Image

Moylough woke up to the sounds of hundreds of runners shuttling up and down an otherwise pretty deserted main street yesterday morning (14 October), from the hours of 10AM 'til after 2PM.

It was the occasion of the second North East Galway 10KM road race, organised by Linda Cummins and a veritable army of local volunteers!  The weather just about stayed dry for the race and it was organised seamlessly by Linda and her crew.  

The start of the race was on the main street, went out the Galway road about 1.5KM, turned left and then onwards through a beautiful "Golden Mile" up to another left turn after 5KM, then proceeded up along another wide road until after 7KM.  This happened to be the final run-in, with the final three KM back into the village, finishing at the GAA pitch, to loads of local support, energetic music and lots of refreshments.  Teas and other refreshments were served at the community hall afterwards, where the results and prizes were quickly and efficiently made available.

Our own Aoife Callan won the women's race, minded/paced by Jim Leahy and Pat McDonagh, also of the club.  A return to form at the shorter distances for the woman who has excelled at longer races in recent times.  The club's Bernie Mulryan also returned to the road after a long hiatus and was first over 50.  She can blame me for giving the announcer her wrong age category at the finish line ;*).  Both Ray Romers and Gearoid Rohan ran fine races with Tomas Ruane getting oh-so-close to a sub-40, clocking 40:03.  I saw the effort etched on his face as he attempted to dip under, in vain, him and Paul Reynolds.  The course is not pancake flat and has a number of stiff-enough inclines built into it, which going at full pelt.

The men's race was again won by Ray Hynes, now of Ballymoe, formerally of Crusaders AC, who beat Gerry Ryan to the line.  There were five men under 33:30 yesterday.  Gerry was running only his second race of the year and is still coming back from an injury acquired running a track 5KM earlier in 2012.  He is only doing 450 miles a week at the moment!  32:12 is nothing to sneeze at, nor is Ray's 32:08!  The usual men's suspects took home the category prizes: Keating, Whyte (who was fastest "local" and took home a superb perpetual trophy sponsored by an old-time athlete), Beatty, Rushe and Dooner!

And finally a few words from the race director herself:

On behalf of the Organising Committee of the North East Galway 10k Moylough, I would like to thank all athletes and locals who attended the race.  It is only our 2nd year and we hope that you enjoyed the route and all aspects of the day.  We would really welcome any feedback to help us improve the race for the years to come, email [email protected] or contact 087 280 1935. Many thanks to all that worked behind the scenes throughout the planning of today's event. Best of luck in your future races and hope to see you all next year.

Linda Cummins - Race Director.

Document

pmagnier

11 years 5 months ago

...for members of our club, well done. We'll mention Aoife as she hasn't won anything for a while. And Bernie, because she has not been around for so long. Welcome back.