HIGHLIGHTS John Travers retains National 3k indoor title and Paul McDermott takes silver in the 200m.  Maura Kearns 2nd woman in Lusk 4 mile.  Josh Osullivan Hourihan and Grace Kennedy Clarke win club cross country championships .

Indoor track – National Senior Indoor Championships.
(Thanks Iain Morrison for this report on national senior Indoors )

Travers delivers Gold again and McDermott takes superb Silver!

A fine representation of Donore Harriers competed this weekend in the national senior Indoor Championships.

John Travers aced the men’s 3000m on Sunday after fierce qualification on Saturday saw several pretenders to his title qualify in good form. John however is unbeaten in the national Indoors for the last 3 years and had all the cards once again. A healthy pace was taken on by Brian Forsyth from Derry knowing he had to make it an honest pace. John slotted back comfortably in 4th/ 5th but very quickly moved on the shoulder of second place as the pace strung out the field.  As Forsyth struggled with the temp, there was brief surge from Hiko Tonosa just before midway. John responded instantly and within a lap and half found himself at the front controlling the pace. He maintained the steady 32/33 second laps and even gestured to those behind if they wanted to take on the pace. By this time it was down to three athletes John, Hiko and young Dara McElhinney, with Eoin Everard and Pierre Murchan battling for the minor places behind. It was Dara who made a move with 400 to go but John followed and released a devastating 27 last 200m to win in some style, his fourth Indoor title in a row (1500m in 2017 and 300m now 2018, 19 and 20). It was John’s fastest time in winning any of his 3k titles (8.00.96).

The day previously, in the men’s 200m Paul McDermott re-emphasised his terrific form this year by qualifying in second position (21.85) for the 200m final. In the final he had the winner Mark Smyth outside him in lane 6. Paul ran a superb race chasing hard from the gun and rounding the second bend aggressively leaving himself well clear of third and a fine second in 21.73 marginally outside his p.b. set earlier this indoor season). He was beaten only by one of the best ever performances at Nationals by Smyth and Paul now has silver at National Under 23, University and now National senior medals behind Smyth this season.

Donore athletes featured strongly through the 2 days. Aoife Lynch finished 6th in a stacked ladies 200m final which had European leading athlete Phil Healy run and championship best and multi European medallist Rhashidat Adeleke come second. The final put Aoife in the dreaded 1st lane which hugely impedes athletes over 200m so her heat time (24.78) was significantly faster than the final time (25.22)  as expected, but such was the level of the field.

Lara O’Byrne our multi-eventer returning from injury lay off finished 10th and 7th in the high jump (1.60m) and shot putt (9.55) respectively.

Eva McPartlin made her first national senior final with a very solid performance in the 60mh finishing 8th (9.6) .

Finally our Donore ladies fielded a strong 4 x 200m team of Eva McPartlin, Emily Geoghegan, Sarah Lahiff and Aoife Lynch. Drawn in heat 2 solid runs and good changes from all our women brought them home in 6th, capping a great championships for Donore

Cross country
The club senior cross country championship took place on a bitterly cold and windy Saturday morning on the familiar 2 mile lap (set by senior endurance coach Willie Smith) used on St Stephens day for the 10 mile.  But this time it started and finished at the stone bridge near the top of the Khyber road and was very muddy in the woods section making for a challenging race. The race is also timed to be close to the Anniversary of Jim McNamara who passed away on 10 March 2016.
Club President Charlie O’Neill blew the start whistle and the men and women started together (4 miles for women, 6 miles for the men)
Josh O’Sullivan Hourihan set the early pace and built up quite a lead.  In the women’s race , Grace Kennedy-Clarke, in the club since her teens got into a group of the men and maintained her leading position finishing strongly as first woman in 28.36.  Second placed was club stalwart Anne Curley in  30.15 who was pleased that her injury-affected left leg held out in the tough conditions.  Leaving it all at the finish line in a gutsy run in 3rd was Caroline McCarthy in 30.37 who has completed her debut cross country season for Donore
Josh extended his lead over the 3 laps to be the clear winner of the Faugh-a-Ballagh cup in  34.03 nearly 2 minutes ahead of Rossa Hurley in 36.02.  New recruit Tadgh Moriarty was 3rd in his very first Cross country race in 36.42.
11 women and 16 men toed the line, most of whom completed the 4 mile or 6 mile (81 year old Ann Woodlock set off on the course early)
After the race Willie Smith started the presentation and included an excerpt from a report of the 1907 Faugh a Ballagh race which took place in Meadowbrook Dundrum and included members of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
Willie also recalled Jim McNamara’s winning of the trophy in 1965/66.  The top 3 male finishers were presented with medals by men’s captain Craig Scott And Former President and international runner Tony Murphy presented the Faugh A Ballagh trophy to Josh.  Tony recalled the times he competed on teams with Jim including the World XC championship in Ostend 1965(Jim’s first Irish vest) and raced him individually many times on track, road and country.
Women’s captain Florence Curley presented medals to the first 3 females and The Jim McNamara trophy was presented to Grace by Jim’s son Shane who was present with his family. Willie and Florrie recalled their memories of Jim and some memorabilia from his career including the 1976 Olympics and World Masters 1982 Gold medal was displayed .  Shane recalled the occasion he and his father ran the Faugh a Ballagh race and his father caught up with him and passed him! But was always full of encouragement for him and every athlete Full results of the races below

Ladies
1 Grace Kennedy Clarke 28.36
2 Anne Curley 30.15
3 Caroline McCarthy 30.37
4 Claire Mulligan30.47
5Margaret O’Brien 30.53
6 Cliodhna Carthy 31.25
7 Rhona Duane 32.02
8 Angela Eustace 35.35
9 Mary McDermott
Ann Woodlock
Treasa Boylan ( 2 laps)
Men
1Josh OSullivan Hourihan 34.03
2Rossa Hurley 36.02
3Tadgh Moriarty 36.42
4Danny osullivan 37.32
5Des Tremble 37.55
6Alan Farrell 39.57
7Alan Keogh 40.02
87Donal Healy 41.35
9Craig Scott 42.06
10Stephen Dawson 42.24
11David McConn 44.25
12Andrew Wilson 44.55
13Oliver O’Hara 45.35
14Ian redican 48.47
15Des Gill 53.32

Road
In the Lusk 4 mile, Maura Kearns was 2nd woman in an excellent 24.05 and Peter Gaffney ran 23:54 and 2nd over 50.
In the Naas 10 mile road race , coming 66th and 1st over 60 was Tony Griffin 1:11:08. In 108th and 3rd over 60 was Ken Cronin 1:15:48.

Parkruns
Waterstown 6th 1st female Jean Murphy 21.01
Ardgillan 49th and 5th female Sarah Ní Ruairc 28.24
Poppintree 108th, 12th woman Eilish Joyce 28.26
Tolka Valkey 55th Owen Robinson 26.49
Kilcock 13th and 2nd female Sinead Oreilly 21.39