Bank Holiday Fun

25/10/2021

Karl Walsh, Michael Wycherley, Garret Dunne, Aaron Cashman, Ger Forde, Ciaran Diviney, Conor Greenan, Michael Kiely and Alan Kavanagh

It was a bank holiday weekend but so many Crusaders were determined not to put their feet up and as a result we had a super turnout for the races that were on offer, which included the Leinster Novices XC, an event that traditionally precedes the Dublin City marathon at this time. Alas, the actual DCM was not to be this year, but that didn’t stop some of our clubmates running marathons both locally and abroad, virtually and actual.

We start with the Leinster Novices, which took place on Saturday afternoon, hosted by St. Senans at Mountain View golf club in Co. Kilkenny. Conditions were overcast, blustery, wet underfoot with slippery corners to negotiate on the looped reasonably hilly course. The women’s 4k race was conducted on 2 small loops of approx. 1200m with one large loop of approx. 1500m. Thankfully, the rain held off, but the runners had to battle the wind in several places, notably coming downhill towards the finish line. The field was smaller than that for the Dublin novices at 92 and we were not able to field a full team but our 3 runners did well in the circumstances and pretty much came in as a bunch. Isabelle Cairns, who had only just arrived back from a holiday in Spain at about 9 o’clock that morning and made a dash from airport to home and then down to Kilkenny, was first past the post for the club in 52nd place in a time of 17:28 (the winner, Bronagh Kearns who had run well the previous week in Abbotstown, recording 14:22). Isabelle was followed by ladies’ club captain Rebecca Fleming who held Isabelle in her sights throughout and who placed 58th in 17:36 and then by Kathryn Gibbons, doing much the same with Rebecca, who placed 62nd in 17:48, the trio therefore being separated by only 20 seconds.

The men also ran in a smaller field than the one in Tymon Park with 118 participants. Their race involved 1 small loop and 3 of the big loops for a 6k total distance. 9 of our members represented the club on the day and they were led home by Michael Kiely (15th in 21:13) and Ger Forde (35th in 21:43), both of whom having been selected to represent Ireland in the upcoming masters international XC fixture on 13 November against Northern Ireland in Belfast. Our two other scorers for the team were Garret Dunne (50th in 22:16) and men’s club captain Ciaran Diviney (53rd in 22:23). As a result of these positions the team scored 153 points, good enough to place them a decent 7th out of the 15 teams in the field. Next and not too far back came Conor Greenan (61st in 22:31), Aaron Cashman (69th in 22:49), followed by late stand-in, Michael Wycherley (82nd in 23:32), Karl Walsh (95th in 24:11) and another late replacement, Alan Kavanagh (116th in 27:54). The winning time was 19:03.

On Saturday, recent club member, Lean Ni Chiobhain, did the club proud by winning the women’s race in the Brandon Bay Half marathon, down in Co. Kerry. In a total field of 151, Lean placed 10th overall in a time of 1:27:35. On the same day, Richard Kavanagh also ran his first race for the club. Richard ran in the top-quality Streets of Kilkenny 5k which was won in a sprint to the line by Mitchell Byrne in 14:16, just ahead of Eoin Everard. Such was the quality of the field that more than 50 runners came home under 18 minutes. Richard joined the 484 other runners in the race, and recorded a time of 21:25 for 152nd place and, as an M65, finished 4th in the O/60 category.

On Sunday we had runners taking part in the Kildare marathon, otherwise known as the Thoroughbred Run. The course involved a relatively severe climb early on and another reasonably major climb at 30k. Despite finding the second half of the race challenging, no doubt continuing to suffer somewhat from the injury that had plagued his recent outings, Adam Flanagan was able to finish in a decent time of 3:09:55. He was followed by Marty James who ran 3:14:08 and then by Paul Kelly, whose wife Aoife was sadly unable to complete the distance and had to pull out after 26k (a metric marathon) with quad pain. Paul had been pacing Aoife and ran 4:07:26 for 241st place in a field of just over 400 finishers.

A major marathon success story has to be that of Ciarain Kelly who elected to run the Rotterdam marathon on Sunday. Ciarain excelled himself, placing 125th in a PB time of 2:40:34, which nearly matched his mother’s time recorded in the Dublin City Marathon in 1991. Connie Kelly (also a past winner of the iconic now defunct Ballycotton 10-miler), ran 2:40:22 to place 2nd behind Christine Kennedy (2:35:56) that year. Mind you, Ciarain still has to take another 10 minutes off his time to match his father’s marathon PB!

Also on Sunday, 7 members of the club participated in the rescheduled Street of Galway 8k. Usually held in early August, it had required a major effort by GCH to stage the race at quite short notice and the field was down by about 2/3 from the norm probably because of the bank holiday, but the event went off really smoothly and was well marshalled by about 200 volunteers, most of them from GCH. Mercifully, the torrential rain that followed in the afternoon held off for the race, but all the same it was held in quite blustery conditions. We enjoyed(!) a strong headwind for much of the race, finishing along Salthill prom with the same wind behind us. In a field of 989, the Cru contingent was led home by Toby Benham who placed 20th overall in 28:29 and he was followed closely by one of our Galway exiles Brian Hyland (23rd in 28:53). Joe McDermott, in a comeback road race after a long injury lay off, was next, crossing the line in 32nd place, having run most of the competition with the 2nd placed woman, Regina Casey of GCH. The women’s race winner was the ageless Lizzie Lee who placed 11th in 26:57. Kevin Darcy followed Joe home in 44th place with a time of 30:47 and he was followed by James Cottle who ran 31:53 for 65th place and also winning the O/60 category. Like Michael and Ger, James has also been selected for the XC team to represent Ireland in Belfast in mid-November and will run in the Irish M65 quartet there. The next two runners both had PBs. Aine Kenny, another member who has been in Galway for much of the pandemic, had a super race with a time of 32:14 to place 71st overall, 11th woman home and possibly winning the F40 category, since the only other F40 ahead of her was Regina Casey in 2nd place. Miriam Logan also significantly improved her 8k PB by running 35:16 for 144th place overall and 16th woman across the line.

We finish as usual with a round-up of parkrun results. Numbers of participants were generally down on the norm, probably because of the bank holiday, but we still enjoyed a good turnout. David Carter took time off from holidaying in Sligo to cross the line there as a first finisher in 19:20 ahead of 69 other runners. In Marlay Park, Killian Barry took 24th spot in 19:53 whilst Fiona Lane ran 27:07 for 177th and 32nd in a field of 310. Mike Stewart and Orlaith de Burca ran again in Shanganagh where, in a field of 147, Mike ran 21:36 for 14th place and Orlaith ran 27:15 for 83rd and 21st. Dee Lawlor finished ahead of the 129-strong field in Cabinteely, where his time was 18:32. Dee was followed by Olwyn Dunne who placed 59th and 9th in 27:20. Meanwhile, Kevin Flynn ran 30:28 to place 74th in a field of 114 in Porterstown. Kevin Fitzgibbon was another first finisher on Saturday morning. Kevin ran in Bushy Park where he led home a field of 141 in a time of 18:24. Kate Murray also ran there where she placed 34th and 5th in 23:48. Mairead Cashman finished in 40th and 10th in Fairview in 30:17 and in a field of 67, whilst Maria Pertl and Diarmuid Byrne ran in Tolka Valley. Alongside 44 other participants Maria placed 30th and 12th in 30:35, whilst Diarmuid performed back of the pack tailwalking duties. As would be expected, our largest contingent ran in Poolbeg. In a field of 98, Sam Carvill was first Crusader home in 5th place in 19:19. He was followed by John Lohan (14th in 20:53), David Timoney (15th in 20:58), Tanja Narancic (22nd and 3rd in 22:06), Kieran Finucane (27th in 23:02), Fin Goulding (33rd in 23:17), Sharon Woods (35th and 4th in 23:23), Josie Ward (36th and 5th in 23:24) just behind, Zlatko Kulic (43rd in 24:13), Gillian Curran (45th and 7th in 24:19) not much further back, Fiona Bane (51st and 11th in 24:43) and Maureen McGinley (73rd and 24th in 27:53). Eoghan Corrigan ran once again in Kilcock where, in a field of 122, he ran 24:09 for 24th spot, then in the inaugural Sports Ireland Campus parkrun Lisa Shine placed 57th and 15th in 25:32, whilst Mairin Shine ran 30:14 for 106th and 41st places in a field of 147. Finally, further afield, Aidan Hudner ran in Pollok Park in Glasgow again, where, in a field of 278, he placed 36th in 22:59, whilst in Queensland, Australia, Kris Ryan ran in Surfers paradise, where, in a field of 74, Kris placed 6th and 2nd in 24:01. Once again Mari Hansen joined 34 other runners in the Nansenparken parkrun in Norway where she placed 30th and 10th in 31:40.

Streets of Kilkenny 5k (485)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Mitchell Byrne 1 00:14:16
28 Cheryl Nolan 1 00:16:24
Crusaders AC runner
152 Richard Kavanagh 00:21:25
Full results here: https://www.popupraces.ie/race/streets-of-kilkenny-2021/
Brandon Bay Half marathon (151)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Mike Sheehy 1 01:18:50
10 Lean Ni Chiobhain 1 01:27:35
Crusaders AC runner
10 Lean Ni Chiobhain 01:27:35 (1)
Full results here: https://www.myrunresults.com/events/brandon_bay_half_marathon_10k_and_5k/3922/results
Kildare Marathon (Thoroughbred Run) (400)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Andrew O’Brien 1 02:38:45
53 Julie McCarthy 1 03:14:15
Crusaders AC runners
42 Adam Flanagan 03:09:55
52 Marty James 03:14:08
241 Paul Kelly 04:07:26
Full results here: https://www.justrunsevents.com/thoroughbred-october-marathon-results.php
Streets of Galway 8k (989)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Donal Devane 1 00:24:21
11 Lizzie Lee 1 00:26:57
Crusaders AC runners
20 Toby Benham 00:28:29
23 Brian Hyland 00:28:53
32 Joe McDermott 00:29:26
44 Kevin Darcy 00:30:47
65 James Cottle 00:31:53
71 Aine Kenny 00:32:14 (PB) (11)
144 Miriam Logan 00:35:16 (PB) (16)
Full results here: https://www.popupraces.ie/race/east-mayo-half-marathon-2021/
Sligo Parkrun (70)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 David Carter 1 00:19:20
7 Elizabeth Flynn 1 00:22:35
Crusaders AC runner
1 David Carter 00:19:20
Marlay Parkrun (310)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Ruben Bartelink 1 00:17:15
12 Paula Grant 1 00:19:09
Crusaders AC runners
24 Killian Barry 00:19:53
177 Fiona Lane 00:27:07 (32)
Sport Ireland Campus Parkrun (147)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Celine Gavin 1 00:18:24
2 Owen Fletcher 1 00:18:25
Crusaders AC runners
57 Lisa Shine 00:25:32 (15)
106 Mairin Shine 00:30:14 (41)
Shanganagh Parkrun (147)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 James Burke 1 00:18:39
26 Cathy Mitchell 1 00:23:10
Crusaders AC runners
14 Mike Stewart 00:21:36
83 Orlaith de Burca 00:27:15 (21)
Cabinteely Parkrun (129)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Dee Lawlor 1 00:18:32
19 Joanne Ryan 1 00:22:04
Crusaders AC runners
1 Dee Lawlor 1 00:18:32
59 Olwyn Dunne 00:27:20 (9)
Bushy Parkrun (141)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Kevin Fitzgibbon 1 00:18:24
12 Louise Hodé 1 00:21:31
Crusaders AC runners
1 Kevin Fitzgibbon 00:18:24
34 Kate Murray 00:23:48 (5)
Porterstown Parkrun (114)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Niall Sherlock 1 00:17:42
7 Collee Barrett 1 00:20:33
Crusaders AC runner
74 Kevin Flynn 00:30:28
Fairview Parkrun (67)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Ronan Hoare 1 00:18:38
18 Geraldine Clements 1 00:25:51
Crusaders AC runner
40 Mairead Cashman 00:30:17 (10)
Poolbeg Parkrun (98)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Ludovic Chevrel 1 00:17:59
12 Ava Rose Clarke 1 00:20:37
Crusaders AC runners
5 Sam Carvill 00:19:19
14 John Lohan 00:20:53
15 David Timoney 00:20:58
22 Tanja Narancic 00:22:06 (3)
27 Kieran Finucane 00:23:02
33 Fin Goulding 00:23:17
35 Sharon Woods 00:23:23 (4)
36 Josie Ward 00:23:24 (5)
43 Zlatko Kulic 00:24:13
45 Gillian Curran 00:24:19 (7)
51 Fiona Bane 00:24:43 (11)
55 Cliodhna O’Reilly 00:25:21 (13)
73 Maureen McGinley 00:27:53 (24)
Tolka Valley Parkrun (46)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Brian Fay 1 00:19:19
5 Shauna Dunne 1 00:23:07
Crusaders AC runners
30 Maria Pertl 00:30:35 (12)
38 Diarmuid Byrne 00:40:30
Royal Canal Kilcock Parkrun (122)
Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime
1 Leeroy Graham 1 00:17:11
5 Sinead O’Reilly 1 00:19:59
Crusaders AC runner
24 Eoghan Corrigan 00:24:09