The AAI Intercounties Cross Country National Championships took place in Kilbeggan racecourse on Sunday November 22nd. Muddy underfoot conditions, strong winds and rain left a very testing course for all athletes involved.

First up was the Senior ladies 8km event where Sportsworld had two representatives, Lucy D’arcy and Crona Brady. With both the Junior and Senior races acting as a trial for the forthcoming European cross country championships in Santry, the fields assembled included Ireland’s best. Lucy ran a perfectly even paced race to take 22nd position in a time of 31.12. Lucy has clearly recovered from her marathon exploits and her fine run in the Masters International last weekend in Birmingham. Crona, in her debut national senior cross country race, continued her fantastic form this season running strongly throughout finishing just behind Lucy in 27th place (31.27). Along with Sarah Treacy (5th) and Fiona Mahon (12th), both Lucy and Crona won silver team medals with the Meath team that finished behind Dublin. Well done girls.

Also a big thanks to Packie and Myles for their support and encouragement on the day.

Photos from Racepix365 available here.

Report By
Aoife Brady

Meet & Train 09/10 Photos

The second Women’s Meet and Train Cross Country race of the season was held on Sunday, November 22 at Tymon Park. Although, thankfully, the rain held off for the race, the wind certainly didn’t and that combined with the effects of a week of torrential downpour didn’t make for great running conditions – ladies don’t forget to wash your spikes after this one!

Despite the wind and mud there was a great showing and the race was very well organized. Kudos to all the Sportsworld stewards and supporters who cheered and steered everyone through the course – and also to those who provided much appreciated refreshments afterwards!

It was a great day for Sportsworld with 4 finishers in the top 5. Edel Madigan scored another first place leading the field from very early on. Ruth Kelly came in second – an outstanding performance in her first ever cross country race. Louise Nolan followed in third and Mairead O’Callaghan in fifth. Congratulations to all who finished the race and looking forward to the next race of the series in January!

Report By
Mairead O’Callaghan

British & Irish Masters Cross Country held in Perry park, Birmingham Saturday 14th November 2009.

Wow, the 2nd international in 6 days!

Saturday morning 9:30am, cold, wet (but not raining at the moment) & not too windy, not a bad 1st impression of the day ahead, oh but were we in for a treat. The coach arrived to bring us off to Perry Park, a short 30mins from the hotel, nobody was in a hurry to get off the bus when we arrived, way too cold, and the races weren’t starting until 12pm, sure what’s the rush.

The time whizzed by, a few team photos and a few sloshy warm-up laps later and it was time for the off. Mean-while the wind had rapidly picked up & it got a lot colder, time to get the trackies off, 6 tough kms ahead of us, no going back now. Cold but dry we were on the start line, gun goes off and so do we, head-long into the wind, round 1 corner, round another and up along the trees, if your feet weren’t wet before the race they sure were now, along the water-logged tree-lined stretch but in our favour the strong wind was behind us at this point (but that didn’t last long), up a short, sharp, muddy hill to head off around the lake on a carpet of leaves, nice (on the 1st lap anyway), through another bit of muck, up another longer hill, this time into the wind, across the top and a slippy downhill followed by a sharp right hand bend, along some more trees followed by a decent downhill stretch only to be hit with a savage uphill climb into the wind again. This marked the end of the 1st lap, this was also the finish line at the end of our 3rd lap.

The 2nd and 3rd laps were even worse as we had driving rain and worsening underfoot conditions to contend with as well as the wind but we survived to tell the tail. All I can say is that we were lucky to be the 1st race out and not the last.

The club representatives were:
Carol Lynch:-masters 60 who finished with team silver.
Helen White:-masters 40, who finished in a fantastic 34th place and another team silver.
Lucy D’Arcy:-masters 40, who also finished high up the field in17th place and shared team silver with Helen.

Thank you to Paddy Lynch who travelled with Carol and gave us great support, thanks a mill also to every-one for their good luck wishes before the trip and congratulations after, your support is so important and gives all of us a great lift, whether it via text message or at the event, keep it up club-mates, thank you.

Report By
Lucy D’Arcy

Meet & Train 09/10

The Meet and Train Cross Country Series kicked off on Sunday, Nov 8th in Lucan with a record turn out of 144 runners, which also included a record 8 teams entered from Sportsworld.

On the crisp and clear day the weather and the condition of the course were a pleasent surprise given the rains of the previous days. With Edel Madigan and Maraid O’Callaghan making the front running the Red & White figured prominently throughout the two mile event,in the end Sportsworld would take 5 of the top 10 places. Edel Madigan (1st) and Maraid O’Callaghan (2nd) both showed fine form to claim the top two spots. Well done also to Breda Brown (4th) who showed a return to form having a strong run, Ciara Foster (5th) and Ann Higgins (10th) who rounded out the top ten. Congratulations to all that finished the race and special thanks to those who came along to cheer us on!

From my personal point of view it was a great experience. Being in the running club only since August it was my first cross country race so it was interesting to participate in the event which is so different to the road race! It was a great challenge and a chance to learn something new too. For example what ‘spikes’ are?. And that I definitely need a pair of these before the next Meet and Train which, hosted by Sportsworld, will take place in Tymon Park on 22nd Nov.

Full team & individual results available here.

Report By
Natalia Sokolowska

Last weekend was a big day for the club as Aoife Brady stuck on the green jersey, sprinted down the wing, cut in and scored the winning goal for Ireland against France! What?…. oh sorry. …wrong weekend. Actually as it transpires it was something even bigger again, all Aoife’s hard work and commitment was rewarded with her selection to represent Ireland at an International Cross Country meet in Belgium last weekend.

And if there is one thing the Belgians like more then good chocolate, it’s a good beer…..and after that it’s a good cross country race. The Irish aren’t ones to disappoint and so last weekend they got their wish as the international Lotto CrossCup descended on the multiplicity of Mol, near Antwerp in Northern Belgium. It’s a country with a rich history and like our very good selves back in the 9th century Mol had to deal with the Vikings coming to town. Feeling at home with such a close bond a team of 28 junior and senior Irish athletes flew in last Friday to take on the best of them. The area is in Belgium’s lowlands and surrounded by the famous “Molse Meren” (Lakes of Mol), a series of natural sand lakes with white sandy beaches, so Aoife and the team had to master new terrain on the tough sandy course.

So after testing the course, building a few sand castles and burying the sleeping coach, the real business of racing began on Sunday the 8th. Reports have indicated that the field went off hard for the women’s race, something to be expected at this level but not for fainting hearted in a 6400m race. The locals are still to this day all commenting in their supermarket queues on how comfortable Aoife looked on the opening laps. After an uncompromising ding dong duel the race win went to Belgium’s Ethiopian athlete Almensch Belete who just piped Irelands Fionnuala Britton in 22.03. But the remarkable Irish didn’t stop there as about 20 seconds later Deirdre Byrne took 3rd and Linda Byrne settled 5th spot. To the roars and delight of the crowd Aoife finished strongly by easily out sprinting Belgian Vanja Cnops by six seconds to take 31st on the crisp sunny winter’s afternoon. The women’s junior race win was picked up by Irelands Sara Louise Treacy whilst in the men’s senior Michael Clohisey picked up 12th spot and David Flynn 6th in the junior men.

So again a big congratulation’s to Aoife from everyone at the club on a great international performance and year so far!

Report By
Eoin O’Brien

Sunday 8th November saw the Leinster Intermediate Cross Country hosted by Tullamore Harriers in Tullamore, County Offaly.

Sportsworld were represented in the men’s race. Some of us were led to believe that we were running an 8km race, but we were taken back when we reached the field to be informed it was 10km made up of 5 laps. Hoping that underfoot conditions might be ok, we weren’t long finding out that the course was flooded in one corner and the rest was the near resemblance of a field vacated after the national ploughing championships with 3 hills to tackle 5 times thrown in to make it more enjoyable.

The race took off at a steady pace led by eventual winner Tom Hogan of Slaney Olympic. Sportsworld were led out by the excellent Micheal Cunningham, Paul Duffy and Ronan Merrick, followed closely by Mark Dunne, Paul Mitchell and Liam Mc Fadden.

Lap one was the greatest test for all, seeing was it safer to take a 30 metre detour to avoid the small lake in the bottom corner of the course or dive straight in and hope to make it out the other side with spikes still on. Gladly we all took the dive and made it trough. After that it was a case of settling in and trying to make moves on the leader board.

Sportsworld were unlucky not to come away with a team bronze medal for all their hard effort eventually finishing 4th placed team.

Overall Results
1 Tom Hogan 34.20 (Slaney Olympic)
18 Michael Cunningham 38.19
24 Paul Duffy 38.50
27 Ronan Merrick 39.10
30 Paul Mitchell 40.15
32 Mark Dunne 40.33
40 Liam Mc Fadden 42.21

Report by
Liam Mc Fadden recovering from ‘trench foot’ has supplied this report.