Every road or track fixture for the last couple of weeks has been ran in the blazing heat so quite a challenge for our endurance runners but they have been out in numbers.

Two of our women even aced PBs, Joan Lennon was 5th Woman in the Pride run 5k in the Phoenix park in 22:12 and Pam White who has been hitting PBs all year got another one here in 22:16 and was 6th woman.

The next day one of the classics of the road calendar, the Michael Manning Dunshaughlin 10k, took place on a hot summer evening and Eric Keogh’s fine run of form continued where he finished 7th in 30.49.98 – very little separated 1-7 so this was excellent. Next in was the ever strong Fergal Whitty 33.18 (3rd M40) and 24th , Des Tremble 34.07, Ken Norgrove 34.20 and they made up the 4 scorers of the second placed team. The next 2 runners Sean and Andy weren’t far off the scorers. Sole Donore lady on the night was Ariana ball. Well done to:
Sean Fox 34.28
Andy Kinane 34.51
Chris Muldoon 37.35
Craig Scott 40.20
Joe Maguire 42.11
Ariana Ball 42.23

Many opted instead for the Irish Runner 5 mile around the Phoenix park on Sunday morning again in hot sun and thanks Fiona Barrins for providing some of the detail here!

Donore Harriers were well represented. Eoin Durkan 27:43, Peter Gaffney 28:30, Tony Barry 29:42, Fred Kiernan 31:31.
Despite the hot temperatures and bug alerts, Audrey Gahan achieved a speedy time of 34:09 followed by Barry Potts at 35:09. Fiona Barrins had a PB coming in at 36:10. On her first outing as a ‘grown up’ with Donore, Molly Murphy O’Kane did a great time of 38:41 followed by Catherine McKeon at 43:23 and Michele Murphy at 45:58. Treasa Boylan is coming back gradually from injury and she ran 45:34. The Fit4life group had runs from Liam Hickey 34:47 Deirdre Brennan 47:17 and Adrienne seery 48:53.

There was great support from Donore members who were out on their Sunday morning run, cheers were heard on many parts of the course, it was very much appreciated and helped to keep the momentum and the feet moving in the heat. The group enjoyed some well deserved treats after in the visitors centre and We can report nobody was bitten, however the key lesson from the day was ‘always wear sunscreen’ (there may have been some very red shoulders and necks later that day).