One week into the new year means the County Masters Cross Country and today we had approximately 30 athletes competing in various events in Dublin , Wicklow and Wexford. I was out today watching the Dublin Masters which took place in St Annes Park. This has to be one of the best events on the race calendar . There were almost 500 athletes taking part..
In the Women’s race Laura McDonnell finished 2nd in the O/40 category and Clare Sullivan 6th.. Clare also took team bronze. Keren Ziv placed 28th in the O/45 category.
In the Men’s race Paul Stephenson took overall victory and obviously won his O/35 category. It was a very polished performance from Paul where he made light of the muddy conditions and glided to a comfortable victory.Our next home was Alexey Marchenko who worked his way through the pack and get up to 5th (O/35) with Ronan Dunphy 9th and Luke Howard 26th in the same category. .
In the O/40 category Brian Lenihan was our first home in 8th with Ciaran Alyward 11th . Jonathan Hughes is improving each week and finished 13th. Our other 4 finishers in this category had a great battle with Mark O’Connor taking the spoils in 20th with Pearse Ryan 21st, Peter O’Toole 23rd and John McAuley 24th.
In the O/45 category Paul Fleming narrowly missed out on a podium place with 4th. Colm Costello was next in 8th . Greg Byrne was next in 11th followed by David Reidy25th and Derek O’Brien 37th.
In th O/50 Niall Lynch showed a definite return to good form with a fine 6th place and Will Byrne also made the top ten in 10th. David Dunwoody placed 21st and Rob Brannigan 33rd. Pearse Coyle placed 21st in the O/55 category.
Paul Stephenson , Alexey Marchenko and Paul Fleming were all on the winning Rathfarnham WSAF team.
At the Wicklow equivalent Niall Fox finished 3rd O/35 with Conor Nolan winning the O/60 category from Niall Coppinger in 2nd. Robert Costelloe was also running.
Down in Wexford Des Kennedy finished 2nd overall which was easily good enough for him to win his O/50 category.
One result from last Sunday which definitely needs a mention. Brian Cronin decided to give the 16 minutes a miss when he smashed his 17.01 5k pb in Saint Silvestre , Girona when he ran 15.25.
We also had good performances from the Tom Brennan 5k-ish on New Years day. Race organisers really need to get this right. 10- 20 metres out is acceptable but being over 100m wrong is inexcusable. Pearse Ryan clocked 16.19 with Clare Sullivan 17.39, Glen Murray 18.27 , Eoghan Kerins 18.42 and Maria Dolan 19.50.
