Peter Delmer led the Athenry AC contingent home in some considerable style yesterday at the Ballycotton 10 mile road race in Co. Cork. Peter, who has been in cracking form lately, was running his last race before entering the ranks of the over-forties. He ran a superb race to finish in 29th position overall from 2204 finishers and record the fastest time in recent years by any Athenry AC runner of 57:22. The only downside to Peter’s performance is that he’s probably going to need surgery to allow him to stop smiling anytime at all within the next six months.

Peter was followed home by a strong Athenry AC team which contained some familiar faces and some Ballycotton 'virgins'. The collated Athenry AC results to hand at the moment are;

29th Peter Delmer 57:22

62nd Mick Rice 59:29

120th Alan Burke 1:02:08

170th John O'Connor 1:04:17

261st Conor Dolan 1:07:24

274th Frank Burke 1:07:47

365th James Lundon 1:09:57

1098th Marie Beatty 1:21:58

1295th Liam Mycroft 1:25:08

Even though Mark Davies of Craughwell AC tried to pull a fast one by entering as an Athenry AC runner under false pretences, we can't claim his result as our own. Mark ran a super race to come home hot on Peter Delmer's heels in 35th position in 57:37. Another great run.

Maeve Noone, who's minding an injury at the moment, acted as Chef D'equipe on the day and she took heaps of pictures, minded gear, shouted encouragement and smiled all day. Maeve's help was very much appreciated by the rest of the crew

It was great to see so many familiar faces both from our own club and from further afield who had made their annual pilgrimage to beautiful Ballycotton once again this year.

Congratulation are due to all of our runners in Ballycotton and our sincere thanks to all of the organisers, stewards and locals in Ballycotton for being our hosts on the day. In particular our appreciation goes to John Walshe, 'Mr.Ballycotton', for bringing us another year of great racing in East Cork. It was of course another exemplary race held in the usual beautiful Cork sunshine for which we were very grateful.

Pictures and race reports to follow, I'm sure...