National Masters to Mountain Running and all the road races inbetween

National Masters - Frank Hayes Wins National Bronze Medal:

Our first championship medal since the East Corks in June was won by non other than Frank Hayes on Sunday up in Tullamore. Frank was 3rd in the M50 5000m. Frank ran 17.32 in a race won by Ian O'Leary in 17.21, with Dominic Horan in 2nd in 17.26.

A stalwart of the club , this is Franks 5th individual championship medal of the year. He is the reigning County Master champion over 3000m, he was 2nd in the county masters 1500m, 2nd in the Munster masters 3000m and 2nd in the East Cork Seniors over 1500m and now has added this bronze National medal over 5000m to add his ever growing collection. This is on top of the enormous unseen work he does with the St Catherine juveniles all year round. Congratulations Frank from all at East Cork AC.

Tim Crowley also ran on Sunday. Tim was 6th M35 in 4.33 and was within touching distance of an individual medal being in 2nd with 250m to go. This experience of running Nationals is invaluable and for a guy who was out injured for 14 months this time last year it shows the dedication and work that has been put in to get back to this level. Congrats Tim. Tim also ran the Cork City sports Open 3k in a 9.46 last Wednesday night.

Road Races:

Kevin O'Leary once again showed where his true strength lies. Kevin won the East Cork Harbour Half Marathon last weekend in a course record 73.36. Now if any of you have ever run that route you will know how impressive that is. Hills. hills and more hills!! Kevin is building up for the Berlin marathon in September and with Eluid Kipchoge not racing Berlin, as he's concentrating on his Sub 2 project, few would back against Kev on current form!

Also racing the Harbour Half were Kenneth Kelleher who is a former winner of this race. Kenneth was 3rd overal in 79.14. Pat O'Connor was 43rd in 80.19 and Jens was 49th in 81.35. Lavinia ran the 10k in 54.30. Well done all.

The Musgrave 5k was on last Tuesday night and Michelle Ahern had a great run with 20.17, Niamh O'Connor also had an excellent 20.55 and Annalese ran another suberb PB of 21.28! Caitriona was just behind in 21.31.

Mountain Running:

Normally this website is reserved for Track, Road and Cross Country races but occasionally an allowance is made for an amusing story or exceptional performance. In this case it is the latter, congrats to Tim on winning the Irish Mountain Running Trial race for the World Championships held in Wicklow on Saturday. Tim held off Ian Conroy and Eoin Flynn to win the race and has now qualified for the Irish team that will be heading to Patagonia, Argentina in November for the World Mountain Running Championships.

Tim has represented Ireland once before at this level running in an International race up Snowdon in Wales in 2014. Welchtown hills could be spicy this winter!
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