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Cross-Country winds-up – county and national masters/intermediate: The 2024/2025 cross-country season has drawn to a close with further successes for the club at county and national levels. County Masters: On the 12th January, Bweeng played host to their first ever County Masters and Intermediate championships. The course lay hidden under a foot of snow in the days preceding the race but by Sunday all traces of the white stuff were gone and the athletes were greeted with surprisingly firm underfoot conditions for racing. The never-ending climbs into a stiff southerly breeze more than made up for the lack of muck though. A lack of intermediate entries meant that both masters and intermediate men set-off together for a 7k battle against the elements. Nicky O’Donoghue led the charge for East Cork, and gained valuable insight into Donal Coakley’s ability to use gravity to devastating effect on the downhill sections, finishing 2nd overall to his Leevale adversary. That translated to 2nd M35 and a county intermediate gold medal. Brian Harty used his Walshtown experience to great effect on the hills, coming home a strong 5th (3rd M40). Donal Giltinan just came up short in his efforts to beat Bandon’s Naoise O’ Flatheartaigh and finished up 7th overall. Matt Horrigan finished was next up in 8th following a race-long and ding-dong battle with Grange/Fermoy’s Liam O’Connor, picking up a bronze M35 medal. Stephen O’Brien was one place behind that duo in 10th while Denis McCarthy finished up in 73rd, earning a bronze M60 medal in the process. All this was good enough to earn the East Cork men M35 club gold, our third such title in four years. In the ladies’ race, Niamh O’Connor finished up in 20th spot with Eibhlin Cleary continuing her cross-country adventures for the season in 50th. Unfortunately, on this occasion we did not have a full complement to compete for club honours on the day. All credit to Bweeng Trailblazers who put on a great day’s activities despite the adverse weather conditions over the week. National Masters: All roads then led to Westport in County Mayo for the National Masters & Intermediate Championships on 9th February where, after a couple of intermediate withdrawals, we had a team of six lining up in the masters race. The course, laid out in the grounds of Westport House and under the watchful eye of Croagh Patrick, was firm in places and soft in others, featured a lot of tight turns, off-camber running, and a couple of short climbs to keep the athletes honest. The course, as originally designed, had to be re-routed to avoid a giant tree which had been brought down by Storm Eowyn thus depriving the athletes of a grueling uphill section. Our experienced masters however dealt with the cards handed them by Mother Nature with aplomb, securing M35 bronze for the club. Unsurprisingly, Mike Harty was the flagbearer, finishing up 4th overall and 3rd M40. Nicky O’Donoghue, released from the pressure of facing (the rear of) Donal Coakley, glided home in 17th. After his customary relaxed start, Matt Horrigan rose up the order throughout the race, ghosting past Donal Giltinan on the final lap to finish 27th, one place and five seconds up on his clubmate. Brian Harty finished up in 36th with Stephen O’Brien 43rd of the 160-strong field. Due to some confusion over the entries, some post-race haggling was required to ensure that all our athletes were included in the masters results, thus securing the club the bronze medal – making the long trip up the N17 very much worthwhile. Mike, Nicky and Matt also picked up silver medals for their county. Congratulations to all! Indoor season begins: While the old folk were busy ploughing through the fields over the past couple of months the club’s younger speed merchants were busy keeping out of the rain and muck and enjoying some indoor track action. Representing the club in Nenagh at Munster level, John Spelman picked up silver and bronze medals respectively in the U23 800m (2:14.5) and 1500m (4:26.7). John, Frank O’Brien and Ciarán McNamee then represented their colleges at the IUAA Indoor Championships in Dublin. Frank placed 6th in the 800m final with a 1:57.6 having won his heat in 1:56.7. John and Ciarán lined up in the 1500m placing 19th and 23rd respectively with John setting an indoor PB of 4:17.9 in the process. John also lined up in the 2k race walk having spent a significant chunk of his weekdays practicing his technique on lunchtime strolls between Brookfield and The Main in UCC. Sadly, he was disqualified after just 100m, allegedly for walking, not race-walking. On the roads: As always there was plenty of East Cork representation on the roads in the past few weeks and detailed results are below. The first big 10-miler of the season took place in Dungarvan in early. Tony Forristal, returning from injury, hobbled around to a ‘modest’ 53m 24s PB. There were also PBs for Nicky O’Donoghue (54m 14s) and Christine Kelly, who sat comfortably between the 65- and 70-minute balloons to finish in 67m 30s. The club also placed second in the men’s team event (Tony, Nicky and Donal). Nicky O’Donoghue picked up a Cloyne double – winning the January and February editions. Extra-curricular activities: The 1st February was the dawn of a new era in Midleton with the inaugural Midleton Greenway Parkrun taking place on the former railway line that runs between Midleton and Youghal – aka The Greenway. As they are not officially ‘races’, parkruns do not normally feature on this site but this one deserves special mention as the Midleton area has been crying out for something like this for quite some time. To prove the point, a whopping 636 participants turned out on St. Brigid’s Day and numbers have been strong for the subsequent couple of events. Hopefully that level of interest will be maintained over the coming weeks, months, and years. Determined to make a mark on home turf, local lad Frank O’Brien was first to cross the finish line in that first event in 15m 34s – a respectable time for a parkrun - unless you go by the names Griggs and Mageean. Frank returned home, course record safely in the pocket. Records are there to be broken however, and just two weeks later, Mike Harty waltzed around in 15m 01s possibly keeping a couple of seconds in reserve for a future visit. The gauntlet has been well and truly thrown down….   
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European Cross Country: A little bit late with the reports! We had a big achievement in December where our very own Paul Hartnett the local lad from East Cork was selected for the Irish team, to compete in the European cross country, held in Asia!! It was held in Antalya, Türkiye and marked the 30th edition of a championships. Paul proudly donned the green singlet and ran on the Irish U23 team, he had a great run in a very competitive field to finish 63rd overall. It was great to see Pauls perseverance pay off as in the previous two years he just missed out on selection by the finest of margins. Well done Paul a fine achievement that hopefully be an inspiration to our Senior mens teams for the next few years. Here is a summary of Pauls 2024 with some great results along the way leading to the Euros. Road Races: We had four top 10's on the roads in December. Nicky won the second Cloyne 4k in 12.53 and was 6th in the Grange Fermoy 10k in 33.12. Tony was 4th in the Stoneyford 5k in Kilkenny in 15.47 and Frank was 7th in the competitive Newmarket 5k and broke the 15 minute barrier in an excellent 14.58. We had plenty of others competing on the roads, Paul Cleary was 26th in the BHAA Turkey trot but guessed his finish time in advance to the exact second of 19.49.   |
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