A quick report from the Netherlands before we dig into the Wednesday evening action from the Scalp and from Arklow for this year’s Athletics Wicklow 5k Road Championship.
BRABANTSE WAL 10K
Catherine Devitt was ready to take on a full Trail Marathon but the organiser’s ran into permit issues seeing her race reduced to a 10 km. On a relatively flat and fast course, she took another win in 42:33. Full results pending….
SCALP
A crew of ten of our runners joined 199 others at Carrickgolligan for the Scalp race in the IMRA Leinster League with Richard Allan first home once again and finishing 2nd M50 with Alan Kennedy (2nd M55) and Joe Lalor (2nd M70) also finishing top-3 in their categories.
| RESULT |
| 1. Daire Finn () 0:33:00 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 22. Richard Allan 0:41:41 (2nd M50) |
| 45. Alan Kennedy 0:45:50 (2nd M55) |
| 71. Grace Curham 0:49:10 |
| 76. Angus Tyner 0:49:41 |
| 96. Niall MacCarthy 0:52:35 |
| 117. Andy Walker 0:56:25 |
| 157. Keith Mulvey 1:00:29 |
| 183. James Heggie 1:06:27 |
| 208. Richard Kieran DNF |
WICKLOW ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP 2024
We’ve been present at every Wicklow Road Championship since 2015 and this year was no exception even if our contingent of seven was the smallest since the strange years 2019 and 2020 (were we sent 6 and 7). Late injuries and withdrawals meant our M50 and our F35 teams folded leaving it up to 7 runners split over 2x M35 teams to try and contest.
Gavin Kennedy led the team home for the lone medal of the day (our 31st in this event) finishing a solid 2nd in the M45 category – he also dipped under 19 minutes for the first time (18:23) for a breakthrough performance and banked 100 points in the Club Championship.
Next was Blaise Kinsella in 19:23 with club coach Rene Borg 3 spots and 5 seconds further back. Eoin Phelan was next leading home our 2nd team and breaking the 20 minute barrier for the first time with a very fine time of 19:49 (a massive PB).
next was Graham Kearns in his 5k road debut in 20:49 with Colm Kenna 43 seconds later – improving his 2023 time by about a minute – and Mark Willoughby rounding out the team. Donna’s absence means Colm is now the only Glendalough AC runner to have run all 10 road championship races we have contested – keep it up!
Finally thanks to Donna, Paul and Feidhlim – our volunteers on the night!
| RESULT |
| 1. Alex Gray (Kilcoole AC) 0:15:30 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 38. Gavin Kennedy 0:18:23 (2nd M45, PB, Individual Silver) |
| 65. Blaise Kinsella 0:19:23 |
| 68. René Borg 0:19:28 |
| 75. Eoin Phelan 0:19:49 (PB) |
| 95. Graham Kearns 0:20:49 (PB) |
| 122. Colm Kenna 0:21:32 |
| 145. Mark Willoughby 0:23:12 |
CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP – AFTER ROUND 8
Gavin took his first ever victory in a Club Championship counter to move up to 4th and closer to the injured run-away leader Paul Duffy while Eoin Phelan’s fine run moves him up to 3rd with Rene Borg (absent the last 5 rounds with injury) moves up to 6th. With no women running tonight, Aoife retains her lead in that category.
| Rank | Name | Races# | Best 5 | Wins |
| 1 | Paul Duffy | 5 | 500.0 | 5 |
| 2 | Kevin Ferguson | 5 | 448.9 | 0 |
| 3 | Eoin Phelan | 5 | 402.7 | 0 |
| 4 | Gavin Kennedy | 4 | 381.6 | 1 |
| 5 | Aoife Joyce | 4 | 321.5 | 0 |
| 6 | René Borg | 3 | 285.9 | 0 |
| 7 | Aran Lynham | 3 | 281.0 | 0 |
| 8 | Alan Kennedy | 3 | 266.8 | 0 |
| 9 | Mark Willoughby | 4 | 262.1 | 0 |
| 10 | Graham Bushe | 2 | 196.3 | 0 |
| 11 | Richard Allan | 2 | 189.5 | 1 |
| 12 | Angus Tyner | 2 | 183.4 | 0 |
| 13 | Anthony Breen | 2 | 180.3 | 0 |
| 14 | James Heggie | 3 | 179.9 | 0 |
| 15 | Catherine Devitt | 2 | 179.4 | 0 |
| 16 | Loraine Creane | 2 | 177.5 | 0 |
| 17 | Colm Kenna | 2 | 167.8 | 0 |
| 18 | Claire Thompson | 2 | 146.2 | 0 |
| 19 | Rebecca Whineray | 2 | 127.2 | 0 |
| 20 | Gerard O’Rourke | 2 | 122.5 | 0 |
| 21 | Graeme Warren | 1 | 100.0 | 1 |
| 22 | Diarmuid Kavanagh | 1 | 96.2 | 0 |
| 23 | Torben Dahl | 1 | 95.6 | 0 |
| 24 | Marcus Murphy | 1 | 95.5 | 0 |
| 25 | Kevin Doherty | 1 | 95.2 | 0 |
| 26 | Blaise Kinsella | 1 | 94.6 | 0 |
| 27 | Chris willoughby | 1 | 87.8 | 0 |
| 28 | Rachel Wisdom | 1 | 87.4 | 0 |
| 29 | Graham Kearns | 1 | 86.8 | 0 |
| 30 | Philip O’Brien | 1 | 86.6 | 0 |
| 31 | Donna Quinn | 1 | 86.2 | 0 |
| 32 | Jeff Swords | 1 | 83.4 | 0 |
| 33 | Ben Lewis | 1 | 83.4 | 0 |
| 34 | Grace Curham | 1 | 81.6 | 0 |
| 35 | fergal Olohan | 1 | 77.7 | 0 |
| 36 | Corrie Adams | 1 | 77.6 | 0 |
| 37 | Niall MacCarthy | 1 | 76.9 | 0 |
| 38 | Neil Fusco | 1 | 71.8 | 0 |
| 39 | Richard Kieran | 1 | 64.2 | 0 |
| 40 | Brendan Farrell | 1 | 63.5 | 0 |
| 41 | Andy Walker | 1 | 60.2 | 0 |
| 42 | Sam Fleming | 1 | 55.5 | 0 |
| 43 | Aaron Kedward | 1 | 48.9 | 0 |
| 44 | Tadeusz Cantwell | 1 | 6.7 | 0 |
Glendalough AC 