Fionnuala Diver travelled to the beautiful surroundings of Lurgan Park, Co Armagh on Saturday to run in the Ulster and Northern Ireland senior cross country championship. The journey was worthwhile for in-form Fionnuala, who stormed to a 6th place finish in a highly competitive race.
Also, on Saturday, another in-form Letterkenny AC runner was in action in Northern Ireland. Raymond Birch had an excellent 5th place finish in the SSE 10 mile race in Derry. Raymond’s time of 57.35 also gave him 2nd place in the M35 category. Paul McFadden had a superb run and came home in 1.03.21. Kevin Kiely, who has become a 10 mile specialist in recent years, had an excellent run. His time of 1.12.22 gave him 2nd place in the M60 category. The race was won by Mark Long of Foyle Valley AC in 55.19.
Paul Toner was the winner of the Letterkenny parkrun for the second consecutive week. Paul took 87 seconds off last week’s winning time. Paul became only the third runner to win the Letterkeny parkrun in consecutive weeks.
There were 6 LAC runners in the first 10 finishers, with a 7th, Ciaran , 24.56, finishing just outside the top 10 in 11th place. Adrian Callaghan’s time of 21.17 gave him 3rd place. Paul Lee was 4th and 1st in the M45-49 category in 21.25. Richard Raymond, having recovered from a hamstring problem, was 2nd in the M60-64 category, with 23.01. 3rd M60-64 runner was Jimmy McBride, who clocked 23.53. In between the two M60s was regular parkrunner, Cathal Roarty, on 23.44.
Letterkenny AC won the John O’Reilly Cup, a long standing award given to the winning team in the Glaslough Harriers 5K, Co Monaghan. The make up of the 4 man LAC team gave a clear illustration of the versatility of the club. The team comprised one of the country’s top track runners, 2 very talented, promising young runners and a Master athlete.
Danny Mooney was a very impressive overall winner. He crossed the line in 15.34 and had a 17 second margin over runner up, Brian McCluskey of North East Runners. Eoin Hughes had a superb run and finished in 16.40. The next counter was Rayan Maguella, 17.31. LAC’s 4th counter, which guaranteed the club’s victory, was Aidan McKenna in 18.39. It was a welcome present for Aidan, who had celebrated his birthday the previous day.
Interestingly, the club also emerged victorious from this Monaghan event exactly 20 years ago. In 1997, the winning quartet was Gary Crossan, Brendan McDaid, Marcus McClintock and Kenneth Houston.
400m track specialist, Brian Boyce, is currently in a rich vein of form. Last week, he won the M35 400m race at the Leinster Indoor Championship in a season’s best of 55.43.
This week he travelled to Athlone and took his season’s best down to 54.80. He finished 5th in the 400m in the Irish Masters’ Indoor Track & Field Championship. Brian will soon embark on a 18,000 KM round trip which will take him to Seoul, South Korea, where he will compete, later in March, in the World Masters’ Indoor Track and Field Championships.
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