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Two numbers -- six hundred and twenty seven finishers in Newcastle, six hundred and twenty five in Claregalway -- tell the story eloquently: this Galway 5k Series has been a huge success so far and we look forward to this continuing in the next four races.

The Claregalway race last night brought a beautiful dry evening to enjoy with a cold sharpness in the wind to fire up some "attitude" on the uphill stretches. Nearly everyone seemed to take between thirty seconds to a minute off their Newcastle time. This included the winning time of 15:45 by Matt Bidwell of GCH who had a couple of seconds over Peter O'Sullivan from Craughwell.

Lyall Guiney was first home among the Athenry runners with 17:48, with ten altogether from our club dipping below 20 minutes. Among the old-timers, and I'm sure they'll thank me for that, NOT, it was nice to see James Lundon back to close to his best with 20:18, Gary Doherty continuing on the comeback trail, and our lifetime presidents -- Martin Keane and Peadar Nugent -- both break 25 minutes.

In all, seventy two Athenry runners competed, a fantastic turnout from a small town. Many of them are Fit4Lifers competing in the series for the first time. We look forward to mentioning their stories in the following weeks. If anyone wants to write a short or long race report, please send it to me: [email protected]. Race on!

Note: Results are posted on http://www.redtagtiming.com/ on the same evening as the race.