Junior Race 3 Results and Photos by Alison Carroll

Race 3 of Toscano Junior Hill and Dale took place on Hen Mountain on 12th June

Report by The Non-Runner

Another beautiful sunny evening awaited our junior runners from the post-primary schools.  While the seniors have not finished their series yet, our brave post-primary runners rounded off our very successful junior series with their third and final race.  This saw a much reduced field of 13 runners compete in a race to the top of Hen and back.  Each and every runner got a medal for competing the race, and rightly so.   Even though it was just one mile in distance, it gives our junior runners a taste of open mountain running. 

Well done to Oisin Brennan who won the race in a fantastic time of 7.45.  Oisin was very impressive as he won comfortably with time to spare.  Next across the line was our very own Eoghan Knight.  Eoghan also had a great run and looks very comfortable on the open mountain terrain, another one to watch for the future.  In third place was Peter Carty.  We wouldn’t like to be accused of starting a rumour, but it has been reported to me that Peter’s dad Neil had an air of jealousy about him as watched in his son.  Peter certainly seems to be emulating his father and looks to be following in his dad’s famous mountain running footsteps/trail shoes.  First girl home was Anna Welsh in 5th place overall, a great piece of running from Anna.  In joint second were Lucy Kenneally and Eabha Campbell, who had a very exciting sprint finish to the line.  Congratulations to all of the runners.

Thanks to Toscano for their sponsorship of the race, to Mary Knight for stepping into the breach to cover my absence.  Mary pretty much organised Thursday night on her own and did a fantastic job with registration, finishing and sorting the results.  We’ll also have to give a mention to our very capable MC for the junior events, the always reliable PJ McCrickard.  PJ reports to me that he has fabulous oratory skills.  Yes PJ, we know!  Thanks as always to the runners and their families, and to all those who helped out on the night.

Keep your eyes peeled for our next event, in September we will be  hosting the Mill Hill Mile, an event that has great attendance from juniors.  Think of it as a fun run.  For a mile.  Uphill.  (Fun?) In the meantime enjoy your summer holidays, thank you for supporting our races in such great numbers and thanks to those who actually read the reports.  I’m told there’s at least one person, other than me!  Anyway, I got my leave request authorised by Martina and PJ, so I’m signing off for now and will return with more exciting tales of derring-do in September.