Huge Duleek turnout in
THE adults of Duleek and District AC were out in force this weekend in Clane, Dundalk and Rotterdam as the road racing season moves swiftly into gear.
Dundalk saw the launch of the second running of the captain’s league at the Patsy Kelly 5k race. The inaugural league in 2016 proved to be a huge success and testament to that is the participation rate for the 2017 league with 48 club members signing up to the series.
The series will be carried out across a variety of road races over the coming months. The participants are split across 8 teams and each team is awarded points for its athletes running personal bests.
The league brings some great friendly rivalry to proceedings and is a constant source of banter within the club. It was no surprise that an impressive representation of 43 went to post for the first race in the series. The Patsy Kelly 5k in Dundalk is known throughout the region as being one of the fastest courses around. It has the added draw of being one of the first evening races and as ever it attracted a large field of over 800 runners.
Duleek and District was well represented with Derek Reilly running another sensational personal best of 18.15 and in doing so taking a minute and a half off his previous best. Robert Kierans clipped in just under the 21 minutes and Paddy Lennon ran a marvellous PB of 21.25. Derek Sheridan, Graham Byrne and Shane Reid both eclipsed both their previous bests over the distance and the 22 minute marker. Ziad Chammas is improving all the time and ran an impressive 22.10 with Darragh Scully clocking 23.11 for the distance. Lorraine Noone picked up where she left off in 2016 with a 23.12 with Joanne Deasy not far behind her in 24.15. Eimear Hoey in one of her first races for the club ran an impressive time of 26.28. Caroline Doyle broke the 30 minute marker for the first time with 29.47 as did Olivia Woods with 29.13 and there were also great performances on the night from Susan Gleeson, Orla Hillman, Celena Tierney and Karen O’Sullivan.
Attention then switched to the port city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands where club athlete Peter Hearty took on the Rotterdam marathon. Peter has overcome some early season injury niggles to