East Cork Road Race Championships - August 20th 2020

East Cork Road Race Championships:

In a very windy and blustery night last Thursday, the 41st East Cork Road Championships were held in the traditional venue of Ballynoe. Kevin O'Leary improved on his 2nd place finish from 2019 to record the victory in a mighty impressive 26.11. Dictating things from the 2nd mile Kevin strung the field out and pushed Paul Hartnett hard until he broke clear and literally didn't look back all the way to the finish line. Paul held on for 2nd, getting bragging rights over his Midleton AC Junior colleague Frank O'Brien in 3rd. Kevin O'Brien ran 27.37 for 4th with the evergreen James (6 time champion) and Sean (5 time champion) in 6th and 7th. Graham Swords completed the team for the men in 13th (the top 3 individuals do not count for the team title) and this was enough to secure the team Gold from Watergrasshill AC). Chris Kelly was next home in 20th with the everpresent Denis McCarthy recording a 5th decade of competing at these championships in 47th.

Fiona took firm hold of the womens race form the off and opened up a clear lead early and kept the pressure on right throughout to record a fine win in 11.22 and tied the course record (also held by Sinead Keavany from 2017). Niamh O'Connor was next home in 11th in 13.33 with Norah just behind in 13th and 13.45. As Fiona was in the top 3 we unfortunately were one short for a team. Hopefully our lesson will be learnt from this and it doesn't happen at this years cross country races.

Winter Training 2020:

Winter training starts again Tuesday 25th August. Due to government restrictions on training group sizes we will train in Walchtown Woods at 6pm on Tuesdays and 10am on Saturdays for the next few weeks as this will better able us to manage numbers etc.

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