County Novice RR

Friday evening saw a welcome return to County Road Races in Wexford. Enniscorthy was the venue and host club Slaney Olympic & the County Board did a fantastic job organising the County Novice RR under the current Covid guidlines. A warm and sunny evening awaited the 34 ladies who lined up to run and 6 of those were Menapians. Sharron Dier made a welcome return to finish in 34th, Louise Henderson ran well in 33rd, Elaine McMahon also made a welcome return to racing grabbing 30th, Mary Gaynor pushed hard and claimed 14th, Paula Gondard ran hard from the start to grab 9th place & Sinead Morris in her first County Race showed her training is paying off finishing it 6th place. Fantastic to have so many lady club members racing.

Next up the Men's race started and the pace was hot from the whistle. 53 men had entered and 8 members stepped up meaning we had 2 mens teams competing. Ollie Stack ran brave to finish 52nd, Darren O'Grady and John Dier finished tied in 50th with Micheál Kinsella in 47th competing the 2nd team. Fran Power showing continued improvement was 46th, Paul Donovan found a good pace to claim 42nd, Gavin Hayes dug deep in 40th and Donal Grant pushed himself hard for 36th place competing our 1st team. Again fantastic to see so many club vests in the race.

A huge well done to everyone who raced and thanks to our support team on the night. Again thanks to Slaney Olympic and the County Board for organising the event. Next week sees the Intermediate RR take place at thd same venue so gets your names to John to enter.

Super achievement and all for a great cause by Shane McCormack……

Surreal experience cycling to Shercock today 29th September leaving at 4.30am in the dark and fog and arriving in sunny Cavan at 330pm!! Delighted to play my part to help raise funds for Craig’s club but also take myself waaaaaaaaay out of my comfort zone especially when I had some very fast company over the last 75km. Truly humbling experience being welcomed by so many people in shercock and great to have Jack cycle the last 12k from kingscourt to shercock. Thanks to Amy Ní Coitir, Ann Lynch, Joanna Walker and all Craig’s family and friends for their hospitality and my support crew my dad, Paddy Donovan and Mick Pender And Melissa McCormack and Annie for coming to the finish also ❤️. Cycled a few angry km for those stuck in lockdown who would love nothing more than to be there today and tomorrow to see out their own challenges. Thanks to everyone who supported the go fund me page. https://www.gofundme.com/f/craig-lynch-for-life-challenge We go again.

20th September, what a glorious day for cross country today and a massive well done to St Senans for slick organisation on the day making the Covid regulations very easy to manage.Top marks to Sinead Ryan and Ollie Stack on their first cross country in a Menapians vest. Sinead was a well earned 6th in the masters ladies & Catherine O'Connor an excellent 3rd place.Roisin O'Reilly bounced back into action after her six months of reduced training winning the junior race and taking 4th overall the senior ladies. Ciara Dolan had a great run in the under 18 finishing a strong 8th. And Nathan Murphy in his first race in a long time looked strong and comfortable taking 10th in the under 18 boys. Thanks to Chairman Mick McKeon for the support at the event.

The National Irish Life Junior Championships part 1 took place this weekend. Having not known if this event would take place during to to the Covid Pandemic it was suddenly announced and the events spread over 2 separate days of competition to cater for the amount of entries. Ciara Dolan competed over 3000m Steeplechase, a very tough event and put in a great performance finishing with a time of 13:17 and claiming 5th place. Ciara is showing great potential at this event looking strong & comfortable at the distance.Eimear Halpin was back throwing discuss this time at Junior throwing a best of 27.87m and is back next week for the 400m hurdles.Adam Leahy was competing over 100m and ran a very good 12.42 seconds in his heat. Adam is competing next week at his favoured event high jump.Well done to our athletes and thanks to our coaches for their persistence with training during all the uncertainty of recent months. Special mention to our members who officiated at the event and ensured a safe environment for competition.

2 National Champions On Sunday the Masters took centre stage in Santry. There is a saying that 'things get better with age' and this is definitely true with regards our Masters athletes. 3 of our members took the road to Dublin. Catherine O'Connor took on the 1500m finishing in 6:11.05 and is now National W55 1500m champion.

Martin Kelly took on the 1500m also and finished in 5:27.14 is now the National M65 1500m champion. Ruaidhri Kedney took on the 200m and secured himself a silver medal finishing in second place with a speedy 24.64.

National juniors day 2 concluded with Eimear Halpin completing her season today and finished it off with a 400mh where she placed 3rd in her heat and 9th place overall in Juniors and will have three more years at this category. An eventful year full of uncertainty due to the Covid pandemic but still trained diligently during lockdown in the hope that competition would resume. She competed in both National Seniors and National Juniors and is now looking forward to 2021 competitions as Winter training commences.

The Irish Life National senior championship day 1 took place The club was ably represented in officials with Mags, Mick, Conor, Cate, Steve and Padraig all assisting to ensure the championships ran to programme and safely with all the additional Covid requirements

Eimear Halpin, in her first year as a junior competed in the 400 hurdles, only her second race over the distance , put in a great effort to finish 5th in her heat clocking up a good pb of 1.11.89

Clodagh Dunbar contested the 400m running 63.34 to finish 6th in her heat.

Michael Deady had a good run posting 11.78 for 100m finishing 7th in heat 3.

Aaron Tierney Smith paid for a very fast 200 fading around the bend but had something in reserve to pull back on the home straight finishing 4th in his heat running 51.97.

Special mention to our coaches for keeping up the momentum of training sessions over a tough time.

Track conditions were difficult with a high wind on the back straight adding to the challenge of racing off the back of a very strange track season with very little real competition.

National Seniors part 2 took place:

On Saturday at the National Championship Eimear Halpin was our sole competitor. She experienced throwing discuss as a senior athlete for the first time and wasnt phased at all by it throwing herself a new PB of 28.82m.

Great work Eimear.

Sunday was sprints for our athletes, 200m sprints. Members Michael Deady & Aaron Tierney Smith were in the blocks and both put in great runs with a 5th place each in their respective heats. Deady put in a seasons best and only 0.6 seconds off his PB. Well done gentlemen.

Dedication during lockdown paid dividends and thanks to their coaches for keeping the athletes focused during such an uncertain time

Eimear & Ailbhe made the trip to the Kilkenny Athletics open meet yesterday. Ailbhe was drawn in the 2nd heat of the 400m and ran just outside her recent pb time. Eimear competed well in her discus and also ran in her first senior 400m hurdles race setting herself a new time at this diatance.

Laura Halpin put her self to good use as a help weighing down the blocks for Michael Bowler of EAC, he was full of praise afterwards.

Thanks to Kilkenny Athletics county board for arranging a very well organised meet with so many track & field events catered for

On Saturday 8th August Eimear Halpin was in the National Field Events Festival in Morton Stadium where she achieved a personnal best in her 1kg discus competition. Great work Eimear.

The sun shone in Enniscorthy on Friday 6th July for the Kilmore Ac time trial meet. Michael Deady ran well and back in the 23's in the 200m while Clodagh Dunbar ran close to her recent outdoor 400m & 200m time. Ailbhe White competed in her first outdoor race of 2020 in the 400m & then the 200m in good times. Thanks to Kilmore Ac for organising the event and looking forward to our next outings!

Also 2 more of our athletes travelled to the Le Cheile meet and performed well in a welcome track meet on Friday. April Keeling finished 4th in her 100m and Adam Leahy was 2nd in his 100m run. Thanks to Le Cheile for organising.

The Virtual King of Greystones triathlon because of Covid-19 it ended up as a virtual edition where you recorded your own times and submitted them to the results crew and the organisers trusted your own honesty to do things right. It did however give people a chance to do the event and John & Sharron Dier did theirs spread out over 445km, starting with the 750m swim at 9am on Friday in Lecanvey in Mayo and then the 20km cycle at 9am Saturday followed by the 5km run at 5pm Saturday. Considering neither of them have run much since the Route 66 challenge, concentrating on fine tuning Sharron's swim technique, both were very happy with all times. Well done to you both from everyone at the club.

At the Moyne AC track meet yesterday 25th July our athletes were glad to be back competing again. A very well organised event. In the Senior Men 100m Michael Deady ran 11.5, Clodagh Dunbar ran the Senior Ladies 200m in 27.72, Aaron Tierney Smyth ran 23.52 in the Senior Mens 200m, Eimear Halpin ran the U17 girls 200m in 28.9 & the Senior Women 400m saw Clodagh Dunbar 1:04.6 & Eimear Halpin 1:06.3.