A good contingent from the club spent the day soaking up the sun in Tullamore last Sunday, hoping to get a gauge on fitness early in the season and bag a few Leinster medals in the process.

First up was our SteepleChase Duo – Jane Bandila and Rory Kavanagh. Brand new to the discipline, Jane performed extremely well and is sure to knock a good chunk off her time in her next outing with this new found confidence in this very tough event. Although a master, Jane entered the senior event and took a well deserved bronze. Rory Kavanagh performed very strongly in his senior event, giving it every effort to finish in an excellent time of 10.22 winning silver in the process.

Phelim is making his way back from injury and was veyr happy with his 1500 time of 4.44, taking gold and silver in the 5000M in a time of 17.19. Great to have you back Phelim!

On the track our sprint group did Coach Paul proud, with Sarah Faulkner running very well in the senior group 200, 100 and 400. Technical glitches meant Sarah came away with no time for her 200M unfortunately, but she was happy with her 400M time – two seconds down on the recent Meath Champs at 67 seconds, and her 100M time of 15.09. New to the group but already showing heaps of potential is Adele Breen who had a good first outing at the distances with 14.87 in the 100 and 32.29 in the 200.

Roisin Bell was up next in the O45 category and ran a strong 200 to win in a championship best time of 28.98. A moderate early season performance in the 100 of 14.20 was also enough to take gold in her category. Helen Lonergan left her Cub Campers in the other leader’s capable hands as she escaped the little terrors and ran excellent times in the 100, 200 and 400 – a gruelling race schedule for her (especially considering her active weekend to that point!) but nonetheless claimed bronze in the 100M. Rosemary Higgins was back on track, running well and happy with her silver in the 100M.

Keith Eglington had an excellent outing winning bronze in the 200M and the 800M, and gold in the 400M! Great results for Keith who has missed more than 6 weeks’ training recently due to injury. Keith also took part in the shot put and threw a good 7.55. Well done Keith.

Also on the field we had our usual displays of excellence from our throwers. Denis Delaney threw 28.53 to win bronze in the M50 discus. Great performances Michelle! Pat Newham threw 27.32 to take silver in his category and meanwhile the multi talented Michelle pilkington competed in five events, taking medals in every one of them: Silever in the Discus, the Hammer, Weight for Distance and the javelin, and bronze in the shot . Well done Michelle.

The final event of the day was the 4X100 relay and the masters women were lucky enough to have the numbers to field a team. Sarah Faulkner, Helen Lonergan, Rosemary Higgins and Roisin Bell put their excellent preparations to good use as they stormed around the track in an excellent time of 1.03.55, winning the four women silver in the masters event.

A super day, thanks to Athletics Leinster, and we highly recommend this for a very enjoyable track outing if any of our endurance athletes are interested in giving track a try 🙂