Midleton Athletic Club Senior Section

by Peter Gunning

It has been a fortnight of festival running with several events dotted around the county and beyond. Killarney hosted its annual Maxi-Marathon 15 miler on Saturday 16th on a scenically breath-taking route from Moll’s Gap into the town. Owen O’Connell led the Midleton AC mountain descent and hit the tape in a very creditable 1hr 48m. He was followed home by Berni Twomey, Margaret Jones, Yvonne Kennedy, Maria Murphy, Mary O’Mahony, Helen Gilroy, Colette Barry and Sinéad Buckley.

Our runners were out in numbers again last Wednesday night for the Carrigtwohill 5k which started and finished in the beautiful grounds of Barryscourt Castle. Kevin Smith led home the sixty-three strong Midleton AC team just two seconds ahead of team-mate Marc Dalton in 17:43. Adam Duchnicz and John O’Connell followed in 18:23 and 18:32 respectively with Owen O’Connell putting his altitude sickness behind him to finish as our fifth man in 19:03. Dan Horgan, Kieran Mulcahy, Mick Murphy, Eugene McCarthy, Edmond O’Sullivan, John Cashman and Tom Cody all comfortably broke the 20 minute mark with Tom and Dan once again collecting category prizes. Club captain, Sally Drennan was also amongst the prizes, picking up a silver in the 0-45 clocking 20:23 with Mary O’Keeffe in 22:12 taking bronze. That ever-improving pair, Marian Aherne in 21:23 and Anna Dorris 21:27 took first and second respectively in the 0-40 category, while Joan Hough won the 0-50 in 22:02 and Kathleen O’Connell was first lady 0-55. There was also fine running on the night from Claire Fitzgerald, Chris Murphy, Anne-Marie Perry and Susan Delaney.

In Banteer last Sunday week, Matt Chojan continued on his fine vein of form coming home 12th in 18:35 in this festival 5k. Wife, Maggie was second lady home in 20:19 with Stanislaw Byczek and Denis Kelleher running alongside her. Darragh Canavan is an athlete improving with every run and over the tough seven mile course in Donoughmore last Friday night he pbd at 44:53. Mr PB himself, Fergal O’Meara dipped the tape to chalk up yet another at 46:28 (it’s so easy Flan) while performance of the night was arguably that of Breda Cahill. Breda was fourth lady home overall taking silver in the 0-40 category in 49:05. Denis Kelleher, John Carey, Brian Nolan, Barry Aherne, Danny McCarthy all ran impressively while Marion Cotter, Mags Twohig, Susan Buckley and Sinéad Buckley all performed well on this undulating and demanding route.

Top of the list in the upcoming fixture list is the third race in the Ballycotton 5 Summer Series which takes place in Churchtown South on Thursday 28th July at 8pm. Friday night 29th sees two races. The annual Kinsale Regatta 5miler and the Ballymacarbry 5k both have a 7.30pm start time.

Go dtí an chéad rás eile... comeád ag rith!