MARATHON DAY

One For All And All for Everyone

                                                What a weekend! Amazing from start to finish.There is something about a marathon that makes this club special. The sheer quality of our runners and the unique quality of our supporters really does make this club special. We had members, their families, friends , boyfriends, girlfriends ,partners etc. etc.  travel up especially for the weekend whilst others got up at the crack of dawn and drove to Dublin that morning to be there to support. Some hired bikes and got taxis to travel around the course to cheer on our members and not only our members but everyone else as well. Some came prepared to run and helped greatly by running and pacing people for a few miles. No to mention the boyfriends/partners who appeared out of nowhere and caused people to think they were having visions.  I have been getting e- mails, texts and facebook messages all day thanking our members for their support and not only from other Cork clubs but from Kerry and elsewhere. But we also must thank the other clubs whose members supported us especially Leevale ( Helen Niamh, Aine & Co. ye were amazing!)
 Youghal AC ( Steve you seemed to be everywhere) Eagle AC (Joe for the photo's) and everyone else as well.
As for the race itself the conditions were not at all as bad as expected and most of our runners did great. I will not post the overall results and splits etc. as some members do not like this when it comes to marathons but they are available already online (see corkrunning) for those that want them. Suffice to say we had some great runs, amazing runs from people like Magic Margaret Jones ( either her 4th or 5th marathon within the year) Mary B Walsh ( 4th within the year) and the amazing Mary Toher ( God knows how many within the year).
                                                      Our first man home was Adam Dubchez who despite feeling unwell had a magnificent run but unfortunately did not crack the three hour mark yet ( no doubt he will before long). Our first lady home was Anna Doris who had another great run.This being only her second marathon she came 11th overall in her category and 8th in her cat in the Nationals and within the top 50 women overall. Our O/35 team Anna Doris, Mgt Jones & Christine Murphy came 10th in the Nationals.
                                                                       The sheer delight in the face of Catherine Terry doing her first and doing so well and almost wanting to do another asap would have made the journey to Dublin worthwhile in itself.Colette Barry achieving the potential she always showed and Bernie Twomey solid as always had a fine run. Eucharia Savage,Mary O'Keeffe and Ann Harrington doing their first and delighted with themselves as they should be.Christine Murphy had an excellent run and appeared very comfortable all the way and got a new PB. Kara Reilly had a superb run and once again got a new PB. Carmel Deane had a good run but found the going tough in places as it surely was.
                                                 Alan Kelleher ( running for ARC House sponsorship still open) and fighting severe cramp to make it home but did so in style. Our second man home Ardre Brodkorb had a great run as had John McCaughley who ran solid as a rock throughout .Declan Dorgan showed how a little bit of extra training can bring you on when he had a great improvement on his recent Dingle marathon.Michael Geary had a great run finishing well under the four hour mark. New member Arthur Mc Carthy had a very fine run finishing just ahead of Gerard O'Shaughnessy who was closely follow by Brian Mc Carthy putting another one behind him.

 This could go on for pages but let me say as a club we are proud of each and every one of you. Your support for each other and for other runners was an example to all.
More details , stats etc available as I said on Running In Cork site and as the great Emil Zatopec once said the marathon only begins at twenty miles and sometimes that is also where it ends. So the stats. are always worth studying.

Danny