6th April 2008 - Results and Fixtures

GRENNAN WINS AGAIN
The second round of the Spring League took place last Tuesday with a mile race on the track. Weather conditions were ideal for track running and Catch Grennan was once again the clear winner. Grennan set off from the start and was allowed to quickly open up a lead. Going into the second lap Declan Fahey moved into a clear second place and from that point only the third spot was up for grabs. This turned into a great battle between Mick Murphy, John Donegan and Jody O’Reilly all the way to the finish as each athletic made a bid for third spot. Grennan crossed the line in 4.46.5 with Fahey 7 seconds behind, Murphy put in a strong final lap to seal third place ahead of Donegan and O ‘Reilly. Behind these all the athletes were running hard for a fast time over the classic mile distance and also scoring valuable team points.

Spring Mile Result : 1 – Catch Grennan 4.46.5, 2 – Declan Murphy 4.53.3, 3 – Mick Murphy 4.57.2, 4 – John Donegan 4.58.1, 5 – Jody O’Reilly 5.00.8, 6 – Barry Lambe 5.08.1, 7 – Nick Devery (Guest) 5.09.1, 8 – Damien Lawlor 5.12.7, 9 – Joe Wrafter 5.13.2, 10 – Ronan Duffy 5.19.8, 11 – Pauline Lambe 5.23.4, 12 – Johnny Feery 5.23.7, 13 – Adrian Martin 5.27.8, 14 – Maire-Triona Keane 5.30.7, 15 – Liz Cuskelly 5.32.2, 16 – Adrian Curley 5.34.6, 17 – Luke Mitchell 5.36.2, 18 – Vinny Conlon 5.43.8, 19 – John O’Connell 5.58.3, 20 – Gerry Kavanagh 5.59.1, 21 – Deirdre Lambe 6.01.9, 22 – Pat Conlon 6.11.3, 23 – Andy O’Grady 6.13.8, 24 – Georgina Touhey 6.15.8, 25 – Larry Rigney 6.19.2, 26 – Sharon Leonard 6.20.4, 27 – Brendan Kennedy 6.25.7, 28 – Tony McCormack 6.28.7, 29 – Mary Daly 6.32.5, 30 – Gary O’Connor 6.43.6, 31 – Jim Dolan 6.51.1, 32 – Martina Conlon 7.04.5, 33 – Mary Walsh 7.11.7, 34 – Jim Langan 7.32.7.

EDINBURGH WORLD CROSS COUNTRY
A group from the club travelled to Edinburgh for the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships on Sunday 30th March. An exciting four-race programme saw the African countries dominating as expected with Ethiopia taking a clean sweep of the individual titles. Tirunesh Dibaba won the senior ladies with her sister Gezebe taking the junior title, Ibrahim Jeilan took the mens junior title with Kenenisa Bekele winning a record sixth senior mens championship. The 20,000 crowd witnessed a tremendous senior mens race as the closing laps saw Bekele, Komon (Kenya) and Eritrea’s defending champion Tadesse battle it out for the title. While it proved to be a disappointing championships for the Irish teams the Edinburgh event was a major success in a great atmosphere with the bonus of seeing live world class athletes in action.

While the Tullamore squad sampled a few beers and tasted the haggis they also trained and took part in a race over the weekend. An early start on Saturday give the athletes a chance to run a few laps on the championship course, much to everyone’s surprise the Ethiopian squad joined in the session but unfortunately failed to understand the Midland accent before heading off into the distance. On the Sunday morning the “Welcome the World 5k Road Race “ took place before the Opening Ceremony. Officially described as “Starting at the edge of Holyrood Park the route passes the beautiful St Margaret’s Loch in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat before heading up towards Dunsapie Loch with views over to the Pentland Hills then round to the edge of Salisburt Crags with Edinburgh Castle visible in the distance before it heads downhill to the spectacular finishing area next to the Scottish Parliament building and the Palace of Holyrood House.” In reality this turned out to be a flat road to the 1k mark, then up hill for the next 2k before facing a strong headwind and then downhill for the final 1.5k. With 800 runners taking part it proved to be a great event with all the Harriers performing well, some even managed to get on TV. For the record the places and times were : 38 – Catch Grennan 17.21, 59 – Mick Murphy 18.06, 78 – Martin Carroll 18.38, 109 – Johnny Feery 19.13, 113 – Barry Lambe 19.18, 150 – Ronan Duffy 19.55, 171 Maire-Triona Keane 20.31, 186 – Pauline Lambe 20.56, 199 – Deirdre Lambe 21.11, 234 – Andy O’Grady 21.50, 277 – Adrian Martin 22.31

P DEVERY SHIELD
The second leg of the annual P Devery cross country challenge against Ballyfin AC was held in Emo Court last Sunday. On a dry course with a couple of good climbs into a sharp wind the 6k event proved to be a very competitive race between the two clubs. Catch Grennan had a clear comfortable win in 20.10 with Martin Carroll third in 20.57. Liz Cuskley put in a strong run to be first lady home just ahead of Pauline Lambe. The individual winners over the two legs were Catch Grennan and Pauline Lambe with Ballyfin winning the team prize by 3 points ahead of Tullamore Seniors and Tullamore Masters third.

Places and Times (all times not available)
1 – Catch Grennan 20.10, 3 – Martin Carroll 20.57, 4 – Jody O’Reilly 21.17, 7 – Johnny Feery 22.01, 8 – Barry Lambe 22.23, 10 – Ronan Duffy, 11 – Joe Wrafter, 12 – Liz Cuskelly, 13 – Pauline Lambe 22.57, 14 – Liam Dunne 23.37, 15 – John O’Connell 23.40, 17 – Maire-Triona Keane 23.57, 19 – Deirdre Lambe, 21 – Andy O’Grady 25.54, 25 – Mary Daly 26.52, 26 – Sharon Leonard 26.55, 30 – Jim Dolan 30.00

RACE ROUND UP
The annual Dunboyne 4 mile road race held on Sunday 30th March attracted the usual large numbers with Pauline Curley taking the ladies prize for the third year in a row with a time of 22.43 and 41st place overall. John Todd was 50th overall in 23.27 and 1st over 55. The previous Wednesday night in the BHAA 5k cross country under lights at Malahide Rugby club John ran 18.08 for 20th place overall and was 1st over 55.

Fixtures :
Tuesday 8th April, Spring League Round 3 at 7pm.
Saturday 12th April, Offaly Primary Schools Track & Field.
Sunday 13th April, AAI Road Relays Raheny.
Sunday 20th April, AAI 10k Road Championships Athenry.

Training : Tuesday and Thursday at 6.30pm, Sunday morning at 8.30am (except on a race day) all are welcome.

Circuit training led by Adrian Brennan every Wednesday at 7pm.

Check out the new club website tullamoreharriers.com