Rock and Roll Half Marathon
The Rock And Roll half marathon was held in Dublin on Sunday last,this half marathon incorporated the national championship for the distance and attracted almost ten thousand participants. This year the race took a different and more difficult route,this was because of the Pope’s visit to the Phoenix Park it was excluded,all athletes were tested on some very difficult hills. North Sligo AC had a men’s and women’s Masters teams in the event and some individual runners. The women’s team finished 3rd team in the over 35 category from 71 teams thanks to some great running from Patricia McCosker who ran 1hour 32minutes 24seconds to finish 3rd in her over 40 category and win the bronze medal. Another fine run from Aisling Van Rensburg saw her finish 4th in her over 35 category with a time of 1 hour 34min- utes 38 seconds. The 3rd scorer on the team was Catherine Lipsett in her first race over this distance she finished in I hour 44minutes 32 seconds to secure the bronze medals for the team and finish 6th in her over 35 category. The team was backed up with some good running from Alison O’Sullivan 6th in her over 45 category,Marita McMorrow 13th in the over 40 category, Cathy McCarthy 24th in the over 45 category and Mary Gilmartin who won her first national individual medal finishing 3rd in the over 50 category. A tremendous run from Eamon McAndrew who ran himself to a standstill to finish 2nd in his over 40 category,the iron man who resides in Carns Moneygold squeezed all the energy and pressed all the effort into the 1 hour 14 minutes 27 seconds to cover the half marathon over this difficult course,this silver medal will add nicely to the gold medal he won in the national 10k earlier this year. Craig Brennan put in a big effort to finish 8th in the over 40 category in 1 hour 18minutes 35 seconds. Alan Wallace in his first race over the distance put in a great performance to finish 5th in the over 45 category in a time of 1 hour 24 minutes 45 seconds. The above 3 runners combined to finish 4th team and miss the bronze medals by 14 seconds,the team were dealt a big blow when Tommy Kelly one of their top stars had to pull up with a hamstring injury at 9k.Padraig Kelly finished 17th in the over 40 category in 1 hour 25 minutes 48 seconds,David McCullagh and Alan Kelly in their first half marathons finished in 1hour 28 minutes and 1 hour 52 minutes respectively. Four Sligo AC runners were on the start line for the Dublin Rock n Roll Half Marathon with runners from the four provinces competing for National medals. Seamus Somers claimed his first individual National Gold medal by winning the M45 category in 1:15:32 , just 20 seconds off a PB on what is a testing course at times. Enda Whelan claimed a M65 silver medal with his 1:40:14. Fintan Whelan ran solidly to finish in 1:35:26 while Steve Gilgan finished in 1:44.