Leinster Indoor Championships
Saturday 24th February was D Day for 4 of the Sportsworld crew. It was the day of the Leinster Indoor Championships, incorporating Junior, Senior and Masters races. It was held in the National Indoor Arena in Abbottstown which is just a fantastic facility to have on our doorstep.
After waking on the morning of a race, I always open the curtains and check the weather but today I didn’t care. The weather wasn’t going to affect me today. What did affect me, were the many voices in my head questioning my decision to sign up for this race. I signed up because I had never run in these championships before and thought it’d be nice to give them a try (that wasn’t what I was thinking Sat morning).
I picked up Maria on my way and we questioned our bad decision all the way to the Indoor Arena. Thankfully it’s not too far of a journey or I think we would’ve convinced ourselves to keep driving. We even considered just heading into the AquaZone for the day instead.
Soon after arriving we bumped into a very nervous Michael and decided we should start our warmup. Each race was only given a rough start time so it was hard to judge our warmup. Races were running a little behind, so we felt like we were warming up for ages. Emily and Margaret made a mad dash after club training to come out and support us. It was great to have some support as the nerves were pretty fraught at that stage.
Maria was the first of the Sportsworld gang to race in the 1500m and put in a fantastic performance in a high class field.
I was up next in the Masters Women 1500m. The pace went off fast as expected but we settled in to a nice pace after about a lap. The leaders pulled away early and I just tried to keep a steady pace. The 7 and half laps ticked by quickly and I was so happy to see the finishing straight.
Next up was Michael in the 1500m. Michael put in a great performance but just missed out on a medal.
Derek went in the 400m later on in the day and stormed home to take the gold medal in a nifty 56 seconds.
Overall it was a very successful day for the Sportsworld singlet and hopefully we’ll see a few more people giving the track races a try in the future.
We really need to take more photos 🙂 – Catherine M
Results
Senior Women 1500m
9th Maria Jones 5:10
Masters Women O35 1500m
3rd Catherine Mulleady 5:24
Masters Men O40 1500m
4th Michael Cunningham 4:33
Masters Men O40 400m
1st Derek Saville 56:26
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