450 in a time of 19:26, whilst David Long, another Dublin marathoner, came home in 79th place in a time of 23:01.In Glasgow, Aidan Hudner finished in 89th place out of 314 runners in a time of 23:01. In Tralee Peter Jackson placed 2nd out of 180 in 19:22. Lastly, the Shine family turned up to run in Cabinteely. Fiona led the family home in 14th place overall out of 73 runners and 2nd female finisher, in a time of 23:28. Lisa was next in 25th place overall (5th female) in 24:46 and finally Mairin took 55th spot overall (16th female) in a time of 30:46.

Marlay Parkrun #131
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Tim Charnecki 1 00:17:38
46 Margaret Galvin 1 00:21:08
Crusaders AC runners
14 Anthony O’Reilly 00:19:26
79 David Long 00:23:01
Full details here: http://www.parkrun.ie/marlay/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=131

St. Anne’s Parkrun #104
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Wesley O’Brien 1 00:16:38
39 Geraldine Clements 1 00:21:36
Crusaders AC runners
39 Geraldine Clements 00:21:36
57 Emer Kenny 00:22:20
90 Maria Pertl 00:23:29
126 Darina Scully 00:24:36
155 Sorrena Megan 00:25:56
Full details here: http://www.parkrun.ie/stannes/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=104

Tralee Parkrun #40
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Darragh Browne 1 00:18:51
17 Majella Diskin 1 00:22:33
Crusaders AC runner
2 Peter Jackson 00:19:22
Full details here: http://www.parkrun.ie/tralee/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=40

Cabinteely Parkrun #32
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Dan Morris 1 00:18:14
9 Joanne Ryan 1 00:21:29
Crusaders AC runners
14 Fiona Shine 00:23:28
25 Lisa Ryan 00:24:46
55 Mairin Shine 00:30:46
Full details here: http://www.parkrun.ie/cabinteely/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=32

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