Better late than never. After some gentle reminders and a two-week delay to get my story straight here is the race report for the John Treacy Dungarvan 10 Mile.
This race is held in honour of one of Ireland’s greatest athletes and more lately CEO of the Irish Sports Council, Waterford native John Treacy. His greatest achievement is a silver medal in the marathon at the 1984 Olympics. He still holds the Irish marathon record with a 2:11.23 in Tokyo in 1990. (He did run 2:09.15 in Boston, but Boston doesn’t count for official records due to its point to point course)
After reading the race report from last year were a number of Sportsworlders travelled down I decided to give it a go even though it was only a week after the Raheny 5 Mile. The race is always a sell-out and this year was no different with the 3200 entries being snapped up in record time.
After a 2-hour drive, a quick warm-up with Diarmuid and a catch up with the other Sportsworlders and Damien Geraghty formerly of this parish, we all made our way to the start area where there was a great atmosphere. The weather was fine temperature-wise but as has been the norm lately there was a strong breeze.
Before we knew it we were off. The course starts with a small loop in the village and then you are off into the countryside. The course is a big loop on country roads with only one really sharp turn at about halfway. After a flat start of about 2km, there is a steady climb for about 2km followed by a sharp downhill. This I felt was the pattern of the course with gradual climbs followed by steep downhills. After about 10km there is a flat section of about 3km before the last climb before the welcome descent back into the village for the finish.
As for my race, I felt great for the first half and was on pace for my target but in the second half, I felt the previous weeks race and dropped a little off the pace but was still very happy with my finish time.
There were some great performances from Sportsworlders led home by Martin Doyle for the men and a brilliant performance by Andrea to place 10th lady. The race itself was won by Mick Clohisey in a course record of 48.15 and the first lady was Aoife Cook in 54.22.
After the race, there is a brilliant spread in the sports hall where I stuffed my face with sandwiches and crisps. Also a special mention to the race t-shirt which is sponsored by Nike. I’d recommend this race to everyone even with the long drive.
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