Tag: Anthony Breen

REPORT: National Masters XC

by glendaloughac, posted in Cross-country running, Race reports

The National Masters Cross-Country came to Avondale and four of our runners joined up underneath the banners of the broader Sli Cualann teams to compete. Two and one kilometer loops had been laid out with a start from Avondale House featuring several hills including ‘The Green Wave’ midway through the bigger two kilometer lap making it one of the hilliest cross-country courses in the country.

There was much success for Sli Cualann overall with several individual medals and team bronze for the Men’s Intermediate team. Glendalough AC could not contribute to this effort as we have no male members under 35!

Ladies race

Ladies Masters and Over-65 men

Donna Quinn, running her first national cross-country event, set off first with the Masters Ladies race over 4 km (two laps) and went on to have a strong run finishing 67th out of 206 and fifth of the 11 Sli Cualann ladies in action.

Men’s race

Sli Cualann Masters (O35-O65) men’s team

Our three male representatives raced in the men’s over-35 to 65 race over 7 km (three 2 km laps after a shorter 1 km warm-up lap). 258 set off in a regular stampede.

First Glendalough AC man was club coach René Borg representing Sli Cualann for the first time (having not run outside county level since his transfer from Crusaders AC in 2013) in 30:11. Angus and Anthony arrived within a minute with Angus in 30:28 and Anthony in 31:10. This was the case for much of the Sli Cualann team – Parnell’s Tony Collins arrived at the 30 minute mark with Jonathan O’Neill in 30:35 and MJ O’Neill in 30:41 making it six out of the total twenty Sli Cualann runners in the field within that 70 second time-span.

Angus’ run made him fourth scorer in the 2nd placed over-50ies team with Rene and Anthony 2nd and 3rd scorer for the Sli Cualann B team that finished 22nd out of 22 in the over-35s!!!

As the race contained three or more Glen AC runners, it will count in the Club Championship 2020.

RESULTS

Masters Women

  1. Teresa Doherty, Finn Valley 15:21

————–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS (REPRESENTING SLI CUALANN)—————

67. Donna Quinn 18:16 (5th Sli Cualann runner)

full results

Masters Men

  1. Brian Maher, Kilkenny City Harriers 23:43

————–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS (REPRESENTING SLI CUALANN)—————

157. René Borg 30:11 (13th Sli Cualann runner)

166. Angus Tyner 30:28 (14th Sli Cualann runner)

193. Anthony Breen 31:10 (17th Sli Cualann runner)

full results

REPORT: Wicklow Way Relay 2019

by glendaloughac, posted in Race reports, Trail running

Our team took up the team challenge of the Wicklow Way Relay for the fifth year running and it was another buzzing day.

Full results

Half the battle is getting to the start line!

The team very nearly didn’t make the starting line. First Torben Dahl called in with a poor IT band Tuesday evening (he had a miracle recovery), Angus Tyner did in his ankle on Wednesday night (he didn’t recover) and finally Amidou Dembele’s car broke down in Sligo on the way down from Donegal Friday evening. One rental car later Amidou was at least on his way to Dublin but injury and other commitments in the men’s team meant genuine concerns existed around whether Angus could be replaced.

That was until Richard Costelloe dusted himself off early in his Ballyhoura recovery and took over in the eleventh hour (thanks Rich!) and making his debut in the event. Derek Cullen and Anthony Breen also had their debuts on the ‘official team’ having previously only competed in the event along with the ‘Laragh Locals’. He ran strong despite sheepishly admitting his house-renovation project had left him short of training since qualifying!

The times they are a-changin’!

The final team thus bore only 4 repeat runners from 2018: Rachel Wisdom, Torben Dahl, Amidou Dembele and Yvonne Brennan with Marcus Murphy, Angus Tyner, and Blaise Kinsella (injured) and Johnny Conway (moved to London!) making way. By accident rather than design, the four returning runners ran the first four legs!

Barry O’Neill bore the captain’s mantle and sat down with club coach Rene Borg to bang out a time schedule based on people’s predictions. It was pretty good as it proved – the team predicted an 8 hour 31 minute finish and crossed the line in 8:29 – 45 seconds faster than the 2018 team.

Predicted versus real times

Looking at the team line up, we knew ahead of team that getting into the top-10 would be hard enough with many closely matched teams behind the run-away top-2 (TT Racers and Rathfarnham – TT Racers going on to do an unprecedented ‘4 in a row’).

Flying as high as 4th early on, the team eventually settled in 8th place (2 spots up from 2018) meaning a fifth top-10 finish in five years. No one got lost, no one was late and no one had any notable trouble along the route so that is about as uneventful as a Wicklow Way Relay can get. Even our tracker didn’t give out.

Placings by leg:

  • Leg 1: 9th Amidou
  • Leg 2: 5th Torben Dahl
  • Leg 3: 10th Yvonne Brennan
  • Leg 4: 15th Rachel Wisdom
  • Leg 5: 12th Richard Costelloe
  • Leg 6: 16th Derek Cullen
  • Leg 7: 11th Anthony Breen
  • Leg 8: 6th Barry O’Neill

Some history

Amidou Dembele ran Leg 1 for the eighth time – the joint-most attempts on leg 1 in the competitions history along with Nadya Dunne and Derek Charles. He has a bit to go to break the record for ‘most attempts at a leg’ which belongs to Tommy Galvin who has run leg 2 twelve times (!).

We keep track of every club runners history in the relay and it can be seen below with the 2019 times. Times before 2015 were run by these runner for their previous clubs/teams.

Barry O’Neill’s leg 8 time is the fastest time set by a male runner in our club and the third fastest overall and Torben Dahl’s 74:02 on leg 2 is a new club record. Rachel Wisdom’s leg 4 time was the fastest female time on the new (since 2018) extended leg 4 course.

WICKLOW HOSPICE RUNNING FESTIVAL

by glendaloughac, posted in Race reports, Road running, Trail running, Uncategorized

Results are in from the Wicklow Hospice Festival of Running the previous weekend.

10 KM

  1. MIck Byrne 35:28, Parnell AC

———-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

16. Yvonne Brennan 43:44 (2nd place lady)

 

HALF-MARATHON

  1. Darren Mooney 1:20:03

———-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

5. Anthony Breen 1:27:54

65. Richard Costelloe 1:43:33

 

Full results

REPORTS: Weekend sum-up!

by glendaloughac, posted in Mountain running, Race reports, Road running, Trail running

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

  1. Killian Mooney, DSD 38:06

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Arne Klohn 47:35
  2. 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.

MULLAGHMEEN – short course

  1. James Benson 45:34

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Torben Dahl 46:14

 

OUGHAVAL

  1. Michael McMahon, Raheny 28:30

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Torben Dahl 31:58