Well what a day we had yesterday at the Wicklow Way Relay. With our own four teams and others competing on different teams we had the guts of 40 runners competing. This is one of the highlight events on the calendar for the TTracers running group .It epitomises everything good about grassroots athletics. I know that everyone who took part really enjoyed the day and can guarantee that nearly if not all who competed will be back again next year.
My day began at 6.45am where I was the start of the race in Kilmashogue to wish our 4 first leg runners the best of luck. I continued to each handover and was joined by many who had already run their leg right through to the finish line in Shilleagh, County Carlow. Every single one of our runners ran exceptionally well and as far as I know little or no issues or mishaps in relation to navigation.
This year was our most successful with two of our teams making the podium with our “TTRacers” team winning for the 4th time in a row which is a record and we only just missed out on course record posting the 3rd fastest of all time . Everyone played their part in their overall success with Michael McMahon and Tom Lupton holding their own on the first two legs against two of Ireland’s top athletes ( one a Dublin Marathon winner and the other a perennial representative on the Irish Mountain running team in the Euro / World Championships) Sonya McConnon reduced the deficit of 4 and half minutes to just one on leg 3 , Niall Lynch put us in the lead after leg 4 and Ian Conroy , Brendan Murphy , Des Kennedy and Linda Byrne did what they do best and stretched the gap over Rathfarnham WSAF A/c to over 9 minutes at the finish.
Our 2nd team “Hurt Squad” captained by Rob Costello had a great run to take the 3rd place Well done to each and everyone from Ronan Dunphy (leg 1) Paddy Walsh (leg 2) Malika Hammani (leg 3) Caoimhin McMaolain ( leg 4) Alasdair Brown (leg 5) Geoff Duff ( leg 6) James Hoare (leg 7) and Niamh Devlin ( leg 8). A special mention to Alasdair ( get this guy on the hills more often) who overturned a 5 minute deficit and ran the fastest time on leg 5 in the process.
Ticknock Trailers ( our 3rd team) finished 7th overall. Great runs by everyone involved from Peter O’Neill at the start and Eimear Fitzmaurice at the end with Paul Dunne, Sabrina Keogh , Gareth Little, Mark O’Connor , Andrea Talpo and Robbie Costello in between . All performed magnificently for captain Caomhin MacMaolain.
Finally a a great job was done by our Captain of our 4th team Pearse Coyle who remembered one of our athletes by naming his team “Team Ronan Rafferty” which I think was an excellent touch and they improved their position from last years 23rd place to 17th this year. Well done to Johnny O’Brien , Mick Gygax, Christine O’Connor , Alan Jones, Ken McKeown, Peter Gray , Leah Benson and evergreen Conor Daly . Another special mention has to go to Christine for answering a last minute call to help the cause.
Roll on to next year.
Other results over the weekend .Ruth Fitzgerald not only won the women’s race but the race outright at the D7 7k in a time of 26.14 . Ronan Kearns won the O/40 category in the Tallaght 5k in 16.54. At the Calcutta 10k Peter O’Toole finished 3rd and Donnacha O’Collatain 11th. Not sure of their times as the results sheet shows two different times.
See you all in Sean Moore Park on Tuesday and back in Trinity for Thursday.
Regards
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