National Indoor League Round 1 Reports

Thanks to the two track and field captains Leonie Newman and David Campbell for these reports. After round 1, the women’s team is in 3rd place and the men are in 4th in a close contest. This Saturday in Athlone will be the second round.

Our women’s team had a great start to the Indoor League in Abbotstown 2 weeks ago. Lara O’Byrne started us off with a third place in the 60m hurdles in 9.45 and then went on to finish 6th in the Long Jump. Aoife Lynch kicked of her indoor season with a second place finish in the 60m with Joan Healy winning, another second place was Ailbhe Healy in pole vault with a jump of 2.70. Louise Murray made her debut for the women’s team in the 800m a shorter distance than she’s used to running, finishing a fine 8th and gaining valuable points .Robyn O’Keeffe finished 7th in shot put. It was a great day for the team they finished in 3rd position when points were redone,

The Donore men have a great reputation in this competition having won bronze medals last year and they were keen to start strong. The first event of the day was the 60m hurdles and David Slupko showed huge dedication to his club Donore Harriers. Earlier in the morning David was in action on the rugby pitch where he played the first half of his match, came straight to Abbotstown and with a minimal warm up he pulled off a fantastic performance. David finished 4th in a time of 8.81 seconds amongst a high quality field where national u23 champion Matthew Behan took first place in 8.11 seconds. David is an excellent hurdler and his coaches are very excited to see him in action during the outdoor season.

Next up was the cool and confident character of Kolade Abiodun in the long jump. Having not trained in over 12 months, Kolade produced a superb jump of 6.36cm and took 2nd place overall. These points were a huge bonus for the club and it proves that with more training this year we will no doubt see plenty more impressive jumps from Kolade come outdoors.

Back to the track for the men’s 60m was Ben Iveagh. The field was loaded with Ireland’s top sprinters and Ben gained valuable points for the team finishing 5th in a time of 7.59 seconds. The race was won in a very swift 7.03 seconds by Clonliffe Harriers Leo Morgan and this was a great opportunity for Ben to get valuable race experience with senior athletes of the highest level. Ben has been in excellent form all winter and his coaches are looking forward to seeing him drop fast times this indoor season.

The final track event was the men’s 800m with Jack Raftery opening his indoor season. Last year Jack had a fantastic season running 49 seconds for 400m and 1.53 for 800m which highlights how talented this juvenile athlete is. Jack is only recently back from injury and the race was a great way to test his fitness. Finishing 3rd in a time of 2.01.25 behind the winner Cillian Kirwan of Raheny Shamrocks A.C who ran 1.56.16. Jack’s 3rd place scored crucial points for the team and he will no doubt improve his times as the indoor season progresses.

The last field event of the day was shot put with Alex Conway was in action. Over the past few years Alex has been a huge help with the national league squads and proved once again what a great asset he is to the club. Alex finished an excellent 3rd place throwing 9.59m and the competition was won by Rolus Olusa of Clonliffe Harriers who threw 11.01m.

The next round of the national league takes place on Saturday 26th January in Athlone I.T and we encourage all club members to come and support both the men and women in their efforts to bring home national medals. The men are currently in 4th place overall, just four points of 3rd position which means it’s all to play for in the next round. A big thank you to all the athletes, coaches and supporters who made round 1 such a success and we look forward to a stronger round 2 as we eye up medals for a 2nd consecutive year!

There is no final this year so it’s all to play for on Saturday best of luck to all . Don’t forget there is guest races on the day for anyone looking to get an indoor time . Supporters more than welcome.

National Junior Indoor Combined Events Title for Lara

On Saturday Lara O’Byrne added another national title to her tally which goes to show how she was awarded the Dublin Juvenile star for last year when she won the National Junior Indoor Combined Event in Athlone. Lara won all 5 disciplines and finished with some new personal bests too: 60m Hurdles (9.26), Long Jump (4.65), Shot Put (9.65, PB), High Jump (1.62) and 800m (2.27, PB).

John Travers gets 3000m qualifier time

Great news, John Travers has achieved the qualifying time for the European indoors athletics championship in Glasgow in early March. He was 3rd in the Cardiff Met Athletics/Non Thomas indoor meet in a time of 8.01.04, & only a second off 2nd; a few weeks ago he ran 2 seconds slower in Scotland. But this time he did the business in a race which was won in 7.55 by UK rising star Kieran Clements. Well done John, Glasgow beckons!

Dublin Intermediate XC

The day after our own Jingle bells 5k, there was no slacking for some of our hardworking volunteers. They had to to tackle a testing course in Tymon Park for the Dublin intermediate cross country championship. An unfortunate last minute injury and unavailability for some runners meant that the women did not have a full team on the day but admirably the three runners decided to compete anyway. A 5k course with one small lap and two big laps was the test for the 60 runners out. First home was Audrey Gahan who worked through the field well to come in 20th place, Ariana Ball had her first race since her excellent Dublin marathon and she was not far behind in 27th, claire mulligan in her second championship race for the club ran a very controlled race picking lots of people off to finish 30th. Winners of the team and individual title were Sportsworld.

The men were next up tackling 4 big laps 8k. By the first lap Matthieu Profitt was in a good position near the top. Two Rathfarnham runners (eventual Gold and silver Mitchell Byrne and Robert Murphy) started to string the field out though and get ahead but Matthieu was in the second bunch and eventually got out on his own finishing an excellent 6th. Emmet O’Briain can always rely on his track speed in these races and he had a strong run to finish in 14th. Paul Cummins had an excellent run and was well pleased with his 21st placing. Alan Farrell who had a hectic day coordinating at the jingle Bells (and being a Chief Elf!) the day before gave it everything to finish 31st and Alasdair Brown likewise in 37th. They all just got in before the heavens opened in Tymon Park! As we tried to dry off at race HQ in Templeogue United there was an anxious wait for the men’s team results as it became clear there may be a tie for first place. Nonetheless Donore Harriers were delighted to secure the bronze with 72 points, 9 ahead of Sportsworld. Brothers Pearse beat Rathfarnham WSAF on countback.

Well done all and see some of these runners back in action for the national novice this weekend.

The 28th Jingle Bells 5k took place Saturday, December 1st. We had our biggest field ever at just under 1,500 participants with almost 1,200 chipped finishers and almost 300 under 16s. Well done to all and congratulations to winners Eoin Everard, 14:36, (Kilkenny City Harriers) and Teresa Doherty, 16:13 (Finn Valley AC). Runners up in the Men’s were Efren Gidey (Clonliffe Harriers), 2nd in 14:43 with Colin Maher (Ballyfin AC) in 14:44, 3rd. In the Women’s race Sarah Healy (Blackrock AC) was 2nd in 16:24 and Sinead O’Connor (Leevale AC), 3rd in 16:48.

In the team categories. Leevale AC won the Women’s team prize, followed by Donore Harriers, 2nd and Raheny Shamrock AC 3rd. The Men’s team results were Clonliffe Harriers as winner followed by Crusaders AC, 2nd and UCD AC in 3rd. Congratulations to Eirgrid as the winners of the corporate team challenge.

2018 marks the 125th anniversary of Donore Harriers and to celebrate the occasion we had the added dimension of a flying mile competition. Sponsored by our race timing partners, Pop Up Races, we had a €125 prize to the fastest man and the fastest woman over the final mile. The fastest man was race winner, Eoin Everard (Kilkenny City Harriers) in 4:24 and the fastest woman was Sinead O’Connor (Leevale AC) in 5:01.

A very big thank you to all who volunteered to help with stewarding and other duties on the day and in the planning of the event. A special thank you to our sponsor, Bill Griffin Motors, to Brogan’s Bakery for their delicious Kerrygold butter shortbread biscuits and to Dunnes Stores for their contribution. A particular thank you to the OPW and the Phoenix Park Rangers whose permission, help and support in running the event is greatly appreciated. Thank you also to An Garda Siochana and to the Civil Defence for their assistance and professionalism once again. Thank you to Pop Up Races for their excellent timing services and to Fintan Reilly for his commentary. A massive thank you as well to the Blanchardstown Brass Band for their entertainment on the morning. Finally thank you to all our participants, we hope you enjoyed it and we hope to see you all next year.

Full results and category results are available here.

https://www.popupraces.ie/race/jingle-bells-5k-2018/

Photos by Alasdair Brown: https://www.flickr.com/photos/78663851@N07/sets/72157700984104632

Congratulations to our medalists from the Dublin marathon who were presented with their medals at the clubhouse this week.

Taking home the biggest medal haul was Fergal Whitty who was National, Leinster and Dublin gold individual M40 winner and winner of National masters team bronze, Leinster masters team silver and Dublin masters team gold.

In the group photo left to right is:
Peter Gaffney – National masters team bronze, Leinster masters team silver, Dublin masters team gold.
Fergal Whitty
Ariana Ball – Dublin individual gold W35, Leinster senior team silver, Dublin senior team gold
Anne Curley – National W45 individual bronze, Leinster W45 gold, Dublin W45 gold, Leinster team silver, Dublin senior team gold
Grace kennedy – Dublin individual senior silver, Leinster senior team silver, Dublin senior team gold
Other winners who couldn’t attend last night were Tony Griffin who won Dublin M60 bronze
Ken Norgrove – Dublin M45 bronze, national masters team bronze, Leinster masters team silver, Dublin masters team gold.

Dublin Senior Cross Country win

History was made on Santry Demesne today when Ide Nic Dhomhnaill became the first Donore Harriers woman to win the Dublin senior cross country championship. A mild day with no wind and a dry course with 1500m laps which the women did 4 laps of, 4 Donore women took to the line.

Ide ran a smart race, staying back from the early pace when Crusaders runner Niamh Allen took it out. But she closed her down as the race went on and put daylight between her and Allen who faded to 5th. In the end Ide prevailed and won by a very good margin on DSD’s Meghan Ryan in an historic victory. Ide’s twin Sorcha came 7th and for a large part of the race ran in tandem with Crusaders Orla Drumm. Next in 8th place was Sinead Lambe who had the difficult task of running a large part of the race on her own. Maura Kearns worked her way through the field and had her trademark sprint finish finishing 17th. It was enough to bring the team a bronze medal, just 6 points off silver.

Winner of the team gold and Jim McNamara cup were Crusaders. Jim’s son James and daughter Andrea were on hand to make the presentation afterwards in the Clonliffe bar.

In the men’s race, there wasn’t a complete Donore team but Niall Lynch was 20th (after running the marathon last week), Emmet Ó Briain 32nd and Javier Romero 45th

The National and Dublin marathon championship results are now in and we had a number of winners.

Dublin Marathon

Congratulations to all our runners in the SSE Airtricity Dublin City marathon which also incorporated the national championship, there were many PBs on the day, a very cold one but no wind and it stayed bright and dry. We saw an outstanding run from Fergal Whitty who finished in 2.28.57 a PB and first time to dip under 2:30, this is the first sub 2.30 marathon by a Donore man since 2010.

Ken Norgrove ran his best marathon in a long time followed in by Peter Gaffney, Chris Muldoon, Phil Hennessy and Niall Lynch. Tony Barry got a Pb, Ken Nugent finishes next as Stephen Dawson was just outside the 3 hour mark in a PB, he had stopped to help teammate Ciarán Ryan who suffered a fall and had been at 3 hour pace until then. Next in were Tom Tennant and Neil Hand

First Donore woman home was Grace Kennedy with a 3 minute PB. Patrick kavanagh and Patrick Moriarty were next. Anne Curley in her 5th marathon since June including Berlin 5 weeks ago had to stop at mile 22 too with her long term injury losing 2 minutes but she still finished strongly and a minute behind was Ariana Ball in a 6 minute PB and fantastic run. Niall O’Reilly suffered a hip injury mid race but battled to the end. Tony Griffin was under the 3.30 mark as was Oliver O’Hara PB and Henry English and Ken Cronin just outside it. Pam White got an 11 minute PB and Elaine verdon despite cramp finished well. And well done Deirdre Brennan on a PB, Sian O’Connor, Jo hughes, shiofra McCarthy and Anna McMahon

Thanks to all the hardworking volunteers at the Donore Harriers water station and all the supporters along the route. Many of the runners adjourned to Toners afterwards for post-race celebrations.

Full times below and most photos from Kieran Carlin, more to come. If we have left anyone out of the results let us know and please send in any photos you took of Donore runners if you were out on the course

Fergal Whitty 2.28.55 PB
ken Norgrove 2.38.15
Peter Gaffney 2.40.25
Chris Muldoon 2.43.35
Philip Hennessy 2.46.46
Niall Lynch 2.47.10
Tony Barry 2.53.17 PB
Ken Nugent 2.54.31
Stephen Dawson 3.00.29 PB
Tom Tennant 3.04.35
Neil Hand 3.05.21
Grace Kennedy Clarke 3.05.23 PB
Ciaran Ryan 3.10.58
Patrick kavanagh 3.11.03
Patrick Moriarty 3.13.05
Anne Curley 3.14.05
Ariana Ball 3.15.04PB
Niall O’Reilly 3.17.0
Henry English 3.25.08
Tony griffin 3.26.42
Oliver O’Hara 3.28.21 PB
Ken Cronin 3.30.44
Pam White 3.41.06 PB
Elaine Verdon 3.41.51 PB
Deirdre Brennan 4.18.40 PB
Sian O’Connor 4.21.47
Jo hughes 4.24.40
Shiofra McCarthy 4.49.14
Anna Mcmahon 5.44.16

National championship marathon results

Fergal Whitty gold M40
Anne Curley Bronze W45
Men’s Masters team bronze (Fergal Whitty, ken Norgrove, Peter Gaffney)
(Women’s senior team just out of the medals in 4th)

Dublin Championship

Grace Kennedy silver senior
Ariana Ball gold W35
Anne Curley gold W45
Women’s senior team Gold (grace, Anne, Ariana)

Fergal Whitty Gold M40
Ken Norgrove Bronze M45
Tony Griffin bronze M60
Men’s Masters team gold (Fergal, Peter Gaffney, Ken Norgrove)