Drogheda athletes don the red of Louth
A WET and rather blustery day greeted the athletes who took part in the National League Final held in Tullamore on Sunday - but that didn’t deter the Drogheda & District athletes representing Louth.
Some of the club’s finest track runners were in action against quality athletes, and the points don’t come easy at this level, as Stephen Kelly found out.
Running in the Men’s 5k race, Kelly who’s in great shape at the moment, having upped his training miles in preparation for this year’s Dublin Marathon. On this occasion, however, things didn’t quite click for him and he never really got into the race as he normally would.
Kelly’s time of 16:33 does no justice to someone who’s really applied himself to his training this year and he had to be content with a seventh place finish.
Scoring valuable points for their county were sprinters Andrew Kelly and Lee McGuinness. The latter ran a season’s best when finishing third in his 200m race in 22.78sec and Kelly ran a fine 11.8 when finishing eighth in his 100m event and later in the day he was part of the 4x100m relay squad.
Sam O’Neill had a solid run when finishing fourth in his 1500m race in 4:34.15.
Louth Men’s team finished seventh overall and performed very well against some of the powerhouse counties of Irish athletics.
Blathnaid Donnelly was part of Louth’s Women’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams and ran well to earn some valuable points. Erin McHugh, who’s running very well at the moment, ran a fine 10:42 to finish fourth in her 3,000m event.
The Louth Women’s team finished second overall in Division 1 and now have the option of moving up to the Premier Division against the best that Irish athletics has to offer.
Meanwhile, Nuala Reilly made her mid-week trip to the Midlands a useful one when she picked up a first-in-category prize at Wednesday’s Castlepollard 5k road race.
Reilly, a prolific racer, got the early pace spot on and her time of 21:54 put her well up the field in this very popular event.
Closer to home, eight D&D members toed the line for last Friday evening’s 5k road race held in Rathkenny, County Meath.
Conditions on the night were favourable for running, with little or no wind, but this course always puts it up to the runners.
The ‘pocket Rocket’ Shane Larkin continued his run of good form when finishing eighth overall and first in his category in a fine 17:56, nice running given the testing nature of the course.
Next across the line in the red vest was Paddy Murphy who was 20th in a solid 19:24.
Martin Russell, who’s relatively new to running, ran a fine 20:12 when finishing 26th and it won’t be long before he goes sub 20 minutes given the right conditions. Also running were Joey Ryan - 46th in 22:09 - and Richard Cheevers who was 109th in 26:39.
Siobhan Redmond was D&D’s first woman across the line in 124th place in 27:52, with Ciara Byrne a mere seven seconds behind in 125th place.
Last Saturday’s Oldbridge Parkrun tempted a number of D&D members to run the challenging 5k cross-country course.
The club’s first finisher - in seventh place overall - was Paul Stuart who covered the ground well to cross the line in 21:30. Donal Branigan was D&D’s only other male finisher in 92nd place in 34:49.
Among the Drogheda & District ladies, first across the line was Karen Collier in 41st place in 25:28, with Yvonne Russell close behind in 43rd place in 25:48.
Also running were Deirdre McFerran (50th in 26:24), Sandra Kirwan (87th in 32:30) and Theresa Woods who was 90th in a new PB time of 33:02.