Breen sparkles on his parkrun debut
WITH only a few days to go to the County Novice Cross-Country Championships, Drogheda & District’s club coaches were anxious for their athletes to get some fast running into their legs and many of our members were in action over the weekend.
At last Saturday’s Oldbridge Parkrun, which was run in pretty much perfect conditions, Johnny Breen - one of the club’s mot recent recruits - made his parkrun debut a successful one when winning the event in a fine 18:10, with a good distance to spare over the runner-up.
Breen is a physically strong-looking athlete who brings a can-do attitude to his running and once he crested the top of the first hill and went up the gears, the outcome was never in doubt as he quickly opened a decisive lead which he held to the finish.
D&D’s next finisher in seventh place overall was Stephen Geraghty who’s made great strides since really applying himself in training, and his time of 20:30 - a new PB - was a just reward for the effort he’s put in lately.
Regular competitor Tony Corcoran was 10th in 21:24, while Linda Bowe was the club’s first female finisher in 49th spot in 27:18. Also running were Barney Flannery - who was 69th in 30:56 - and Unai Diaz-Orueta who came 58th in 28:43.
Some of D&D’s finest track athletes were taking part in Sunday’s Rathfarnham AC 5K road race which attracted a huge field in excess of 1,100 runners.
To say that the standard in this race is of a high calibre would be an understatement. This lightningcourse is a magnet for all those seeking fast times as the one and a half lap course means that the runners get to run on the downhill section twice and only go uphill once!
Such are the times produced in this race that the winner had to run sub-14:30 and hadn’t much to spare over the runner-up.
The club’s first finisher in the Women’s race was Mary Leech who delivered a classy run to finish 15th overall and third in her O-40 category in a top-class time of 18:08.
Next across the line when finishing sixth in the same category was Ciara O’Reilly who produced a quality run to record 19:32 on this tricky enough course, as get the early pace wrong and you’ll surely suffer later on.
The biggest smile of the day belonged to Roisin Coade who ran a sparkling new PB time of 20:43, and on this showing she should go well in this week’s Novice Championships when when she comes down from cloud nine.
In the Men’s race, Shane Larkin led the way when running 17:07 - which placed him ninth in category - while club chairman Aonghus O’Connor ran a solid race to finish in 18:35 and was 14th in his category.
Recently returned to training, James Nolan showed that his form’s coming back with his run of 17:18 and he was 10th in the Junior Men’s race.
Taking themselves off to Navan for the first running of the Scoil Eanna 7K were a group of D&D’s road runners, led by prolific racer Nuala Reilly. This two-lap course seemed to meet with the approval of the runners and most people found it to be a fair challenge, but the windy conditions didn’t help on the hilly sections.
There were category wins for Nuala Reilly (1st O-60) and Karen Delaney (1st O-50), while Michelle Hughes was third overall and first in category in the Women’s race. These three combined well to win the team category prize.
In the Men’s section, Jackser Reilly raced well to finish second in his O-50 category, while Conor Cooney won the O-60 category ahead of clubmate Jos Haak runner up.
Elsewhere, Liam Farrell achieved a time of 1:46:25 in the recent Belfast City Half-Marathon.