Cork County Road Novice and Masters Champs - March 18th, 2019 Castlelyons

County Roads:
Congrats to Denis and Sean on winning individual medals in Castlelyons on Bank Holiday Monday. In wet but calm conditions the races kicked off with the womens Novice and Masters at 11am. Eadaoin led the Novice team home to 5th position. Eadaoin was 11th in the Novice race in 27.05, Niamh O'Connor making her 2019 debut ran a strong race to finish 19th Novice and 6th F35. Eibhlin with a last minute entry ran well for 37th place with Lavinia running her second race of the weekend in 38th.

We had a successful haul from the mens races with our Novice team (including two debutantes) winning silver and our wily masters taking out bronze team in the M35's. In a very competitive race Sean was 3rd overall and 3rd Master. The race was won outright by Paul Maloney of Mallow with Alan O'Brien of Eagle in 2nd. Niall Murphy running his first race for the club after joining the training squad over the winter ran an exceptional race in 22.04 to finish 13th overall. Niall had a titanic battle with Graham with only 4 seconds seperating them at the finish (Graham perhaps had used up his finishing kick after outsprinting his wife and son Zach in Cloyne on Sunday morning..) 

Frank Hayes ran his usual solid run and added yet another team medal to his already impressive haul, finishing 4th M45 and 21st overall in 22.43. Doanl Giltinan, also running his first race for the club, acquitted himself very well. In another inter club battle he pulled away from Donogh in the last 50m to a mighty impressive 23.11 (25th overall), Donogh finished 4 seconds back. Although it must be said that perhaps they will need to repeat this duel in Ballintotis as Donogh had just finished a night shift in the hospital at 8am in the morning. Without him we wouldn't have fielded a team so a lot of credit is due. 

Denis took home 2nd in the M55 category with a very tidy 26.39. About a minute faster than the munsters 2 weeks ago and will no doubt be a major talking point on Wednesdays mid week run.

Cloyne Commons 4k:

Brian Harty continued his good form in Cloyne on Sunday with a solid 13.40. John Hennessy ran close behind in 3rd for 13.45 and Jonathon Finn also ran sub 14 for 4th with a 13.58.
Eric Meade, Denis McCarthy, Graham Swords and Lavinia also ran. Well done all who participated in the series and congrats to Cloyne District Community Council for hosting and organising such a well run event throughout the winter. The hard work and effort behind the scenes is much appreciated by all athletes.

Reading Half Marathon:
Tim O'Donoghue and Kevin O'Leary went international this weekend and flew to Reading in England in search of some good early season times. And they got them. Tim ran his usual excellent performance coming 15th overall in a high caliber field in 67.25. Kevin ran yet another PB of 70.25 in coming 35th overall. Well done both, it's great to see the East Cork singlet being so well represented abroad.​