Triple Treat - Irish race news
Ben Gorm 2009
Plenty of action from our Irish weekend round-up: A hybrid half-marathon, a classical fell-race and a trail race were available for the picking for those not doing the Total Experience Adventure Race in Blessington.
Cooley Legends All!
The weekend kicked off in the Cooley Mountain as 10am as yours truly lined up in a 123 strong field for the inaugural Columbia Cooley Legends Half-Marathon. Double-joy resulted for the locals as Bryan McCrystal, recently qualified for the World Ironman Championships, beat off Dunleer legend David Carrie.
Both men broke 86 minutes, setting a great standard for the course. Six minutes later Niall McCabe secured third spot while Karen Alexander, Sperrin Harriers, was indomitable in winning the women’s in a time of 1:33:29 and fifth overall. Gillian Kilroy and Aisling Coppinger, Clonliffe, took second and third.
Full results at ChipIT and official race report at the Cooley Legends Blog.
Purist fun at the Lake
As the last finishers crossed the line in the Cooleys, a smaller crowd set out for the purist route Tonelagee and the Lake, creation of Irish hill running legend Paul Nolan, a short steep and unmarked course over open mountain with Leinster Championship points at stake. Tonelagee is the steep mountain in question, “the Lake” is the heart-shaped Lough Ouler (incidentally the “Heart Lake” in Gaelic).
Brian Furey, Rathfarnham, staked an early claim on the championship with another good win, but it was defending champion Peter O’Farrell, also Rathfarnham, who led the descent until an unfortunate tumble edged him out. Third was Crusaders’ Jason Kehoe whose result moves him second in the Championship standings. In the women’s Aisling Harrison took the win with Setanta’s Caitlin Bent, one of the few to have run the very first organised hill run in Ireland, in second.
Brian Furey now has a strong early claim on the championship with two wins but next the Galway man will look to secure the Connacht Championship title in the province of his birth. Today’s opponent, Peter O’Farrell may well be the man to beat to fulfil that ambition.
Provisional results are available at IMRA, full results to follow.
Going South
The weekend’s action finished in Wexford on the slopes of Mt. Leinster for the Kilbrannish South race. Caroline Reid, Dunboyne, took victory “fresh” from her Total Experience Adventure race outing the day before and as if that was not enough she consigned Dena Hogan’s record to the history books with her time of 46:54. Sinead Hunt was second and Maria Condon third.
Denas’ husband Tom held the men’s record which stayed safe today despite a fierce race between Mick Kelly, Gowran and Keith Heary, St. Laurance O’Tooles, who reports:
Almost 30 runners turned up for the event which was run on a fantastic course and one which was excellently marked, myself and Mick Kelly had a 2 mile lead out by a group of 8 horses who ran in front of us from mile 2 till 4 which gave us a bit of a breather going up the climb from 3 to 4 mile.
Third man home was Martin Monaghan, Slaney Olympic, less than a minute later. Full results will be available at IMRA shortly. Race series concludes at Gibbet Hill on 9th May.
Next up…
There’ll be hellfire and brimstone at Hellfire Woods on Wednesday as the Leinster League continues before the double-cracker of Croagh Patrick and Ben Gorm at the Connacht Championship this weekend.
