Midleton Athletic Club Senior Section By Peter Gunning With the spring weather comes the added spring in the step as the racing season hits full stride. Our runners have been out in force over the past two weeks making their marks in both the Mallow ten miler and yesterdays BHAA organised UCC 10k in Sundays Well. Mallow saw a huge club entry with the challenging course proving tough. Conditions however, did not prevent Kevin Smith leading our team home in a superb 59:21. Marc Dalton scored a pb with a scintillating 60:12 and is now poised to break the magic 60min mark this season. Great too to see Sean O’Sullivan back breaking 68m with Michael Murphy and Kevin Cooney while even faster were Adam Duchnicz, Matt Chojan and Eric Owers, all subbing 64. Great runs too by John Carey, Paul Kierans, Danny McCarthy and Vincent Connolly. Well done to Marian Aherne and Sally Drennan who led a long list of Midleton ladies home including Sandra Bohan with a 78min pb. Meanwhile on the same day Noel O’Regan, John Hennessy, Donal Broderick and Fergal O’Meara were representing the club in the Munster Road Racing Championships in Dundrum. The lads finished fourth overall with Noel and John medalling for Cork and Fergal dipping under 25mins for a pb at four miles. In Sundays Well, the UCC 10k saw a huge entry with our athletes representing their various business house teams. Noel finished 11th overall in 35:47 with Kevin Smith in his slipstream 23 seconds behind. Michelle Nolan was first lady O-35 and fourth overall. Among our most notable performances were those of John Cashman, Breda Cahill, Anne Marie Perry, Ned Ramsell, Danny McCarthy, Trish Macrapoulos, Anne Savage, Mags Twohig, Elaine Hennessy and Donie O’Connell. Good too to see our triathlete Colm Egan back in the white vest. Prior to the Ballintotis 4 on 20th April, John Cashman has organised a trial run on the picturesque course for all members on Thursday April 14th. We will meet at 7pm in the church car park in Ballintotis. Members will be organised into groups and the course will be mile marked and stewarded. Míle buíochas to John for organising this training run. Best of luck to Denis Kelleher who will run the ultramarathon in Connemara on Sunday next and Mary Toher who is running the marathon. On the same day a little further from home seven club members will join the world’s elite in the Rotterdam Marathon. Best of luck to Fergal O’Meara, Adrian Williams, Neilus Aherne, Donal Broderick, Kevin Morrison, Brian Nolan Adam Duchnicz and Peter Gunning. Meanwhile on the same day Sunday 10th April the fourth and final race of the John Buckley ten-mile series will take place in Kilnaboy, Co Clare. A bus will leave Midleton early on Sunday morning. This is always a great day out with the post race analysis taking place over liquids and solids in Charleville on the way home, craic ninety. Anybody interested must contact Kevin Smith asap at 087 9716372. Until next ...níl aon bóthar ró-fhada...keep on running!