With the bulk of the Grand Prix events now over and many Letterkenny AC runners on holiday, there were fewer club runners than normal in competitive action over the past week.
Gwyn Yemm was the 1st LAC runner home in an excellent time of 18.54, in the St Mary’s GAA 5K in Convoy on Tuesday night. Finn Valley’s Dermot McElchar was the race winner in 16.32. In-form Noeleen Scanlan chalked up another win, which was the latest in a highly impressive summer.
Noeleen’s time was 19.19. Barry Mackey misses very few races in the County and he turned in another fine performance. He clocked 19.52 and was 3rd in a highly competitive M50 category, with Derry runners Joe McCarthy and Martin Dunleavy in just ahead of him.
Just 3 days later, Barry was again in action. He ran 43.55 in the tough Ballyare 10K on Friday evening, which gave him 2nd place in the M50 category. The superbly consistent Raymond Birch had another excellent performance and his time of 37.27 saw him finish in 7th place. Jimmy McBride’s time of 47.45 gave him 2nd place in the M60 category. Pat McKenna was 3rd overall and 1st in the M40 category in 48.28. The rain which had fallen all day stopped but there was a strong wind during the race which featured several testing hills. The race winner was Finn Valley’s Mark McPaul in a time of 33.51.
Pauric Breslin was an emphatic winner of Saturday’s ‘Point 10K’, in Dunkineely. His time of 36.04 saw him finish more than 3 minutes ahead of 2nd placed runner, Ray McGrory.
Mark English turned in 2 top class performances in the 800m at the Rio Olympics over the weekend. He put in a commanding performance on Friday afternoon, to qualify for the semi final. He was 3rd in 1.46.40. In the early hours of Sunday morning, he had another great performance. He was 5th in 1.45.93. Sadly, that wasn’t sufficient to clinch a place in the final.
The heat was won by Kenyan David Rudisha, world champion and world record holder at 800m. 23 year old Mark will have learned a lot from the experience and will be an even stronger athlete when the Tokyo Olympics come around in 4 years time. Mark was well supported by a large number of family and friends, including his father Joe, a long time LAC member.
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