Counting the Numbers in Dundalk

12/12/2016

Back row: Jim Stagg, Joe Walsh, Eddie Nugent, Michael Maughan, Bram D'Hoedt, Will Owens, Michael Kiely, John Mulvihill, Phelim Murray, Front row: Rob Cross, Alban Coghlan, Ciaran Diviney, Ger Forde, Michael O'Conor and Jason Kehoe

For once we were agonisingly on the wrong side of a count back for a podium place despite the valiant efforts of our men’s team. The event was the National Novices XC that took place around the playing fields of Dundalk Institute of Technology on Sunday afternoon. Nevertheless, we did collect a couple of medals all the same.

We had a great turnout in both the men’s and women’s races with 23 athletes running for the club. 8 runners represented us in the first race, the women’s 4K, which involved 2 laps of a soft and grassy course with slippery mud in places, particularly on one or two of the tight bends and the one major hill about 350m from the end of each lap. Happily, although the course was quite exposed, there was little or no wind to worry about.

The leaders in the women’s race started at a terrific pace, but there was a lot of bunching quite early on mid pack, so that runners finding themselves off the pace at the beginning found it difficult to make progress in the initial stages. At times athletes almost came to a juddering halt on one or two of the turns.

Mary Horgan practically led our contingent from gun to tape, finishing in 27th place in a huge quality field of 136 runners from all over the island. She was briefly overtaken towards the end by Yvonne Macauley who had been one of those held back in the early stages, but after the huge effort of working her way through the field Yvonne had to relinquish her gain over the last few hundred metres. Yvonne finished in 37th place, followed closely behind by Niamh Corby who ran a steady pace to place 42nd. Our 4th scorer was Fiona Shine who placed 66th and, with a total of 172 points, the women’s team were able to take 5th place, only 4 points off Dublin City Harriers in 4th (168). As with the recent Dublin championships, both novices and intermediates, Sportsworld were probably unbeatable on the day with 53 points (all 4 scorers in the top 20) and they duly took gold. Leevale were second (113) and Dunboyne took bronze (145). Following Fiona home came Grainne Regan (83rd), who continues to get stronger with race practice and Grainne was followed by Dee Ni Chearbhaill (106th), Darina Scully (113th) and Olwyn Dunne (129th). A sterling effort by the women and fun to watch. There were quite a few surprises among the results generally in the race among all the participants showing that on any given day anyone can perform well. Of interest to members will be to hear that Lorraine Healy, who trains with the club, placed 59th, running for Moyne in Tipperary, whilst Alma Hanevy, Joe Walsh's wife who guested for us in Lanzarote, placed 39th for Donore.

The men’s race was a huge affair with a field of 172 runners strung out over the course in their 6K race (3 laps). Michael Kiely, our new men’s captain, led by example and was the first Crusader home in 16th place. Rob Cross (19th) had stayed in touch with Michael for most of the race and was just able to hold off a surging Alban Coghlan (20th) at the end. Ciaran Diviney was our 4th scorer coming home in 43rd place, and without realising it at the time just one second behind the runner who was to earn North Belfast Harriers the bronze medal on countback. Michael O’Conor came home next with a steady 66th place and he was followed by Bram d’Hoedt (91st) coming back from injury and having a good second half to the race. John Mulvihill (101st) finished just ahead of Ger Forde, both of them having a solid race, as did Jim Stagg (113th) who was followed by Jason Kehoe (118th) just getting back into it. Eddie Nugent performed his usual trick of finishing strongly (127th), with another excellent run coming from Michael Maughan (138th), whose marathon ambitions, like those of Ciaran who is training for Tokyo, will benefit greatly from all the endurance work he’s putting in during the XC season. Joe Walsh also put in a great effort to place 143rd and he was followed home by Phelim Murray (160th) with a strong finish and by Will Owens (161st) just behind and completing the contingent. The team gold went to Clonliffe (37th), with Derry taking silver. Both NBH and the Cru had 98 points. One consolation for the team was that Rob and Alban were respectively 4th and 5th scorers on the 6 man gold winning Dublin team, which, however, will have an impact on their eligibility for next year, a bittersweet outcome.

The day before, Phelim Murray had competed with Luke Haran in the Aware 5k in the Phoenix park. On a cool but calm morning, Luke placed 12th (20:10) and Phelim, 23rd (21:05) in a field of more than 600 runners. As far as can be ascertained, Carina Davidson was our only participant in the Aware 10K, placing 866th overall (411th woman) in 67:38. The field exceeded 1,000 runners.

Leo Lundy reported that he ran another marathon, this time in Milton Keynes. Apparently, everyone was well down on a squally, nasty day and Leo had what he described as a terrible 3rd 10K. Nevertheless, he still managed to finish mid-pack out of maybe 100 runners but felt lucky to finish.

We had a smattering of participants in the park runs. Mary Noelle Rohan placed 282nd overall (80th woman) in Marlay. In a field of 328 participants Alex Romano also took part, coming home in 42:21 (327th). Peter O’Toole placed 3rd in 18:00 in St. Anne’s, whilst Denis Murphy came home in 168th spot (30:37). There were more than 200 in the event. Neil Brown placed 20th in 23:31 in the nearly 100-strong field in Waterstown, whilst Mairin Shine took 49th spot overall (16th woman) among the 94-strong field of Johnstown in Wexford. Mike Stewart honed his short distance skills with an 11th place finish in Shanganagh (20:37) in a field of 86 runners and Dave Cuddy was 4th in Athlone (20:0) in a small field of 22. Finally, Darina Scully warmed up for Dundalk by joining Maria Pertl in the River Valley Parkrun. In a 66-strong field, Darina placed 8th overall (2nd woman) in 22:47, whilst Maria was just behind in 10th place overall (3rd woman) in 22:50.

Lastly, we omitted to mention in recent reports that Irene Gorman won herself a gold medal competing for the Dublin team in the recent Leinster Senior XC held in October. Apologies for the late recognition and congratulations, as well as to Rob and Alban.

National Novices Women’s XC
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Fiona Kehoe 1 00:14:33
Crusaders AC runners
27 Mary Horgan 00:15:50
37 Yvonne Macauley 00:16:00
42 Niamh Corby 00:16:04
66 Fiona Shine 00:16:40
83 Grainne Regan 00:17:11
106 Dee Ni Chearbhaill 00:17:40
113 Darina Scully 00:17:40
129 Olwyn Dunne 00:18:30
Full results here: http://www.athleticsireland.ie/downloads/other/Novice_Women.pdf
National Novices Men’s XC
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 John Paul Williamson 1 00:19:00
Crusaders AC runners
16 Michael Kiely 00:19:54
19 Rob Cross 00:20:02
20 Alban Coghlan 00:20:03
43 Ciaran Diviney 00:20:30
66 Michael O’Conor 00:20:57
91 Bram D’Hoedt 00:21:29
101 John Mulvihill 00:21:36
103 Ger Forde 00:21:38
113 Jim Stagg 00:21;55
118 Jason Kehoe 00:22:07
127 Eddie Nugent 00:22:30
138 Michael Maughan 00:22:49
143 Joe Walsh 00:22:59
160 Phelim Murray 00:23:54
161 Will Owens 00:23:56
Full results here: http://www.athleticsireland.ie/downloads/other/Novice_Men_Amended.pdf
Aware 10K
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Rannou Vincent 1 00:32:04
15 Florence O’Donoghue 1 00:37:17
Crusaders AC runner
866 Carina Davidson 01:07:38
Full results here: http://www.myrunresults.com/events/aware_christmas_10k_run_/1830/results
Aware 5K
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Pierce Geoghegan 1 00:17:09
Crusaders AC runners
12 Luke Haran 00:20:10
23 Phelim Murray 00:21:05
Full results here: http://www.myrunresults.com/events/aware_christmas_10k_run_/1830/results
Athlone Parkrun #70
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Paul Heavey 1 00:18:46
14 Colette Andreson 1 00:24:40
Crusaders AC runner
4 Dave Cuddy 00:20:00
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/athlone/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=70
River Valley Parkrun #21
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Martin Kelly 1 00:20:02
6 Cecile Ollagnier 1 00:21:46
Crusaders AC runners
8 Darina Scully 00:22:47
10 Maria Pertl 00:22:50
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/rivervalley/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=21
Marlay Parkrun #187
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Trevor Connolly 1 00:17:15
11 Grace Sweeney 1 00:19:13
Crusaders AC runners
282 Mary Noelle Rohan 00:31:22
327 Alex Romano 00:42:21
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/marlay/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=187
Shanganagh Parkrun #90
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Ian McGrath 1 00:17:00
9 Zuleika O’Malley 1 00:20:26
Crusaders AC runners
11 Mike Stewart 00:20:37
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/shanganagh/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=90
Johnstown Parkrun #93
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Kevin Murphy 1 00:17:13
14 Louise Nolan Ryan 1 00:22:16
Crusaders AC runner
49 Mairin Shine 00:27:07
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/johnstown/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=93
Waterstown Parkrun #127
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Sean Fox 1 00:19:12
2 Aisling Smith 1 00:20:48
Crusaders AC runner
20 Neil Brown 00:23:31
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/waterstown/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=127
St Anne’s Parkrun #160
Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime
1 Graham O’Dwyer 1 00:17:21
11 Lucy Barrett 1 00:19:07
Crusaders AC runners
3 Peter O’Toole 00:18:00
168 Denis Murphy 00:30:37
Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/stannes/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=160