 Ger Forde, Frank Halligan, Ciaran Diviney and Brian O'Kelly The end of August generally marks the start of some of the longer distance road racing in the build up to the Autumn marathon season. This year, we have in the region of 70 athletes registered for various half and full marathons coming up and this significant presence was heavily reflected in the Cru turnout on Saturday morning for the Frank Duffy 10 mile race in the Phoenix Park. The race is one of the events in the Dublin race series, a build up for the Dublin marathon, and also doubles up as the County Dublin 10-mile road racing championships. It was extremely well-organised as usual and, as Crusaders, we enjoyed fabulous support on the day. Nearly 60 Crusaders took part in the race on Saturday, which has to be a club record. Before the start we were all grateful that the monsoon conditions of last year had been replaced by brilliant sunshine with a gentle refreshing breeze in places. However, the course was the same as last year’s and is extremely tough, particularly in the heat of Saturday morning. The race (which may, like the race series half marathon coming up in September, be moving to Newbridge House in Donabate next year) took place entirely within the confines of the park and the designer has ensured that, with the notable exceptions of the Khyber pass and the Furry Glen, nearly every hill in the park is tackled and are fairly spread out throughout the race. So, although we enjoyed a fast descent within the first mile on the Upper Glen Road (which led many runners to go off too fast, only to be reeled in later), we then had to deal with the Snake, the climb up past the Wellesley Monument (the surface of the new bike lane on that road being like the Irishtown track, so most welcome), the long drag up the North Road and finally the Upper Glen Road reversed from the lowest point in the park at Chapelizod to perhaps the highest for the finish on Furze Road. A nice touch, a repeat of Fingal, was the positioning of the fire brigade with a more than welcome hose near the 6 mile mark. It is likely that many were surprised how tough the challenge turned out to be, as, in general terms, the conditions initially felt quite pleasant. It was also something of a surprise to see that several of our runners recorded PBs, although a few of those were technically first timers for the distance. Generally, though, many of us who have run this race before came in with slower times than previously. Nevertheless, there was considerable success among our ranks all the same. The number of finishers was nearly 4200 and over half our clubmates finished in the top 500 overall. Brian O’Kelly was first home for the club in 13th place (55:55), having run for much of the race with Ciaran Diviney (15th in 56:31). Ciaran went on to win his age category and a gold medal in the Dublin championship. Between the two, along with Frank Halligan (29th in a PB time of 58:43) and Ger Forde (37th in a PB time of 59:36), the men may have won the gold senior team medal in Dublin by one point from Rathfarnham (subject to confirmation). Other strong runs on the men’s side came from James Moran (58th in 1:00:02), Karl Walsh (78th in 1:01:30) and Seamus McFloinn who, along with Paul Flynn, just missed out on a top 100 finish (101st in 1:02:36 and 104th in 1:03:16, respectively). There were some great runs by lots of our runners, too numerous to mention, but PBs were recorded by newcomer Brian Scanlan (196th in 1:06:13), Kevin Lynch (271st in 1:07:58) and Matt Cranley (328th in 1:09:15), Noel Reilly (501st in 1:11:44) and Sean Smith (503rd in 1:12:02) who had been suffering from the flu earlier in the week. One interesting result was that of Fergal Condron (446th in 1:11:11) whose brother Niall recorded an identical chiptime down to the second. Another gold medal winner in the Dublin championships was James Cottle who also won the O/60 category overall by placing 260th in 1:08:00. James was one of those who felt he was starting at a steady enough pace and gradually reeled in his competition, who appeared to have gone out too fast, within the first 4 miles, but found by the end that his splits were all over the place as the hills and heat took their toll. In the women’s race, where the first 3 finishers (Laura Graham, Gemma Rankin and Caitriona Jennings) all finished within a space of 25 seconds, Adrienne Jordan did the club proud with a 6th place finish (135th overall, in 1:04:15), effectively first (like Ciaran) in her O/40 age category but, more importantly, winner of the Dublin senior gold medal. Nina Holmes was our second female finisher (467th overall, 41st woman, in 1:11:39) having found the going tough, followed by Katie McElroy (659th overall, 66th woman, in 1:15:06), Dee Ni Chearbhaill (730th overall, 80th woman, in 1:16:24) and Triona Quill (running the distance for the first time in 1:16:07 and placing 736th overall, 82nd woman finisher). Adrienne, Nina, Katie and Dee have provisionally ended up taking senior team bronze in the Dublin Championships, whilst Triona looks likely to have taken individual silver in the O/45 category. Other top 250 female finishers included Ciara Lehane (938th overall, 116th woman, in 1:19:03), Ruth Dwyer (975th overall, 124th woman, in 1:19:38), Olwyn Dunne (1,017th overall, 136th woman, 6th in her age category, in 1:20:07) and Maria Kennedy (1,277th overall, 205th woman, in 1:23:00). Also, late on Saturday, congratulations should go to Ilona McElroy who placed 3rd behind women’s race winner Siobhan O’Doherty in the Tinryland 4 mile race in Co. Carlow. Ilona’s time was 24:26 and she placed 15th overall in a quality field of more than 90 runners. The course was marked by an extremely fast downhill start but including a severe hill after 3 miles. On Thursday evening Philip Matthews joined 140 other runners to take part in the Portmarnock 5K, a race that took place partly on the beach. Philip placed 11th in a time of 20:24. On Sunday Longford hosted its annual marathon, ultra, half, marathon relay and this year a 5K. We had runners in each of the events. Paul O’Meara treated the marathon as a training run and as a Boston qualifier, coming home in 18th place out of more than 180 competitors with a time of 3:12:45, a time fast enough to allow him to get to Croke Park in the afternoon. He was joined in the race by Leo Lundy who placed 163rd in 5:10:11. Kris Ryan, back from Australia, placed 3rd woman, 10th overall, in the ultra. There were 18 participants and Kris’s time was 6:33:54. Joe McDermott ran in the half and took 12th spot in a line-up of nearly 400 competitors and a great time of 1:21:49 and he was followed by Kate Murray (128th overall, 31st woman finisher, in 1:48:52). In the 5K, Rachel Yorke placed 15th overall, 4th woman, in a time of 23:23. There were just under 150 competitors in the race. Finally, a relay team of Donatas Jocius, Dominick Branigan, Paul Kelly and Miriam Logan took 3rd place in the relay event. Other Cru involved in the event included John Thuillier, Orlaith de Burca, Patrick Saunders, Emer Kenny, Mairin Shine and Lisa Shine Members will be interested to know that Dee Ni Chearbhaill’s husband, Sean Murphy from United Striders, who trains with Crusaders, placed 4th on Sunday in the 120-strong Oylegate half marathon, coming home in a time of 1:19:42, an excellent result given that Sean is recovering from a stubborn calf injury. On the mountain running front, there was one race midweek. Brian McGuckin and Gavan Doherty joined 100 other runners to take part in an 8k Mountain Rescue benefit race. The race took place around Paddock Hill near Laragh and involved a 250m climb over moderate terrain. Brian placed 14th in 36:57 behind race winner Michael McCarthy (30:42), whilst Gavan came home in 30th spot in a time of 40:50. Last week Liam O'Brien completed his first Ironman, in Copenhagen, finishing in 13:20:17 (with a marathon time of 4:33:54). This week, Edwina Quinlan completed the same event but in Vichy in France. In temperatures exceeding 34 degrees, Edwina performed amazingly, finishing in 11:26:22 (her marathon being 4:02:36). On Sunday, Karl Walsh took part in the Dublin City triathlon and in the Olympic distance event he completed the course in 2:31:08, to place him 83rd overall out of 428 finishers (his 10k taking Karl 43:13 to run). A new parkrun was added on Saturday, in Poolbeg, but no Crusaders took part in it. Instead, we had runners in 9 different locations. Aidan Hudner as usual ran in Glasgow, taking 55th spot out of 317 runners in 21:45. We had first finisher places for Dave Carter in Cabinteely (19:36) and Amy Brogan (9th overall out of 90 runners, in 21:27) in Waterstown. Dave was joined by Raghnall O’Donoghue (4th in 20:44) and Tomas Dunne (8th in 20:56) among a field of 123 runners. Peter O’Toole travelled to Belfast to run in the Waterworks run there, taking 3rd place out of 243 participants in a time of 18:02, whilst Thomas O’Rourke placed 23rd in a time of 24:27 in the 66-strong field in Limerick. Kevin Flynn took 38th spot in Porterstown in 27:17 in a field of more than 80 runners, whilst Orlaith de Burca came home in 37th spot overall (15th woman) in 31:51 in Longford. The field measured 75 runners. Maria Pertl continues to run competitively with potentially under 4 weeks to go before giving birth, placing 60th out of more than 100 runners in Poppintree. Maria’s time was 32:12. Finally, we had 3 runners in St. Anne’s. Colm Kernan took 45th place out of nearly 360 runners in a time of 21:40. On the eve of his 80th birthday, John Fitzsimons placed 198th in 27:52 and he was followed by his daughter Lorraine (273rd overall, 101st woman finisher, in 30:46). Huge congratulations on his milestone to John. Frank Duffy 10 mile (Dublin championships) Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Stephen Scullion 1 00:50:36 30 Laura Graham 1 00:58:50 Crusaders AC runners 13 Brian O’Kelly 00:55:55 15 Ciaran Diviney 00:56:31 29 Frank Halligan 00:58:43 (PB) 37 Ger Forde 00:59:36 (PB) 58 James Moran 01:00:22 78 Karl Walsh 01:01:30 101 Seamus McFloinn 01:02:36 104 Paul Flynn 01:03:16 116 Will Owens 01:03:44 119 Paul Dempsey 01:03:43 123 Joe Walsh 01:03:53 135 Adrienne Jordan 01:04:15 (6) 185 Dave Cuddy 01:05:57 189 Andrea Talpo 01:05:50 196 Brian Scanlan 01:06:13 (PB) 20X Diarmuid Byrne 01:06:31 260 James Cottle 01:08:00 271 Kevin Lynch 01:07:58 (PB) 328 Matt Cranley 01:09:15 (PB) 332 Donatas Jocius 01:09:33 394 Robert Browne 01:10:24 405 TJ Bourke 01:10:42 407 Gearoid Grogan 01:10:41 425 Luke Haran 01:10:53 439 Dave Tilly 01:11:22 (guide) 440 Donnacha MCarthy 01:11:22 446 Fergal Condron 01:11:11 467 Nina Holmes 01:11:39 (41) 472 Martin McCoy 01:11:39 501 Noel Reilly 01:11:44 (PB) 503 Sean Smith 01:12:02 (PB) 555 Paraic Gallagher 01:12:46 596 Denis Murphy 01:13:14 641 Phelim Murray 01:14:03 659 Katie McElroy 01:15:06 (66) 730 Dee Ni Chearbhaill 01:16:24 (80) 736 Triona Quill 01:16:07 (PB) (82) 804 Diarmuid Fahey 01:16:46 938 Ciara Lehane 01:19:03 (116) 975 Ruth Dwyer 01:19:38 (124) 1017 Olwyn Dunne 01:20:07 (136) 1022 Robbie Moore 01:19:59 1277 Maria Kennedy 01:23:00 (205) 1299 Russell Murphy 01:22:20 1430 Mike Fong 01:24:22 1433 Stephen Mulligan 01:23:42 1620 Ela Szkamruk 01:23:54 (328) 1680 Niall Kelly 01:26:59 1712 Neil Brown 01:28:14 1820 Aisling Dilworth 01:26:07 (386) 2287 Jean Devlin 01:33:15 (569) 2690 Aoife Quinn 01:36:13 (775) 2907 Carina Davidson 01:28:12 (886) 2909 Aisling O’Connor 01:38:19 (887) 3119 Siobhan Russell 01:43:15 (1023) Full results here: http://tdleventservices.co.uk/race-results.php Portmarnock 5K Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Joseph O’Donoghue 1 00:16:02 4 Annette Kealy 1 00:18:23 Crusaders AC runner 11 Philip Matthews 00:20:24 Full results here: https://www.myrunresults.com/events/portmarnock_5k__10k/2369/results Tinryland 4 mile Overall place Name Cat. Place Guntime 1 John Coghlan 1 00:19:24 8 Siobhan O’Doherty 1 00:23:05 Crusaders AC runner 15 Ilona McElroy 00:24:26 (3) Full results here: https://www.popupraces.ie/race-results/ Longford marathon Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Gary O’Hanlon 1 02:25:35 9 Pauline Curley 1 03:00:19 Crusaders AC runners 18 Paul O’Meara 03:12:45 163 Leo Lundy 05:10:11 Full results here: http://longfordmarathon.com/Longford_Marathon/2017_result.html Longford Half marathon Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 James Doran 1 01:11:44 21 Adele Walsh 1 01:25:05 Crusaders AC runner 12 Joe McDermott 01:21:49 128 Kate Murray 01:48:52 (31) Full results here: http://longfordmarathon.com/Longford_Marathon/2017_result.html Longford Ultra marathon Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Denis Keane 1 04:38:56 6 Deirdre Lynn 1 05:44:44 Crusaders AC runner 10 Kris Ryan 06:33:54 (3) Full results here: http://longfordmarathon.com/Longford_Marathon/2017_result.html Longford 5K Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Kamil Szostek 1 00:18:21 4 Michelle Lannon 1 00:19:33 Crusaders AC runner 15 Rachel Yorke 00:23:23 (4) Full results here: http://longfordmarathon.com/Longford_Marathon/2017_result.html Waterworks Parkrun #359 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Joe McAlister 1 00:16:43 28 Eimear McBrien 00:21:24 Crusaders AC runner 3 Peter O’Toole 00:18:02 Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/waterworks/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=359 Poppintree Parkrun #147 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Bobby Bedford 1 00:17:29 12 Kate Cleary 1 00:22:33 Crusaders AC runner 60 Maria Pertl 00:32:12 (19) Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/poppintree/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=147 Porterstown Parkrun #97 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Thomas Sherlock 1 00:16:23 10 Bronagh O’Hara 1 00:21:48 Crusaders AC runner 38 Kevin Flynn 00:27:17 Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/porterstown/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=97 St Anne’s Parkrun #196 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Ian Christopher Conroy 1 00:15:40 6 Zoe Quinn 1 00:18:35 Crusaders AC runners 45 Colm Kernan 00:21:40 198 John Fitzsimons 00:27:52 273 Lorraine Fitzsimons 00:30:46 (101) Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/stannes/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=196 Cabinteely Parkrun #126 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 David Carter 1 00:19:36 7 Malika Hammani 1 00:20:54 Crusaders AC runners 1 David Carter 00:19:35 4 Raghnall O’Donoghue 00:20:44 8 Tomas Dunne 00:20:56 Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/cabinteely/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=126 Limerick Parkrun #83 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 JJ Cremin 1 00:18:08 6 Shona Ni Fhloinn Crusaders AC runner 34 Kevin Flynn 00:32:02 Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/castlehaven/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=82 Waterstown Parkrun #165 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 Steve Chalk 1 00:19:58 9 Amy Brogan 1 00:21:27 Crusaders AC runner 9 Amy Brogan 00:21:27 (1) Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/waterstown/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=165 Longford Parkrun #68 Overall place Name Cat. Place Chiptime 1 unknown 1 00:18:42 5 Fiona Fallon 1 00:23:11 Crusaders AC runner 37 Orlaith de Burca 00:31:51 (15) Full results here: http://www.parkrun.ie/longford/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=68  Ciaran Diviney and Brian O'Kelly  Brian O'Kelly  Neil Brown  Kevin Lynch  James Cottle  Paul Dempsey  Will Owens and Paul Dempsey  Seamus McFloinn  Adrienne Jordan  Matt Cranley  Jean Devlin  Paul Flynn  Will Owens  Joe Walsh  Diarmuid Byrne  Maria Kennedy  Brian McGuckin  Gavan Doherty  Ilona McElroy  Ilona McElroy  Rachel Yorke  Kate Murray  Dominick Branigan and Donatas Jocius  Kris Ryan  Miriam Logan and Donatas Jocius  Donatas Jocius, Paul Kelly, Miriam Logan and Dominick Branigan  Back row: Patrick Saunders, Emer Kenny, Mairin Shine, Paul Kelly, John Thuillier and Kris Ryan. Front row: Orlaith de Burca, Lisa Shine, Kate Murray and Miriam Logan  Kris Ryan (2nd from right)  Philip Matthews Comments are closed.
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