The 2007 Athenry contingent that set out for Ballybofey were realistic in their outlook this year. After the high point of collecting Senior Men’s Team Bronze at the same event last year, this assault on the National Half Marathon Championship was certainly more in hope than in expectation.

A team of five athletes spanning multiple categories from Senior to V60 carried the maroon and white to Donegal. Mick Rice, Brian O’Connor, Peadar Nugent, Larry Kelly and Peter Delmer survived the vagaries of injuries, wedding receptions, Croke Park tickets, and Honeymoon jetlag that unfortunately kept others away.

Athenry AC Team

Team camp this year was just outside Donegal Town. We acclimatised to the rarefied Donegal climate by mixing with the locals in various establishments from an overtly nationalistic drinking emporium to a cosmopolitan Italian restaurant. The latter was aptly named La Bella Donna, where the staff recruitment policy appeared to be to hire very Bella Donna’s. ’Nuff said…

La Bella Donna

An early morning drive around the course revealed a route very similar to last year’s event in Letterkenny. The majority of the 13.1 miles followed the River Finn upstream and then back downstream along the other bank. The first half was a real challenge. Although following the river is a clever way to avoid most of the Hills of Donegal, we were presented with a few stiff climbs and an overall ascent on the run to halfway. The second half was relatively level and gently descended towards the town. A loop around Ballybofey town at the start and again close to the finish made up the mileage.

Pride of place on the day, and first Athenry man home was Brian O’Connor. Brian finished in 25th position overall with a time of 1:18:13. This was a strong run for a man coming back from injury and there is more to come from Brian in the coming weeks and months.

Another man rebuilding his running career after an Annus Horribilis born out of a serious long term injury, is Mick Rice. Mick targeted a sub 82 minute run, but blitzed that with a 1:20:24 to finish 38th overall. After a strong first half over the hills, Mick pushed on to achieve a 40 second negative split in his usual fashion of simply never slowing down.

Next in was Peter Delmer in 1:22:25 and 43rd position. Peter also targeted an 82 minute run and was on target at half way but slowed up a little over the last three miles to miss out by a few tantalising seconds.

Larry Kelly started off strongly but suffered a bit on the run-in to record a 1:27:23 finish in 66th position. Larry ran well but felt that he was a few long runs short of ideal preparation for the race, so there’s more to come from Larry.

Larry and Brian

The first three finishing times were good enough to finish 5th Senior Mens Team on the day and there was general satisfaction with that.

Of course we saved the best wine until last as Peadar Nugent ran a great race to finish over 6 minutes faster than his target time. Peadar did us all proud by winning a National Bronze medal in his V60 category in a time of 1:48:49. The return journey to Galway always seems shorter when you’re carrying a piece of precious metal, and Peadar was the man to deliver for Athenry today. Not content with that performance, he’s putting on his dancing shoes as I type this, and readying himself for a bit of set-dancing later this evening. Boundless energy!

Soaking the legs

Congratulations must also go to some of our neighbouring clubs – rivals and friends. Mayo AC had an excellent day at the races with Paddy Murray claiming gold in the M40 category (1:14:51), Billy Gallagher taking silver in M50 (1:20:48) and Tom Hunt winning gold in M55 (1:25:33). The ladies were not to be out-done with Noreen McManamon and Anne Murray claiming silver and bronze in the W40 category with times of 1:30:02 and 1:33:34. With such an impressive medal haul they were sure to figure in the team prizes too, and took ladies masters gold, mens masters bronze and finished fourth in the senior mens team category. Congratulations Mayo AC, we hope the cars were able to support that payload on the drive home!

Jarleth Fitzgerald was the sole representative of our close neighbours Loughrea AC, and finished with a few Galway cheers in 1:35:59.

For the record, the new National Half Marathon Champion is Tergia Sergio of Clonliffe Harriers who beat Garry Crosson home by three seconds in a time off 1:09:05. Garry’s team-mate Pauric McKinney was third in 1:09:48 ensuring another team gold performance by Letterkenny AC.

The ladies were led home by Gladys Ganiel of DSD in a time of 1:25:57. Josephine Killeen of Kilmurry/Ibrickane took silver back to Clare (1:27:04) and Kay Byrne of local club Finn Valley AC was third in 1:27:29.

A mention must be made on the excellent facility provided to us by Finn Valley AC. Their track and club house had us drooling with envy as we took a little tour through athletics history on display around the walls of the reception, gymnasium, bar and changing rooms. Thank you Finn Valley.

Finn Valley AC Track

Finn Valley AC Track