National 10k 2017

Report by Aidan Curran – Photos by Grainne Lynch

Sportsworld results below

Pre-race in the Phoenix Park on a grey Sunday morning, and the breaking news is that Fionnuala McCormack is a late withdrawal from the elite field of the Great Ireland Run.

Race reporter Aidan

Regular competitors at this event will have noticed other absences. The title sponsor from the last few years is gone, and without their red-and-green branding the start area is lacking colour. Also, this year’s race isn’t being shown on TV, so a lot of the buzz and hype is missing.

On the upside, we’re spared last year’s surreal pre-race entertainment, where a priest sang a former Eurovision-winning song at us from the start gantry. (The organisers seemed to have misunderstood the idea of a ‘mass participation’ race.)

Still, race day at the corner of Furze and Chesterfield is always exciting, and at the heart of this hullaballoo is the National 10K Championships. There we are in the wave at the front, on the VIP side of the velvet rope and conspicuous in our club vests and our short shorts.

The mass of runners in the waves behind wouldn’t thank us if they realized that a national championship means a championship course; the first half is flat to downhill but the second half is hilly and exposed to whatever wind there might be.

Sportsworld’s women’s team had already set off with the elite women’s start and they put in another great performance for the club. Sinead Tangney finished an excellent 7th in the senior women’s event in 38:22 and we had two teams in the top 10: along with Sinead, Crona Brady and Lucy D’Arcy also scored and ensured our A team finished fifth, while Zoe Greene, Caoimhe Costigan and Eileen Rowland combined to come in tenth overall, above all the other B teams – an excellent display of Sportsworld’s continued depth of strength.

Eileen just missed out on an individual podium place, coming 4th in the F55s, but Judith Lloyd ensured honours for Sportsworld women by winning the F70 category.

On the men’s side, Stephen O’Donnell and Karl Chatterton at 41st and 42nd in 35 minutes were our highest finishers in the senior race, with Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin also placing well and getting in comfortably under the forty minutes. Conor McCarthy, our fastest man today, would have got 38th place but the official results have him running hors compétition, as they say at the Cannes Film Festival.

Meanwhile, back in competition, Trevor Lloyd came 3rd in the M70 category – well done to both Judith and Trevor.

As for my own race, well… some races you’re playing the piano and other races you’re pushing the piano, and this was a piano-pushing day for me. From gun to tape I had no energy or adrenaline in my body, so I figured on keeping an even pace in the hope that any foolhardy frontrunners would come back to me on the hills.

This helped me keep my head up for the second half of the race, but my time and place were well down on what I had hoped to achieve. (If things had gone to plan I would have scored on the team, one of my ambitions.)

But that’s the useful thing about having a championship race tucked into a mass participation event. Do well and you’ve done well in the nationals; do less well and sure it’s only an oul’ road race.

Sportsworld Results

5km
Katie Nugent 00:24:19
Tara Murphy 00:25:03

10km
Conor Mccarthy 00:35:37
Stephen O’Donnell 00:35:42
Karl Chatterton 00:35:53
Sinead Tangney 00:38:19
Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin 00:38:20
Garrett Moran 00:42:46
Adrian Lanigan 00:43:48
Paul Canniffe 00:44:16
Sean Garry 00:44:45
Crona Brady 00:44:51
Lucy D’Arcy 00:45:04
Aidan Curran 00:45:11
Zoe Green 00:45:32
Caoimhe Costigan 00:45:45
Eileen Rowland 00:46:25
Sandra Gowran 00:47:09
Micheal Callaghan 00:49:18
delourdes Seymour 00:51:16
Trevor Lloyd 00:52:32
Audrai O’Driscoll 00:52:38
Judith Lloyd 00:53:04
Meaghan Carmody 00:57:26

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