The Sportsworld ladies were well represented on Sandymount strand for the BHAA ESB 5km beach race on Tuesday evening. Stephanie Bergin won the  ladies race, with Mary Finn following closely in third place. It was good to see Rachel Morgan back racing after the arrival of her second daughter. Stephen Willoughby ran a s0lid race also. I resumed my usual battle with Dave Byrne ( ex-sportsworld), but was piped in the last 400meters.

http://bhaa.ie/event/esb2010

Last Sunday amazing as it sounds the 119th running of the Clonliffe 2 took place earlier today in perfect conditions. Close to 100 athletes toed the line for the 2 mile event which once again started at the bottom of the hill pub in Finglas. The course went down hill for the first mile with a tough climb for 400m at Glasnevin cemetery and on to the finish at Kavanagh’s Pub (The Gravediggers).

Sportsworld have done well at the event in the past few years. Right from the off the race was on down the hill. A Donore Harriers athlete took up the early pace but then fell back as Paul Duffy took the lead for the majority of the first mile. After a tough session on Saturday Paul slowed a bit on the hill and was passed out by 3 runners. At the top of the hill Paul Fleming Rathfarnham and
Gary O’Hanlon of Clonliffe Harriers proved too strong and they went on to create a 30 second gap between themselves and the rest of the field.

It was a good day of results for Sportsworld but due to the club name not being one of the form the mens team were denied the team prize. The race organizers knew that Sportsworld had come third but wouldn’t allow it because the team had not been declared at registration but the Sportsworld team were under the impression they had registered the team.

We felt the prizes had already been handed over but the results could have been adjusted. Full results below

3 Gareth Murran Unattached M35 9.58
4 Paul Duffy Sportsworld Ac SM 10.03
6 Trevor Sweeney Sportsworld Ac M35 10.05
11 Michael Cunningham Sportsworld Ac SM 10.20
28 Lucy Darcy Sportsworld Ac F40 11.12
35 Crona Brady Sportsworld Ac FS 11.29

The Meet and Train Road Race Series kicked off in Raheny (Sunday, April 25th). Compared to the winter cross country races Sportsworld had a smaller representation of teams but this doesn’t mean that the red and white was any less prominent. In the top ten alone our club had six finishers with Susan McDonnell winning the race in a time of 12.09, Lorna Quinn was second and Ciara Foster third. Also in top ten was Mairead O’Callaghan, Louise Nolan and Ann Higgins. Well done also to Catherine Higgins who being relatively new to the club showed a great form and finished in 14th place in this 2 mile race.
Next up is Lucan (Sun May 23rd 11am) which is a 3 mile road race and an important part of build-up to the upcoming Flora Mini Marathon.
Here is the list of teams for this series:
Team A
773 Mairead O’Callaghan
774 Susan McDonnell
775 Louise Nolan
776 Ciara Foster
777 Ann Higgins
778 Catherine Higgins
Team B
779 Tara Quirke
780 Natalia Sokolowska
781 Eileen Dalton
782 Ann Sweeney
783 Catherine Gilmore
784 Clare O’Reilly
Team C
785 Kim Masuda
786 Claire O’Brien
787 Maura Maughan
788 Cliona O’Riordan
789 Laurence Delair
790 Milena Delussu

Sunday 11th April at 10.30am I found myself with Jack and Billy Tyrell standing at the start line of the 9th Connemara Marathon. Spectacular was how the view could be described as it temporarily took our minds off the 26.1 miles of road that lay ahead. However it was to get a whole lot better. The sun split the stones and the rugged landscape and the motionless Lake Inagh reflected the surrounding mountains back in their glorious detail.

Once again the hooped sportsworld vest had been taken from the national history museum for its first outing of 2010 through the hills and beauty of Connemara.

Never in all my years of running have I enjoyed a race as much. I was determined to soak up the atmosphere and scenery along the route. And so with Jack and Billy and Mary on the bike with all our supplies we set off on the road ahead.

One hour and 43 mins later we had covered half way through the village of Leenane with the Killary harbour on our left. After a further 2 miles of climbing we started to pick up the back markers on the half marathon race. Thus set the scene for the next 11 miles as we weaved our way in and out of these runners.

Through 20 miles in 2hrs and 39 mins and most of the talk and joking had stopped although we were still feeling quite comfortable on our schedule. At 22 miles we commenced our climb of the ‘hell of the west’ which we had heard so much about. Not much of a hill I suppose compared to the ‘Ballinascorney hill’ on the waterworks run, however after 22 miles in the legs it’s a different story. Eventually the ‘hell’ was conquered and we passed the memorial to Frank Haines at 24 miles . Frank died tragically at this point in the race in 2006 and a plaque and tree along with his commemorative medal is there for all to see.

The final 2 miles and 385 yards was a gentle downhill trot and brought me under the finish clock in a time of 3 hours 27 mins and a credible 32nd place. Billy and Jack, about a minute ahead placed 1st and 2nd respectively in the over 50 age category, congratulations to them. Whilst thanks also to Mary who played a stormer on the bike and catered for our every need along the way.

Hope this piece will encourage a bigger sportsworld entry for next years race. Everything about the event was superb and is certainly in our race diary for ’11 all going well.

Report by
Joe Byrne

Congratulations to the Sportsworld Masters Ladies Team who came second in this years running of the road relays in raheny. Helan White lead out the team on a one mile leg, passing onto Lucy Darcy on a two mile leg and the final leg being ran by Aideen Downes. The senior women and men also had teams on the day.

Sunday afternoon was the 41st running of the Annual Dunboyne 4 mile road race. Dunboyne is located just off the N3 about 10 minutes from the Blanchardstown exit of the M50. One of the first major road races after the cross country season it brings out a strong bunch of runners. This year there was a new apparently faster course over the same 4 mile distance but with a strong head wind and a twisty last mile times on Sunday were very similar to last year’s race.

The reason so many people turn up at Dunboyne is the solid organisation that many road races cant compete with.This year maybe down to the new course there was a mix up at the end where the road was partitioned with cones to carrel the leaders to the finish (and those with 1.5 miles still to go away from finish). Traffic was allowed to overtake the runners and not enough room was left for the lead car and a few cones were flattened. It cost the leader a few second to overtake the lead car but he was already twenty seconds clear. A good few other athletes were impeded by passing cars. It seemed to be a coordination issues between civil defence and club volunteers.

There was only three people from the club running but three very good performances none the less. First home for the club was Paul Duffy in 21:19 followed by Gareth Murran in 21:34 and Sandra Armstrong in 24:43. The race was well won by Joseph Sweeney from DSD in 18:52 and Ciara Durkan in 21:44. I’ll be going back next year it was a very enjoyable race. It would be great to get a few teams out.

Some pictures can be found on racepix

Saturday the 27th March saw 4 members from Sportsworld heading for the Wicklow way Trail and Ultra Races. The Ultra race started at Johnny Foxes and made its way to Ballinastoe Car park and back to Johnny Foxes, were the Trail race people were collected at Johnny Foxes and Dropped of at Ballinastoe Car park.

First up was Ed McEntee in the Ultra race. What lay ahead of Ed was 51kms of trails, fire roads, open mountains and part of the Wicklow way boardwalk with a total climb of 1950m’s. Ed adapted to this Ultra race excellently and completed the course in 4hours 33 minutes, and with it second place behind Eoin Keith. Congratulations to Ed.

Next up was the Trail race that got under way in Ballinastoe car park at 12 o Clock. On the starting line for Sportsworld were Paul O Connell, Jakub Splawski and Liam Mc fadden. The race got of to a steady start with everybody aware of the 25.5kms that lay ahead, we head up the fire trail from Ballinastoe car park for about 2km climbing all the way and then right on to Djouce Mountain and picked up the Wicklow way board walk trail. After ten minutes or so of climbing we got to probably the third most difficult part of the race trying to run on the boardwalk with a near gale force wind blowing side on to you. Once we managed to get through this it was nice to stretch the legs on the down hill section from Djouce. At this stage Paul O Connell was well clear of Jakub and myself, and was doing battle with the race leaders.

Jabuk and I worked excellently together through out the race. Jabuk pushing it out on the down hills and me doing my best to keep us going on the climbs.

After the fast down hill section off Djouce we came to our first major climb of the Day which reduced the field to doing all sorts of power walking movements to get up the steep climb before powerscourt waterfall. Not having time to admire the waterfall it was full steam ahead to the all to familiar Crones Wood Trail, Jabuk and I managed to over take 3 trail runners on this section of the course and when we arrived at Crones wood car park were glad of the water station there and with knowledge we had half the course complete and just under the hour mark, with no time to waste we kept going, after 2km of flat running we got to what looked like a small climb of about 75metres but once we got to the top of it, it was like we had climbed for hours and our legs were like jelly, At this stage we got a very luck break as we came to a road section just past Knockree hostel and we were looking at a runner in the distance and heading the same way when a Ultra runner started to shout at us that we were going the wrong way, we should have just crossed the road, but thank god for the Ultra runner as Jakub and I could still be running around Wicklow. After that we continued on towards Cutlerstown carpark and the last of the climbs which probably was only about a 1km Climb but seemed to last for ages but to our delight we managed to over take 2 trail runners and at the top of the hill had our next target insight. We took off like greyhounds after our hare on the fast down hill section away from Price Williams Seat and by the bottom of the hill we had him caught or thought we had him caught him, but he took off again on the final road section to Johnny Foxes and was the last we saw of him till we crossed the line. It was then down to the the last 1.5km and from somewhere I got a 30th wind and took off from Jakub and I managed to stay ahead till the end. Revenge for last year in Ballinastoe where Jakub beat me on the line.

Excellent days running and great overall result for Sportsworld taking the team victory.

Final Places
1st Diarmaid Collins 1h 56 min
4th Paul O Connell 2h 00 min
16th Liam Mc Fadden 2h 14 min
17th Jakub Splawski 2h 15 min

Report by Liam Mc Fadden