John O’Connor and a small, but select, group of other Athenry members continued an emerging club tradition in some style last Saturday by running a brace of races on the same day. The two races in question were the Coastal Charity Challenge (otherwise known as the Lousiburgh to Westport Half-Marathon) and the Streets of Galway 8K later that same evening.

John’s running has improved strongly over the last six months and he has emerged as one of the quickest runners in the club this year. He has always had an appetite for road racing and his two competitive performances last Saturday are testament to his much improved fitness this season. He kicked off the action in Westport with a half-marathon personal best performance of 1:21. After managing the car journey back to Galway he once again pulled on club colours to whiz around the Streets of Galway 8k in a highly respectable 30:37 for 90th place. I understand that this was also a personal best performance for the distance.

John is currently in training for the Berlin Marathon and the increased training volume is obviously suiting him well.

John’s brother Ray was also in fine form in both the Westport and Galway races completing the same double as John. Ray also posted a half-marathon personal best time last Saturday, coming home in just over 1:30. Ray then continued on his merry way into the Cladagh for the GCH race and ran 33:01 for the 8km distance. If we could get Ray to concentrate more on the shorter races rather than the marathons surely great improvements in current personal best times would be a certainty.

Athenry were also ably represented in Westport by Philip Magnier and James Corbett. James also posted his half-marathon personal best time in Westport and then made his way to Galway that evening for the ‘Streets’. James' Westport finish was clocked at 1:38:45 which was all the more remarkable given that he carried a persistent ankle injury into the event. Philip Magnier ensured it was a clean sweep of PB performances in the Westport race for the Athenry AC contingent with a strong run over the scenic Mayo course. Philip had targeted this race for a while and completely obliterated his previous best half-marathon performance (1:44) with a 1:34:01 timing. The fact that Philip didn't travel to the 'Streets' on Saturday evening only went to show that at least some Athenry members are human :-)

Overall honours went to Robert Malseed (Clonliffe) and Mary Gleeson (Claremorris) in the men’s and women’s divisions respectively and our congratulations go to those two athletes on their fine winning runs.

Full results and pics to follow when available…

Philip in Westport

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