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Cork Athletics have a detailed leaderboard of all registered road races that have taken place on Cork soil throughout the year on their website that is a great indication of where the local standard of road running is at. While the level of these road races is a far cry from the National standard it is a good indication of how you fair against your peers and stirs up some local rivalry (https://www.corkathletics.org/news/1182-cork-road-race-leaderboard-december-2018.html).
Our Top Dogs: East Cork AC is proud to have three men on top of the leaderboards: Kevin O'Brien (4k - 12.58) , Michael Harty (4 Mile - 19.15) and James McCarthy (5 Mile - 25.14) - Kevin O'Brien ran 12.58 in January in the Cloyne Commons 4k and since then many have tried but all have failed to match his time. - Michael Harty ran a rip roaring 19.15 to hold off an Olympian and also the 8 time King of Ballintotis in April to top the 4 mile leaderboard. - James cruised to a 25.14 on the very first day of the year in Bandon set a mark that nobody has touched in the 355 days since. Special Mentions: 4k Overall Leaderboard: Kenneth Kelleher and Brian Harty. 4k Masters Categories: Conor Tierney, Eric Meade, Denis McCarthy and John Walshe. 5k Masters Categories: Eric Meade, Denis McCarthy and Phil McGrath. 4 Mile Overall Leaderboard: Sean McGrath (3rd), James McCarthy, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Leary. 4 Mile Masters Category: John Hennessy, Denis McCarthy, Frank Cashman, Phil McGrath 5 Mile Overall Leaderboard: Sean McGrath (2nd). 5 Mile Masters Category: Denis McCarthy, Phil McGrath and John Walshe 10k Overall Leaderboard: Kevin O'Leary 10 Mile Overall Leaderboard: Tim O'Donoghue, James McCarthy and Kevin O'Leary Half Marathon Overall Leaderboard: Tim O'Donoghue and Kevin O'Leary Our Lonely Lady: Fiona is our one and only female representation on the leaderboards placing prominently across a range of distances from 4 miles to half marathon. She is 3rd overall in the 4 mile with a 23.27 in Ballymacoda 4 in the summer. She also has the 6th fastest 5 mile in Cork with a 29.55 in the Midleton 5 miler. Fiona was 6th and 7th overall in the womens 10 mile leaderboard from Mallow and Duhallow. And last but not least Fiona is 8th overall in the half marathon with a 83.27 in the Cork City half in June. Other Points: Interestingly the 5k is probably the gold ribbon event in the calendar and we have nobody in the overall leaderboard. Although Michael did run a 14.43 earlier in the year in Kilkenny and Sean and James ran 14.58 and 15.19 in BHAA races during the year which would place them all high up on the lists.
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National Novice:
The National Novice XC in Navan on Sunday lived up to it's billing as the most exciting race of the season. The mens field had over 250 runners and womens over 150. It makes these races ultra competitive and unpredictable. On what was a wet and wild day the course more than held it's own. It was still quite firm underfoot and it was an example of a well thought out course for both athletes and spectators. You could easily get to numerous spots around the course and this significantly added to the atmosphere as the athletes were always in sight. Ladies 4k Race: The ladies race was a short but sweet 4k. Unfortunatly Eadaoin had to pull out injured but our four women that did compete did a fine job. Lorna was first home in 91st with Michelle breathing down her neck coming up the final stretch in 93rd. Eibhlin who ran despite being sick in the lead up to the race had a solid run in 137th with Lavinia running her first ever National XC event in 150th. Well done all this got the club 19th team overall. Mens 6k Race: The mens race was fast and furious from the start with everybody trying to get position going around the first corner. We had 6 men competing and they bunched well from the start. Shane came through the field well to finish up in 71st. Kevin, in his 35th race of the year, gave it a really rattle in the first half of the race was 92nd. Graham Swords also running his first National XC for the club ran a very measured race and picked off group by group in the final lap and a half came 114th and TIm Crowley still on his comeback from injury was 150th. Jonathon Finn was 160th and Donogh, who was just trying to get a weekend off babysitting, was 191st. We were 16th team out of 32., with Togher winning the team title. Other Squad Athletes: U-17: Paul Hartnett had another super run in a big race finishing 2nd overall inhte U-17 boys race. Paul took the race by the scruff of the neck form the gun and lead 90% of the way, grinding ht egroup down as each lap went by. In the end Adam Ferris was just a fraction too strong in the final push up the hill to the finish. Patrick Kelly had a solid run in the Cork singlet with 68th overall. U-19: Frank O'Brien also had a decent run in thr U-19 boys race charging through the field in the middle of the race to get to 5th overall, Jack O'Shea had a fine run to come 13th with the relativly fast underfoot conditions suiting his track speed. Naoise had a good rnu in 35th. Cloyne Common 4k: Closer to home we had a good turnout at the final Cloyne 4k race of the year. Local hero Brian Harty won the race in 13.30. Eric Meade cracked the top 10 with 15.11. Conor and Denis battled it out in 16.03 and 16.17 with John Walshe running his first but not last race of the day in 19.45. Newmarket 5k: James was 3rd in Newmarket on Sunday afternoon in a swift 15.19. Nice to see James get back to his usual self, this bodes well for the 2019 season. Also it was his first sub 5 minute miling race of 2018 which keeps a streak of about 15 years going! John Walshe wasn't content enough with just his 4k in the morning in Cloyne and literally continued where he left off running the exact same pace in Newmarket! Reminder - Club Christmas Night Out: As you know the Christmas night out is this Thursday after training in the Midleton Park Hotel. Please be there at 7.45pm for the mulled wine reception. Inch: Inch training camp is going ahead again this year from 27th-29th with hostel accommodation. Please touch base with Liam if you are interested in going for some or all of it. Dunes session on the 27th, long run on 28th and interval session on the beach the 29th East Cork Novice:
Well done to the small crew we had running the East Cork Novice at the weekend. Graham had another good run and was only just outside the medals in 4th. Eibhlin was 7th in the ladies race with Lavinia just behind her. Generally this is a low key race but a good warm up for those running the National Novice next weekend in Navan, which is always a very exciting competitive race. Road Running: James and Brian were our only two men running in the BHAA Turkey Trot and took out 1st and 2nd overall. However in this unique race you actually do not wear a watch and you must guess your predicted time in advance and the "winner" then is whoever got closest to this time. Brian was fairly spot on only 10 seconds off his predicted time. James was a little further away being 42 seconds out. National Novice: The next big race is fast approaching in Navan next Saturday. We have two strong teams entered in the mens and womens races and based on recent training sessions some other members of the training squad will be eyeing a good individual result on the also! Mens Team: Donogh Wall, Tim Crowley, Shane Harrington, Jonathan Finn, Kevin O Leary, Jens Waechter, Tim Mahony, Graham Swords Womens Team: Eadaoin O Neill, Lorna Santry, Michelle Aherne, Eibhlin Cleary, Lavinia Swords Christmas Night Out: Also a reminder that the Christmas night out is coming up on Thursday 20th in Midleton Park Hotel. If you want to go but have not confirmed this yet please let the Social Night Coordinator Lorna know beforehand. The Munster Intermediate XC was held in the Cork County Boards Grounds in Riverstick on Sunday. Again we had full teams for both the mens and womens races. After winning the National Intermediate title back in February we were down one or two that would otherwise have been competing. In years gone by this would of meant no team for a number of years at this level. However, in what is a testament to the growing strength in depth at the moment we had a strong team of Shame Harrington, Tim Crowley, Jonathon Finn and Tim Mahony. Inter Women: The ladies 5000m race was on first and Eadaoin positioned herself well in the front pack in the top 10 from the start of the race. As the race progressed Eadaoin made some inroads on the wooded section at the bottom of the course and eased up to 8th position which she held onto with a valiant sprint finish up the hill. Michelle who is going from strength to strength this season had another fine race. Making a very positive start she held her position throughout and finished up in a very commendable 16th. Eibhlin was third scorer on the team in 30th and Lavinia was in 35th. All in all this was good enough for 5th team. In fact it was a tie for 4th on 89 points with Moyne AC but they got 4th on countback. Inter Men: The mens race was fast and furious from the start until Paul Maloney took control after 4k and eased away from the field to claim a comfortable win. Shane was our first man home, matching Eadaoins position, in 8th. Shane had a strong race and attached himself to the back of the lead group from the start. The Market Green intervals seemed to payoff on the bottom mucky section. In the last lap as lads were getting dropped all over the place Shane held firm and came through impressively to move from 12th to 8th in the last 800m. Tim Crowley on his official debut for East Cork and his first competitive race in 14 month had a fine run in 17th. Tim battled with a few St Finbarr athletes throughout the race with none of them holding back. But again the strength built from his consistent Welchtown Hills paid dividends in the last half a lap where he made a decisive break and held on till the finish. Jonathon Finn (one of only two East Cork athletes to beat Mick Clohessy this year) was next to count in 24th with fellow fireman Tim Mahony right behind him in 25th. This got us 2nd team overall behind Thurles Crokes and ahead of Dundrum. Also Shane and Tim counted on the silver winning Cork team. Well done all Waterford Half Marathon: In other races Graham Swords was out again in Waterford Half Marathon on Saturday running a very tidy 78.01 for 30h in his 4th race since the Dublin Marathon!!! East Cork Novice: The next cross country race is the East Cork Novice race in Watergrasshill next Sunday. This is low key but a good sharpening race for anyone coming back from injury or wants a stress free hit out. Entry is on the day. |
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