Dunboyne AC at the Mullingar 10 Mile Road Race – Sunday 17th July 2016
With thanks to Lyndon for this report…
Despite being titled the Mullingar 10 Mile, the race is actually held at the small village of Dalystown which lies about 6 miles to the South of Mullingar, near Lough Ennell. This is a typical rural road race, based around the local village school and pub with an undulating course on country roads. It’s a lovely spot, and in common with virtually every country road race, the welcome is very friendly.
This event was promoted by the organisers ( Mullingar Harriers AC ) as “probably the best ten miler of the summer – Fast, Flat(ish) and Friendly”. The phrase which didn’t appear in their trailer was VERY HOT ! To be fair, they had no control of the weather on the day so we wouldn’t hold that against them.
Dunboyne was represented within a starting line-up of around 300 runners by Angela Egan, Lyndon Thomas, Eddie Reid and Paul Gorey.
We were all entered with various aims for the day, with Paul, Eddie and Lyndon using it as a faster paced training run with upcoming events such as the Rock & Roll Half marathon in mind, whilst Angela approached it as a change of scenery for her long slow weekend training run.
The course is roughly a “figure of eight” configuration with a mixture of long straight sections of road with some rolling hills which is challenging but fair overall. The race took place on a very hot day with a breeze in the face of runners for some stretches along the route. The first half of the race benefited from some beautiful mature hedgerows along the rural roads which provided shade and shelter from the sun but from around the 5 mile point, shade became very rare, the breeze fell away and temperatures soared making for a very tough second five miles. I think it’s fair to say that we were all glad to see the finish line, and times were very much secondary to the relief of finishing in one piece. Rarely has water been so gratefully received.
Paul Gorey ran very well in the conditions to come in at 1:17:48 and Eddie ran a characteristically committed race to finish at an excellent 1:27:43. Lyndon ran well over the first half of the course but slowed in the final few miles to come in at 1:33:06.
Angela paced nicely over the first 5-6 miles but found the rising temperatures difficult to overcome as the race went on. However, as always she refused to yield and stuck with her task to come in at 1:51:35.
Refreshments were provided outside Wallace’s Pub at the finish line and we must say well done to Mullingar Harriers for a well organised and friendly event ( maybe an extra water station if it’s hot again next year lads ? ).
Overall a good day and certainly one to put on the list for next year.
