We’d lots to be proud of last Sunday, some wonderful individual and team performances by our senior group in a road race that will outdo most road races for quality and depth. That feature of our event is a credit both to our race organisers and to the quality Club runners that travelled in big numbers to support us.
We’d plenty to celebrate as a Club on the home asphalt this year, foremost being Sara’s repeat win in the women’s race, in a time that was a massive 32 seconds ahead of her 2015 race. This shows Sara’s in fine form already ahead of Rio. Aside from that win, both our men and women packed well to place second in both team competitions, behind Raheny and Civil Service in those respective competitions.
Sara Treacy led by example, winning the race in 21 flat, and placing 14th overall, behind a who’s who of male road racers in Ireland. This was a unique win as Sara became the first female to win the Colman Jarrett Cup for the first Dunboyne AC athlete home in the race. Working hard in the same group and finishing just 5 seconds behind was the ageless Phelim Glynn, winning his category and coming in off another pair of wins, a middle distance double at the National Masters in Athlone last month.
Just behind Phelim was Rory Kavanagh, finishing in a time of 21:29. He worked hard with training partner Simon Ryan of Raheny for two miles but just got caught alone and raced the last half of the race that way. Rory too is coming off one of the Clubs best recent performances, an 8:56 3000m at AIT in March.
Niall Cornyn won the men’s junior category. He went out hard with a first kilometre of just over 3 mins, but hung on well to finish in 25th overall, in a time of 21:57. Matching him stride for stride was Morgan McDonagh, who finished just a second behind, completing the scoring for the men’s team of four.
Gerry O’Reilly and Owen Fletcher shared the work in this one, running most of the 4 Miles together, with Gerry clocking a strong time of 22:43, with Owen in six seconds later, taking almost a minute off his 2015 time.
Like Gerry, Ger Solan was coming off the back of a strong half in Bohermeen. With car park duties completed Ger finished in a time of 23:09 which shows he’s in fine form ahead of his bid for a PB at the Cork marathon in June.
Second men’s junior on the day behind fellow Dunboyne triathlete was Paddy Peters in a time of 23:13, a strong run from Paddy seeing as he has little work done recently due to a leg injury.
Evergreen Emilia has raced heavily in recent weeks but showed no sign of that with her run of 24:53, which was fast enough to win her category. Emilia placed second Dunboyne woman on the day, so there were two envelopes going home with her this week!
Garbhán Blake ran strongly, just as he did in Trim and Bohermeen, posting a time of 25:17. Clodagh Dunphy, another who’s been racing well on a weekly basis, placed third scorer for our Senior women’s team with a time of 26:36. John O’Malley continues to have a strong start to 2016 with a 27:11.
Catriona Conneely is a new name to the Club this year and someone we’re delighted to have with us. Catriona posted an excellent 27:32 to wrap up the scoring for the women’s team. Right on Catriona’s heels was Sarah Meegan with a super time of 27:42.
We’d a trio of duathletes in next, with Stephen Griffin posting a time of 28:02, Ciara Devitt running 28:04 and Ray Mitchell, up since the crack of dawn on barrier duty, running 28:12.
Another new addition to us, and a face we remember from the Frank Fagan Duathlon, is Mark McDonald. Most of the family were running today, and when the kids were done Mark took his turn to run a strong 28:20. Ian Kennedy, another new member to the 7pm group, showed the form we’ve seen in training to post a 28:31.
Tom Fallon was relieved of Civil Defence duties for half an hour and he put that time to good effect with a time of 28:33.
Heather Harold had a podium finishing run in her category, placing third of 25 entries in it. A solid 29:57 inside her sub 30 target. Catherine Dunne must be getting in plenty of miles of late, she’d a super run finishing with a sprint and crossing under the gantry in 30:11, fourth in the same category as Heather.
Like Heather, Annette Conroy has made a recent transition to the Senior group from F4L with great success. She’s seen her times tumble and her 31:40 was surely a PB on the day. Mirela Herghelegiu continued where she left off in Raheny last Monday with a strong 32:14 performance.
Michael Lawlor and Carl Harrington are another two newcomers to the Senior set up, both recently taking to the track for the 5k open challenge held at the end of February, posting good times there. 29:25 and 33:28 respectively for the lads on Sunday. Sean Manning in only his fourth run of the year was inside his target with a time of 33:57.
Well done to our Seniors on their performances on Sunday, just some of the massive 109 entries from the Club which is great to see. Another big weekend ahead for the group with the BHAA 10k on this Saturday and the National 10k on Sunday, best of luck to all who are running in those races.
All Dunboyne results can be seen by filtering by Club on www.myrunresults.com and as usual, apologies if we’ve inadvertently missed you in the race report! Photos available on Rob Webb’s Flickr account, many thanks to Rob for these and also on Sam Hamilton’s, many thanks Sam.
