Letterkenny Athletic Club sent 2 very strong teams to Victoria Park, Belfast on Saturday for the Northern Ireland and Ulster Road Relay Championships. Both teams put on excellent performances. The women’s team, composed entirely of primary school teachers, took second place, behind Queen’s University. Nakita Burke got the team off to a flying start and her time of 11m22s put the LAC team in second place after the 1st leg. Newcastle AC’s runner ran 10.47. Maria Ni Mhaolagain ate into this lead and, at the end of the 2nd leg, her time of 12.06 had put LAC into the lead. Noeleen Scanlan had an excellent final leg and clocked 11.48. However, the Queen’s runner had a phenomenal run. She ran 10.31 which was the fastest run of the day to give them first place. LAC were a convincing second and had a 83 second gap over the 3rd placed team.
The men’s team finished in a very creditable 5th position in a very tough race. Danny Mooney got the team off to an excellent start and clocked 9.57. Next up was Karol Duggan, who followed up last week’s cross country victory with a fine time of 10.06. He handed over to one of the country’s top young runners, Eoin Hughes whose time was 11.07. Eoghain McGinley finished off with a blistering pace, coming home in 9.45.
LAC’s successful start to the cross country season continued in Sunday’s Donegal Novice Cross Country Championship at the Finn Valley Centre. The women’s team picked up silver medals. Siobhan Gallagher finished 7th, Fionnuala Larkin 11th, Marian Kerr 14th and Eimear Gormley 18th. The 4 counters were given good back up by Mary Sweeney. Those performances gave the team 2nd place in a very close battle with Milford AC.
Paul McFadden had an excellent 6th place finish in the men’s Novice race with a time of 20.53. Milford AC won the men’s team event, which was testament to the hard work put in by their hard working coach, James Gibbons. The race winner was Inishowen AC’s David McMenamin in 20.12.
Ciaran McGonagle, just 2 weeks after running the Chicago Half Marathon, took part in Sunday’s Chicago Marathon. This iconic event is one of the world’s ‘Big 5 Marathons’, the others being New York, Boston, London and Berlin. Ciaran had an excellent run and completed the 26.2 miles in 2.35.32. This saw him finish in 102nd place out of the huge number of 44172 runners, placing him in the first 0.25% of the runners.
Richard Raymond ran a time of 22.59 in Saturday morning’s Letterkenny parkrun. He was first in the M60-64 category. Cathal Roarty was the 3rd placed M50-54 runner in 26.00. Peter McLean, running the event for the 54th time, clocked 27.06 and was 3rd in the M55-59 category. Young Jack Lyden, running the event for the first time, crossed the line in 29.17. Mark McFadden finished in 36.24.
Matthew Johnston was an impressive winner of the Under 19 race.
Letterkenny AC and Irish team coach, Teresa McDaid, was featured in the latest issue of ‘Irish Runner’ magazine. This highly respected and widely read magazine details Teresa’s very successful and highly productive coaching career in the section ‘Coach in Focus.’
All at Letterkenny AC would like to offer congratulations to club runners Jane and Ivan Toner. They became parents to baby boy, Cian, who was born on Thursday.
The winning numbers in Thursday’s LAC Lotto were 18, 21, 22, 24. There were no Match 4 numbers. The following Match 2 winners receive €20 each:
Raymond Birch, Cathal Doherty, Rose Griffin, Michael Crossan.
Hugh Gallagher.
LAC PRO.
