North Sligo AC’s top class show
NORTH Sligo AC had twelve athletes competing in the national half marathon which finished in the Phoenix Park last Sunday week. Conditions were calm but rather warm for a distance race and sweat was falling like rain from the athletes at the end of the race. Patricia McCosker led the clubs masters team home with a top class performance of 1hour 31mins 15secs, showing great battling qualities and tenacity as she finished 7th in her over 40 category. Aisling Van Rensburg overcame many obstacles on her way to the start line and she showed a clean pair of heels to most of the women in her catergory when she finished 8th in her over 35 category in 1hour 34mins 19secs. Karen Gillen got it right on the day to finish 6th in her over 45 category in 1hour 37mins 59secs. The 3 girls combined to win the bronze masters team medals from 91 teams in their category, a tremendous team performance from these women who trained so hard to make it happen. The other 2 women on the team were Mary Gilmartin who ran a great race taking over 4 mins off her time in 1hour 43mins 5 secs a superb time for a woman who will celebrate a big birthday this week. Cathy McCarthy was rewarded for her dedication with a fine performance of 1hour 51 mins 7 secs. The club’s master men’s team who were the defending national team champions were really up against it this year. Leading runner from last year’s half Eamon McAndrew was unavailable as he is taking part in an Iron man competition in Copenhagen. Tommy Kelly another of their leading runners had been injured for almost 6 weeks so he was not coming into this race in great shape. Craig Brennan led the team home with a tremendous performance and a new PB of 1hour 16mins 47secs chopping 1 min 50secs off his previous best and winning the bronze medal in the over 40 category. Conor McCann the hardworking North Sligo AC secretary was flat out on Sunday again finishing 7th in the over 40 category, setting a new PB of 1hour 19mins 16secs an improvement of 1min 49secs on his previous best. Tommy Kelly the iron man of North Sligo AC athletics showed the mettle he is made of, despite missing a huge amount of training due to injury he dug deep to eke out a fine performance to finish 7th in his category in a time of 1hour 20mins 27sec, the 3 lads combined to finish 5th. The other two members of the masters team were Padraig Kelly who literally ran out of his skin to chop 5mins 29secs off his time from last year to finish 14th in his over 40 category in 1hour 23mins 42secs and Paul Kerrigan set a PB taking 5secs off his previous best finishing in 1hour 37mins 15secs and 17th in the over 50 category. Andrea Horgan had a very good run in the senior women’s catergory finishing in 13th position i and Rose Kelly ran a PB when finishing in 1hour 51mins 35secs . In other club news Donal Egan finished 2nd in the Colloney 5k, Ray Gillen won the Mullagemore 5k with Jimmy Currid second.