June Roads, Trail, Track (Trinity & UK) Round-Up
Roads & Trail
Des Gill started a busy week by being the sole representative of Donore at the Patrick Bell Bohermeen AC 5k, which took place on Friday June 8th, finishing in 19:25. And was back in action at the DBRC summit 5 mile in Howth, running 35:48.
On 16th June, at the Castleknock 5k, we had a number of runners, Fergal Whitty was 4th in 16:41, Ken Norgrove 17:10, Karla Doran a fine 19:52 with Joseph Maguire getting an identical time 19:52! Next was Audrey Gahan 21:04 and 2nd W40, then Rhona McHugh 21:20.
Sinead Lambe finished 3rd lady in 18:22 at the Braveheart trail race run by Trim AC.
Trinity Track
The annual BHAA races in Trinity College on Wednesday, June 13th attracted a small but high-quality Donore entry, with stellar performances by Des Gill and Karla Doran in particular. For those unfamiliar with the event, it usually involves running two different distances on the grass track at College Park, a famous venue that once launched the career of club legend Willie Dunne.
Participants are graded according to previous BHAA runs, here or elsewhere. And this year the races were over the classic distances: 800 and Mìle.
The outstanding Donore performance of the night was by Des Gill who, after being close to a place in a hard-run 800, lined up again an hour later for the mile and won it in fine style: moving gradually into contention on the second and third laps, tracking the leader up the back straight on lap 4, and then leaving him for dead with a sprint off the last bend.
In Karla’s mile, the eventual winner set a fierce pace early on to open up a big lead. Karla then spent two laps reeling her in, and with 250 meters to go, looked certain to win what had become a two-horse race. Then the front-runner found another gear and kicked on, leaving Karla a brave second after another brilliant run.
Elsewhere, Frank McNally and Terry Mee ran both the 800 and mile and both improved on recent performances. Frank found the 800 hard work but finished in about 2:52, which was a few seconds quicker than in 2017. The mile felt somehow easier – those timed runs on the Donore track recently must have helped. The BHAA still haven’t posted all the results, except Des’s mile, which was 5:57 close to his recent run on the club track, but probably better, being on grass
UK Track
On June 12th, Eric Keogh continued his outdoor track season and raced at the British Milers Club meet at Stretford where there is always high level competition and a graded system. Eric raced in the fastest 1500m of the evening and finished 9th in 3.51.56, not as fast as his 3.46 in Belgium a few weeks previously but still a fine run where only 6 seconds separated 1st and 9th place.
In Horwich, also in the North of England Anne Gormley competed at the Horwich festival of running which incorporates the British masters 5k racewalk championship. Anne finished 3rd W55 in 35:47 and she will be back in action at the national league this weekend where she has been a stalwart member of the ladies league team for years now.
At last weekend’s Loughborough British Milers Club meet, there was another great win for John Travers. He finished in 3.40.74 in the 1500m A race in a season’s best and agonizingly close to the European championship standard of 3:40. John just shaved the 5000m standard a few weeks ago so no doubt he will be back in action very soon and hopefully continue the winning streak.