Serious racing this week as several gruelling mountain races where taken on and we also had plenty of action on the roads including a big contingent at the Clontarf Half-marathon as we report on fifteen more results from Ireland, Norway, Wales and the Netherlands.
GLENDALOUGH TUCKER TRAIL
James Heggie fell for the cut-offs in the Glendalough Tucker Trail 80k – 11 of the 38 starters suffered this fate. Tough luck but on the plus side he had energy enough left to run at Ticknock 4 days later….
| RESULT |
| 1. Keith Lane () 8:19:40 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 38. James Heggie DNF |
THREE-ROCK TICKNOCK
James was one of four finishers from the club in this Leinster League race with Angus Tyner leading the team home ahead of Alan Kennedy and Mark Willoughby on a new course devised for 2023. Angus and Alan took 1st and 2nd in the M55 neary ‘as usual’.
| RESULT |
| 1. Enda Cloake (Slaney Olympic) 0:37:42 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 38. Angus Tyner 0:47:55 (1st M55) |
| 48. Alan Kennedy 0:49:28 (2nd M55) |
| 146. James Heggie 1:11:05 |
| 171. Mark Willoughby 1:09:28 |
HORNINDAL ULTRA
Graeme Warren was in Norway running a race described as ‘Norway’s toughest mountain race’ and it seemed correct once his report arrived:
A quick update from Norway. I dropped out of the ultra at half way (still got a medal as that was also a race!). 37.5km, 2900m vertical, which took 8.48 hours, for an blistering average speed of a smidge over 4km an hour. This was a different league, way beyond anything I’ve tried before Technically really challenging and with brutal climbs and descents. I think there were only two short sections in any way runnable. At that pace, it would have taken c20hours for the ultra, and I wasn’t ready for that. So I stopped in good form, having had one of the best mountain days of my life, and with no injuries after a great adventure. Very happy indeed!
While Graeme earned a medal for completing the ‘shortened’ 38.6 km it was not enough for a placing and he had to concede as a DNF in the 75k.
| RESULT |
| 1. Erik Vadla (Sandles IL) 11:11:43 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 34. Graeme Warren DNF |
CLONTARF HALF-MARATHON
Diarmuid Kavanagh was our fastest man and set his first marker on this distance as 1:37:41. Starting in Wave 4 it took him 8 minutes to cross the line and he described the first 4 km as ‘being at a funeral’ and Eoin Phelan also reported the race had some issues this year:
“It was poorly organised. i had to run with the race-tshirt in my hand as we barely made it to the start line due to queues for race numbers. the wind was so strong that I could barely take a drink of water from their wide plastic cups. i end up having to stop at each water station just so could actually swallow some water. the parking was poorly organised aswell. on a positive note it was a nice course and medal.“
Our Wicklow Wolf RC contingent also ran well with PBs for Graham Kearns and Ben McGettigan.
| RESULT |
| 1. Yared Derese (Carrick Aces AC) 1:10:27 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 323. Diarmuid Kavanagh 1:37:55 (PB, MS PB) |
| 464. Mark Lindsay 1:47:13 – WW RC |
| 592. Graham Kearns 1:49:03 (PB, M45 PB)- WW RC |
| 731. Eoin Phelan 1:54:08 |
| 1412. Ben McGettigan 2:04:09 (PB, M35 PB) – WW RC |
| 2044. James McCarthy 2:18:08 – WW RC |
SNOWDONIA XTERRA HALF-MARATHON
Around the same time in Wales, club coach Rene Borg (representing an EcoTrail Wicklow contingent over there to sell Wicklow on the locals) began the long climb towards Snowdon in a race the organiser’s described as ‘a race that is known as one of the most challenging half routes out there (some will say harder than the full!)’. Despite these hardships and a fall on the final descent, Rene finished in the top-10% of the field and was back to see the other EcoTrail Wicklow ‘workers’ take the overall win (Ricki Wynne), M50 win (Paul Mahon) and F40 win (Nicola Cleary) in the 57 km race.
| RESULT |
| 1. Oliver Radford () 1:51:01 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 38. René Borg 2:26:43 |
NORDWIJK 10 KM and 5 km
Also abroad – in the Netherlands – Catherine Devitt won the F40 category in the Nordwijk 10k finishing 6th woman and 35th overall in a race that drew nearly 600 competitors.
| RESULT |
| 1. Bereket Yeman (Leiden) 0:32:54 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 35. Catherine Devitt 0:39:25 (1st F40) |
Hubby Richard Costelloe competed in the 5 km – in similarly warm conditions around 25 degrees – finishing 10th out of 198 anf was likewise first in this category (M45).
| RESULT |
| 1. Maikel Stolwijk (Leiden) 0:17:30 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 10. Richard Costelloe 0:19:18 (1st M45) |
Glendalough AC 