Duleek contingent are simply the best

THERE was another full programme of events for Duleek and District AC over the past 2 weeks as the club took part in numerous events throughout the region.

In Dundalk, there was a college race on a school night as the club was well represented at the DkIT 10k. The fast course was compromised somewhat by blustery race conditions. However, this did not hamper Tara Dillon as she set an excellent new PB of 56.45.

Patricia McGlone also ran a great race and in doing so set a new PB of 1 hour and 4 mins with Orla Hillman clocking an equally impressive 55 minutes for the distance.

Shane Reid is steadily improving and edging closer to the 45-minute marker with a time just under 46 minutes.

Action moved slightly closer to home as the ever-popular Boyne 10k drew the club’s largest ever race attendance as 47 green vests went to post for the event.

Greg Dixon ran a great race and came home in a time just over 40 minutes, followed closely by Eric Devine, with Lorraine Noone and Lisa Chambard first home for the ladies.

The race was also notable for the performances of many of the club’s newer members, with Steve Gallagher, Darragh Scully, Olivia Woods and Joanne Cannon earning some valuable and sought-after club league points for their respective teams.

Hard graft is paying dividends for Graham Byrne and he is bringing down his times with each performance and reduced it by a few more seconds with a time of 47:41.

Tara Dillon showed no signs of fatigue as she raced her second 10k in a matter of days, with Karen Creed and Eimear Hoey making very impressive debuts over the distance. On the same weekend David Doyle and Fran Power took 3rd and 5th place in the Royal County 5k in Kells.

Ray Cassin is gearing up for a 100-mile challenge in Connemara in August and another hurdle en route to this seismic milestone was successfully negotiated with an excellent performance in the East of Ireland Marathon.

In the half marathon Shane Reid continued on some excellent early season form with a 1hr 45min PB over the 13.1-mile distance.

The ever-popular Darkness into Light event in Drogheda in aid of Pieta House was also well attended by club members, with Orla Hillman, Eimear Hoey and Orla Crosby present amongst the hundreds of other participants for the daybreak event.

With the club’s adults making waves, all roads led to Navan for the opening day of the Meath Track and Field Juvenile Championships.

There is something about championship day that makes the heart beat a little faster than usual and tropical Navan provided the perfect venue for the Under 12 to Under 18 track and field championships in near perfect conditions.

A hectic schedule of events took place over the day as the county’s finest did battle for honours across a variety of Track and Field disciplines. Proceedings began with the High Jump and anyone who sacrificed their Sunday morning lie-in was handsomely rewarded with an enthralling competition in the girls under 12 high jump.

It had lots of drama, with close shaves, near misses and lots of twists and turns. Duleek’s own Aoife Rohan took part, entering the competition at 1.15 metres, and this proved to be a wise decision as Aoife cleared the 1.15 and 1.20 heights at the first attempt.

With the bar rising and the competition narrowing, there was some great drama at the 1.25 height as Aoife brilliantly held her nerve to clear this height at the last attempt.

Despite narrowly missing out on a clearance at 1.28, Aoife held on to take silver in the competition and now holds a clean sweep of county, provincial and national medals in the discipline.

Fionn Brereton represented the club in the boys under 12 events. It was Fionn’s first championships and he grew stronger as the day wore on. First up was the 60m event, with Fionn finishing strongly to take a placing in his heat in the 60m.

Following shortly after, Aoife placed third in her 60m heat.

With a number of heats required due to the large number of entries, the overall placings were decided based on time. Aoife agonisingly missed out on a medal despite powering through in the last 10m of her heat to finish with a time a mere fraction of a second outside the medals.

With Aoife and Fionn competing in three events each, the greatest challenge of the day lay in dealing with the lulls between events, bringing yourself back down from the mental and physical fever pitch of competition to relaxation and back up to competition state.

The long jump event was next, with Fionn narrowly overstepping the board on his first jump to land two excellent distances on his remaining jumps, the best of which being 2.95m on his final jump.

He grew in confidence from this and saved his best performance of the day for his last event as he took an excellent 5th place in a very competitive 600m.

Aoife’s final event of the day was her long jump with and she grew into the competition, clearing 3 metres on both of her initial jumps and narrowly overstepping the board on her third attempt and finishing just outside the medals.