It’s been a busy last 10 days on the trails and hills, so we’ll start with today’s result where Arne Klohn and Derek Cullen took to the local slopes of Trooperstown Hill and ran well finishing 24th and 38th respectively out of 125 competitors.
TROOPERSTOWN HILL
Killian Mooney, DSD 38:06
———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–
Arne Klohn 47:35
Derek Cullen 50:31
The previous day saw the running festival for Wicklow Hospice in Avondale where Anthony Breen ran a very strong half-marathon to finish 5th and first his category. Yvonne Brennan finished 2nd lady in the 10 km in 43:58. Richard Costelloe also competed. Full results will be available Monday.
Last weekend Torben Dahl was busy – Torben finished 3rd but unfortunately this was on a short course – a category created for the unfortunate runner who got lost courtesy of some crettins having removed part of the course marking! 24 hours later he got his ‘revanche’ at Oughaval Woods where there was no such troubles and he finished 4th out of 34 in the ‘full’ race.
The SLÍ MHÚSCRAÍ races series is fast getting a fantastic reputation. Torben Dahl ran away with victory in the half-marathon event more than 3 minutes clear of the nearest challenger. This was the first outright individual victory for our club in 2019 – so now we’re on the board. The race was notable in that the top-6 overall finishers were all over 40!
Duncan Barrett (pictured) meanwhile finished 15th in the Ultra in 8:53 narrowly behind ladies winner Eilis Connery who set a new women’s record on the course.
Meanwhile in Kerry, Barry Murray started his day by running 18:50 in the ParkRun he has founded on Inch Beach. Later in the day he took fourth place at Claragh Mountain (results not yet available) so perhaps Billy Bland was right when he said ‘rest and recovery, I have never heard such bloody nonsense in all my life’.
Barry O’Neill and Donna Quinn carried the green and gold flag of Glendalough AC at the neo-classical Trim 10 miler yesterday and acquitted themselves well on a windy day in the midlands.
While there were no PBs both ran close to their bests with Donna 2.5 minutes from her early 2018 result and Barry just under 2 minutes – with both having lost most of the latter part of 2018 to injury this is not to be discounted!
In an exciting race at Green Gapways, the league standings got massively over-turned. Barry O’Neill was the run-away leader setting the fastest 10 km time on the day and beating his handicap by nearly 6 minutes whilst recording his 2nd victory of this years league.
He was followed home on the day by Aoife Joyce in 2nd (3 minutes faster than handicap) who also climbed to 2nd in the overall table. Third was Bruce Phillips who had a strong run on the 10 km route and beat his handicap by 2 minutes 41 seconds, enough to move him up into 3rd overall.
Result of round 9 of 12
The ‘cutest’ run of the day was undoubtedly Donna Quinn who improved her handicap by 1 minute 59 seconds. This meant she got the best possible score whilst not improving her handicap so much it get’s massively hard to beat the second time. The run also took her top of the table now 62 seconds ahead of Aoife Joyce. Previous leader René Borg droppe to fourth.
Overall standings with 9 out of 12 run an 4 to score
Fastest 5 km on the day was 23:14 which was set jointly by Yvonne Brennan and René Borg although it should be mentioned Yvonne decided to stop and wait for René with 100m to go! 6 out of 12 runners beat their handicap – apart from those previously mentioned there were good performances by Yvonne Brennan (84 seconds ahead of handicap) and Flora McKnight (2 minutes 24 seconds ahead of handicap).
The current standings mean that any runner who is 2 minutes or less behind the leader only needs one result where they improve their handicap by 2 minutes to jump back in front of the pack. Any runner within 4 minutes will need to post two such results in the final three rounds at the Miner’s Road, Roundwood Reservoir and Brockagh Woods.
More training than racing to report from this week – Aoife Joyce had a run-out at the Avondale ParkRun today for her first 5 km ‘race’ in nearly 5 years and had an enjoyable time coming around in 24:10 on the somewhat bumpy course.
Another result from the hills. As Catherine Devitt was racing at Hellfire, Barry Murray took to the start line at Corrin Hill in Munster. The race had the unusual feature of having three Pauls occupying the top-3 placings. Perhaps Paul is replacing John as the name to pick if you want to excel in the hills.
Barry meanwhile showed he was only a bit behind his early-season form of 2018 – finishing 7th for the second consecutive year in a time only 23 seconds slower than the previous seasons outing. With conditions in the hills ever-changing such small variations are nearly the same as ‘no change’.
After the club shenanigans in Clara Vale Saturday, one club runners was involved in more serious business as the IMRA 2019 season kicked off at Hellfire Woods.
Seven day after her come-back in cross-country, Catherine Devitt returned for her first IMRA run since August 2017 and finished 14th in the ladies race and 86th overall with 217 finishers in this the first race of the Winter/Spring League.
A belated race result from 2018. Torben Dahl ran the Wanake ParkRun on 29th of December as part of his holiday in New Zealand. If you’re around those parts Torben heartily recommends what was a stunning run with great view.
Having missed the previous three instalments of this years Wicklow cross-country championship, it was heartening to see a big squad of our runners out for today’s Wicklow Masters Cross-Country Championship held in pristine conditions in Shanganagh Park today and hosted by Bray Runners. Thanks in advance to our hosts for a marvellous event!
Most chaotic team photo ever!
A great Nollaig na mBan
Our women where up first and we sported our biggest team yet with 5 runners: two of our ‘regulars’ (Yvonne Brennan and Donna Quinn) with Catherine Devitt and Aoife Joyce making their come-backs after extended breaks and Rachel Wisdom returning to cross-country for the first time in many years.
Rachel went off in an early lead but Parnell’s Catherine O’Connor quickly asserted herself and dominated the majority of the race to finish first – 24 seconds ahead of Aisling Smith. Rachel battled midway for the last podium spot with another Parnell runner – Ann-Marie Kenny – but lost out by 21 seconds in the end. As a consolation she took the Gold Medal in the F35 category. Behind our Catherine Devitt set out in second but had been caught midway by Yvonne Brennan and Donna Quinn.
Rachel Wisdom on the first lap
The girls worked together and packed well and in the end Donna Quinn paced herself best to take 5th overall – Yvonne and Catherine followed in quick succession in 6th and 8th spot and then Aoife in 15th. Such tight packing was duly rewarded: our women took Gold in the team competition with 15 points – 7 ahead of second-placed Parnell and four individual medals – the Gold, Silver and Bronze in the F35 category (Rachel, Donna and Catherine respectively) and the Bronze medal in the F40 category for Yvonne. This was the 5th team medal in cross-country in our history so far but only the 2nd gold.
‘A’ means medals: awards for Angus and Anthony
Not to be completely outdone, our men also took home two individual medals: Angus Tyner had another excellent race – as is his habit – finishing 13th overall and taking the Bronze medal in the M50 category. Not far behind was a determined Anthony Breen in 20th who was rewarded for his efforts with the Bronze medal in the M45 category. Barry O’Neill and Rene Borg worked together for the mid-part of the race and finished 28th and 31st respectively with Johnny Conway (making his senior debut in the discipline) in 37th. Next in was another first-time cross-country runner – ultra-man Duncan Barrett in 47th followed by Colm Kenna and Keith Mulvey in 49th and 50th place. Winner of the men’s race were the hosts Ian McGrath.
Anthony and Johnny at the start (photo: Andrew Hanney)
Overall, our men finished 5th out of 6 teams with 51 points – avoiding finishing last by a mere two points ahead of the Kilcoole B team – every place counts!
All in all, 1 team GOLD, 1 individual gold, 1 individual silver, and 4 individual bronze medals represented a fantastic haul for the teams which will hopefully encourage everyone ahead of the 2019-2020 cross-country season!
A special thanks for our hosts Bray Runners for putting on a smoothly run event on a superb course.
Arne Klohn demolished the group to cruise home in a fine 20:40 on the tough 5 km up to the turning point over Glendasan valley exactly 2.5 km from the Glendalough Hotel. The route follows Kevin’s Way up along the Glendasan River.
His time was a new record in the second running over the course and Rachel Wisdom also set a new ladies record with her 21:41. Only one runner raced/ran the long course – Bruce Phillips – and one took the option of running solo after the mass start (René). Once handicaps were factored in Arne Klohn still retained the win ahead of Rachel Wisdom and Aoife Joyce.
Bruce Phillips was the first person to do the long course so his 49:49 stands as the course record for that as well.
Arne’s win moves him up to third in the standings and with 5 races left and 4 runners on 3 races (with 4 to score) competition is heating up.
