Patricia McKibben got the weekend of racing off to a great start for Newcastle AC with a fine performance that saw her finish first lady and eighth overall in the Bessbrook 10k. Her winning time of 42:12 was an impressive 1:06 clear of Eimear McCracken.  David Hicks also made it onto the podium with a speedy 37:03, finishing third behind winner Stephen O’Gorman (34:45).

January training

A lot of effort has been made by club members preparing for spring marathons. January has meant 4 tough Tuesday speed sessions, 4 Thursday tempo 10s at increasing pace and Sunday long runs of 13, 15, 16 and 18 miles in preparation for London on 23 April or one of the other marathons around the same time.  Athletes are putting in between 40 and 70 miles each week in training, evidence of commitment, lunacy or both! Two races were identified as markers of progress along the way – Trim 10m (5 February) and Bohermeen Spring Half Marathon (12 March).

‘They are boaty, but they’ll do!’

On Sunday a bus full of maybes morphed into a posse and headed south to the picturesque town of Trim for the 3^rd annual 10 mile road race.  The race is rightly billed as flat and PB friendly – a mere 128 feet of climbing coupled with 133 feet of descending over the 10 mile route makes it worthy of its reputation.  With Trucker Horrox doubling up as an impromptu sat nav., the bus arrived in plenty of time. Rodgers had been nominated as ‘numbers man’ and did a great job in ensuring that all were ready to rock and roll as the racing hour approached.  However, there was little he could do to address the fact that Oggy had left his racing shoes by the fire!  A definite contender for the lesser utilised ‘silly boy’ award.  Miley came to the rescue and produced some footwear, as is his normal want!  Oggy examined them at length, declared them to be ‘boaty’ before concluding, ‘they’ll do rightly’.  Admittedly they were a little on the boaty side and Oggy was complaining of sea sickness on the way up the road.  With the crisis averted all went to the line in good spirits.

PB shattered

O’Flaherty would have the run of his life, taking 2 minutes of an already impressive PB, and finishing a stunning second out of 1264 finishers.  Zak Hanna was impressive in 8^th overall in the longest road race of his fledgling racing career.  Paul Byrne was the best of the rest and completed the first 100 finishers in just over 63 minutes – impressive for a man in his first race since July 2016.  His hard work in training for rehabilitation over the winter has paid off and he claimed bragging rights over McCann who was 33 seconds further back, but never near enough to mount a serious challenge.  Brendan McQuiad led the Hilltown Chapter of the club home in 64 minutes, 44 seconds ahead of Morgan.  Morgan had been in a group with Murdock, Cunningham and Carson in the first half and just over a minute separated them as they crossed the line in that order.

He aint heavy, he’s my brother

The good humoured sibling racing rivalry that existed between the Rodgers brothers for the best part of 40 years enjoyed another twisty turn.  Younger brother Paul was in front for much of the race, only for Richard to mount a late and seemingly decisive charge.  Paul responded manfully in the last mile, but Richard held on to cross the line 3 seconds ahead.

A similar battle would unfold between Horrox and Ciaran ‘borrowed shoes’ Og Mussen.  For once youth and exuberance overcame old age and treachery as the latter overturned a halfway deficit to pull away in the later stages.  Oggy puts a lot of his improvement down to the support from a beloved Cabraman.  Ashlene McGeough was NACs only lady on parade and she was a woman with a plan – run 10 7:15 miles.  Her training in January has been exemplary and she achieved her goal with plenty to spare.

For most running today, the focus for the next month is preparation for the Bohermeen Half on 12 March.

Indoor Games in Abbotstown

Also on Sunday, the Athletics Ireland Indoor Games took place at the new National Indoor Arena at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown on the outskirts of Dublin. It was the first weekend of official racing at the new 200m track. It’s now clear that Ireland has two world class indoor tracks at Abbotstown and Athlone.

There was local interest in the Women’s events with Olympians Ciara Mageean and Kerry O’Flaherty both competing. Earlier in the day, Mageean recorded a comfortable victory in the 800m in 2:06.02. In the penultimate race of the day, Newcastle & District AC’s Kerry O’Flaherty was up against QUB’s Emma Mitchell in the 1500m. With 4:15 as the target for the European Indoor Championships in Budapest in March, the early pace was set to take the runners through in 2:16 at 800m. An excellent pace making job was done by Fiona Kehoe and as she dropped out Mitchell through 800 in 2:15 with O’Flaherty. O’Flaherty hit the front with 400m to go and led to the finish to record 4:16.04, to win by 1.4 seconds from Mitchell. It was O’Flaherty’s second fastest indoor 1500m ever (PB is 4:15.04 from 2015) and whilst just outside the European Qualifying Time, she is now the fastest Irish woman over 1500m indoors this year.