We had a lower attendance than in recent years at the Athletics Wicklow Off-Road Championship but that didn’t matter: the twenty-six runners that stepped forward put in a string of great performances to win the championship for the first time since 2023 with a haul of 11 gold medals, 5 silver and 4 bronze (20 in total).
RUN THE SPINC 30K – 2026
The first race to start was the first full running of the originally envisioned Run the Spinc 30k route (really 28.4k but what is a mile between friends). Lonan O’Farrell romped home in an impressive 2:14:29. Our first man home was Graeme Warren in 15th and he also won his category as he continues a strong long distance summer season. Lucy Neill had a very impressive outing finishing 6th woman and 1st in the senior women’s category. Shane Keogh was our third coming in 2 spots and five seconds after Lucy and also taking 1st in the senior age category.
Result: Run the Spinc 30k – 2026
| Position | Runner | Club | Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lonan O’Farrell | 2:14:29 | Race winner | |
| Glendalough AC athletes | ||||
| 15 | Graeme Warren | Glendalough AC | 2:44:29 | 1st M50 |
| 36 | Lucy Neill | Glendalough AC | 3:06:57 | 1st FS |
| 38 | Shane Keogh | Glendalough AC | 3:07:02 | 1st MS, WW RC |
RUN THE RIDGE 20K
Sebastien Giraud finished 2nd overall and 1st M40 in his first outing representing the club while Catherine Devitt won the women’s race by a comprehensive 5 minute margin.
All in all we had ten Glendalough AC athletes raced in a field of seventy-three and they made a big difference in turning a narrow lead on the medal table into a comprehensive one – scooping up nine medals with Gold to Sebastien, Catherine, Ben Lewis, David Gray, Zoe Heathcote and Karen Field.
Result: Run the ridge 20k
| Position | Runner | Club | Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Benjamin Butler | Kilcoole AC | 1:30:38 | Race winner |
| Glendalough AC athletes | ||||
| 2 | Sebastien Giraud | Glendalough AC | 1:35:02 | 1st M40 |
| 9 | Kevin Doherty | Glendalough AC | 1:47:01 | 3rd M40 |
| 12 | Catherine Devitt | Glendalough AC | 1:50:57 | 1st F40 |
| 20 | Ben Lewis | Glendalough AC | 2:00:06 | 1st M45, WW RC |
| 21 | David Gray | Glendalough AC | 2:01:58 | 3rd M50 |
| 43 | Gary Neill | Glendalough AC | 2:17:48 | 3rd M55 |
| 44 | Siobhan Brennan | Glendalough AC | 2:17:49 | 2nd F50 |
| 54 | Zoe Heathcote | Glendalough AC | 2:27:33 | 1st F35, WW RC |
| 58 | Brian Field | Glendalough AC | 2:29:25 | WW RC |
| 63 | Karen Field | Glendalough AC | 2:50:48 | 1st F55, WW RC |
RUN THE RIDGE 10K
Our biggest field (13) was in the 10 km race where Aaron won the championship race outright and finished only a few second behind the open race winner from France. Paul Duffy and Graham Bush ensured we had three men in the top-10 and when Tivon Tyner arrived next, he cemented a 12 minute victory in the Senior Teams category over St. Benedict’s with Parnell four minutes further back.
The o50 and women’s races were also tight – while Parnell dominated the absolute positions, their fastest trio was entered into the Female Senior teams category leaving Aoife and Loraine and Claire to battle Lakeshore for the gold. In the end, Aoife and Loraine came in within 17 seconds of each other in 31st and 34th before Yvonne Brennan (running as a scorer for our Senior Female team) managed to get in 9 seconds before Claire. It was also tight between Yvonne’s team mates: Fiona and Monica arrived with only 14 seconds between them and finished 2nd behind the runaway Parnell team.
The men’s o50 team has won the gold medal every year this event has been held but this year’s trio of Graham Bushe, Anthony Breen and Brendan Lawlor had to concede the goal to Parnell. Graham Bush had given the team a 5 minute lead but Paul Mahon and Cormac O’Ceallaigh arrived in before Anthony Breen and then Billy Porter beat out Brendan Lawlor to secure a 4 minute winning margin for Parnell. There was plenty of consolation as Graham took another individual gold and Brendan Lawlor won his first medal for the club (Silver in the M60).. All in all, we got 5 individual gold medals, two silver, and one bronze.
Result: Run the ridge 10k
| Position | Runner | Club | Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emilien Morin | Triathlon Club Andresy | 40:14 | Race winner |
| Glendalough AC athletes | ||||
| 2 | Aaron Cullen | Glendalough AC | 40:24 | 1st MS, WW RC |
| 7 | Paul Duffy | Glendalough AC | 44:06 | 1st M45 |
| 9 | Graham Bushe | Glendalough AC | 45:30 | 1st M55 |
| 15 | Tivon Tyner | Glendalough AC | 48:18 | |
| 31 | Aoife Joyce | Glendalough AC | 52:23 | 1st F45 |
| 34 | Loraine Creane | Glendalough AC | 52:40 | 2nd F45 |
| 40 | Anthony Breen | Glendalough AC | 54:44 | 3rd M50 |
| 42 | Colm Kenna | Glendalough AC | 55:18 | |
| 46 | Yvonne Brennan | Glendalough AC | 56:03 | |
| 48 | Claire Thompson | Glendalough AC | 56:14 | 1st F35 |
| 57 | Fiona Smyth | Glendalough AC | 1:00:11 | |
| 58 | Monica Timmins | Glendalough AC | 1:00:23 | |
| 72 | Brendan lawlor | Glendalough AC | 1:03:41 | 2nd M60 |
OVERALL WINNERS
Once all medals were tallied up we could confirm that we managed to win the overall trophy for only the second time with 11 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze with Parnell and Lakeshore in 2nd and 3rd. This makes it the most convincing win of a championship since the inaugural victory where Parnell won out of 39 medals and well ahead of Inbhear Dee and Lakeshore. After that had followed a few much tighter years – in 2025 we lost out on the difference in Silver medals and in 2024 we had won eight more medals than Parnell but were beaten 8-7 on gold medal count. Our first victory had been equally tight in 2023 where we finished 12-6-7 to Parnell’s 10-8-4.
Our record in the event is now 4th-1st-2nd-2nd-1st.
CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP
The Off-Road Championship is always a scorer in the club championship and here we use normalised performances for all three distances to rank runners against each other using the ‘Keswick system’. Graham Bush retains the lead but Aaron Cullen is now up to a perfect score of 400 points and could become impossible to catch with a good score in the Wicklow Novice race. Paul Duffy is also still in the mix only 20 points back on Aaron. Monica Timmins still leads Loraine Creane and Aoife Joyce but the women’s competition is wide open.
The scoring race in the Club Championship is the Wicklow 10 km Championship in Blessington middle of September.
Overall standings (ranked by points, i.e. Best 5)
| Rank | Name | Races | Points | Wins | Behind |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Graham Bushe | 9 | 494.4 | 2 | – |
| 2 | Aaron Cullen | 4 | 400.0 | 4 | 94.4 |
| 3 | Paul Duffy | 4 | 380.6 | 2 | 113.8 |
| 4 | Alan Kennedy | 4 | 323.8 | 0 | 170.6 |
| 5 | Loraine Creane | 4 | 320.1 | 0 | 174.3 |
| 6 | Huw Thomas | 3 | 276.8 | 0 | 217.6 |
| 7 | Colm Kenna | 4 | 259.4 | 0 | 235.0 |
| 8 | Kevin Doherty | 3 | 255.0 | 0 | 239.4 |
| 9 | Tivon Tyner | 3 | 240.9 | 0 | 253.5 |
| 10 | Ben Lewis | 3 | 211.4 | 0 | 283.0 |
| 11 | Monica Timmins | 4 | 207.1 | 0 | 287.3 |
| 12 | Aoife Joyce | 3 | 201.2 | 0 | 293.2 |
| 13 | Ian Bromley | 2 | 188.8 | 0 | 305.6 |
| 14 | Eoin Phelan | 3 | 165.9 | 0 | 328.5 |
| 15 | Anne Bromley | 2 | 159.0 | 0 | 335.4 |
| 16 | Jimmy Cullen | 2 | 154.0 | 0 | 340.4 |
| 17 | Brendan Lawlor | 3 | 153.6 | 0 | 340.8 |
| 18 | Donna Quinn | 2 | 150.4 | 0 | 344.0 |
| 19 | Fiona Smyth | 2 | 108.0 | 0 | 386.4 |
| 20 | Sebastien Giraud | 1 | 94.7 | 0 | 399.7 |
| 20 | Christopher Shannon | 1 | 94.7 | 0 | 399.7 |
| 22 | Brian Field | 2 | 91.5 | 0 | 402.9 |
| 23 | Gavin Kennedy | 1 | 87.5 | 0 | 406.9 |
| 24 | Richard Allan | 1 | 85.6 | 0 | 408.8 |
| 25 | Louis Byrne | 1 | 83.3 | 0 | 411.1 |
| 26 | Kevin Ferguson | 1 | 78.8 | 0 | 415.6 |
| 27 | Angus Tyner | 1 | 78.7 | 0 | 415.7 |
| 28 | Catherine Devitt | 1 | 77.1 | 0 | 417.3 |
| 29 | Graeme Warren | 1 | 75.1 | 0 | 419.3 |
| 30 | James Fitzgerald | 1 | 72.0 | 0 | 422.4 |
| 31 | Andy Walker | 1 | 67.6 | 0 | 426.8 |
| 32 | David Gray | 1 | 64.9 | 0 | 429.5 |
| 33 | Anthony Breen | 1 | 64.5 | 0 | 429.9 |
| 34 | Yvonne Brennan | 1 | 61.3 | 0 | 433.1 |
| 35 | Rebecca Whineray | 1 | 61.1 | 0 | 433.3 |
| 36 | Claire Thompson | 1 | 60.8 | 0 | 433.6 |
| 37 | James Grant | 1 | 59.2 | 0 | 435.2 |
| 38 | Lucy Neill | 1 | 58.0 | 0 | 436.4 |
| 38 | Shane Keogh | 1 | 58.0 | 0 | 436.4 |
| 38 | Richard Kieran | 2 | 58.0 | 0 | 436.4 |
| 41 | James Heggie | 2 | 52.5 | 0 | 441.9 |
| 42 | Gary Neill | 1 | 47.3 | 0 | 447.1 |
| 42 | Siobhan Brennan | 1 | 47.3 | 0 | 447.1 |
| 44 | Kara Fleischmann | 1 | 44.6 | 0 | 449.8 |
| 45 | Karen Field | 2 | 42.3 | 0 | 452.1 |
| 46 | Cari Burke | 1 | 40.2 | 0 | 454.2 |
| 47 | Zoe Heathcote | 1 | 36.5 | 0 | 457.9 |
| 48 | Christina Byrne | 1 | 16.4 | 0 | 478.0 |
Women’s standings (ranked by points)
| Rank | Name | Races | Points | Wins | Behind |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monica Timmins | 4 | 321.1 | 0 | – |
| 2 | Loraine Creane | 4 | 293.9 | 2 | 27.2 |
| 3 | Aoife Joyce | 3 | 277.3 | 0 | 43.8 |
| 4 | Donna Quinn | 2 | 198.6 | 1 | 122.5 |
| 5 | Anne Bromley | 2 | 197.5 | 1 | 123.7 |
| 6 | Fiona Smyth | 2 | 160.0 | 0 | 161.1 |
| 7 | Catherine Devitt | 1 | 100.0 | 1 | 221.1 |
| 8 | Karen Field | 2 | 97.6 | 0 | 223.5 |
| 9 | Yvonne Brennan | 1 | 87.1 | 0 | 234.0 |
| 10 | Claire Thompson | 1 | 86.8 | 0 | 234.3 |
| 11 | Rebecca Whineray | 1 | 84.7 | 0 | 236.4 |
| 12 | Lucy Neill | 1 | 84.5 | 0 | 236.6 |
| 13 | Siobhan Brennan | 1 | 75.8 | 0 | 245.3 |
| 14 | Cari Burke | 1 | 67.4 | 0 | 253.7 |
| 15 | Zoe Heathcote | 1 | 67.0 | 0 | 254.1 |
| 16 | Kara Fleischmann | 1 | 63.0 | 0 | 258.1 |
| 17 | Christina Byrne | 1 | 55.9 | 0 | 265.2 |
Glendalough AC 