Week ending Saturday 1st March
Double Walk Silver at National Senior Indoors
Aisling and Oisín Lane continued 2025 where they finished 2024, recording personal best times and winning National Championship medals. On Sunday, the National Senior Indoors in the NIA Dublin provided a break from their high winter mileage training schedules, with the shorter events held on the tight 200m indoor track. First up, Oisín Lane and Matthew Glennon lined out for the Senior Men 5,000m racewalk. A tough fast pace pushed everyone to the limits of their technique and even beyond at times. With twelve of the best male walkers pushing to their speed limits it was a good result for Mullingar to have Oisín finish in second place behind Irish Tokyo Olympian David Kenny, with almost nothing between for the entire race, and soon followed home by Matthew Glennon in an excellent sixth place. Both learned much from the experience and now have an awareness of where greater training emphasis should be placed.
Immediately following was the Senior Women 3,000m racewalk with Aisling Lane making her debut as a full Senior athlete. Even though there was a huge field of 22 entries, Aisling found herself walking a solo effort lap by lap from the gun, as she left the majority of the field way behind in her wake and tracking the race leader to second place, and she was absolutely delighted to break 14 minutes for the first time with a big new personal best of 13:57.28 [ML].
Another athlete taking to the National Senior stage was John Ryan who put in a really good effort in the Senior Men 3,000m, finishing well up in the B race and will benefit hugely from the experience. The day before, Saturday, Conor Liston competed in the Senior Men 800m. There was four heats, so competition was fierce, but Conor kept himself right in the mix up to the third lap but had to let the leaders go at that stage, though he battled on well and will take the benefit of the experience to the underage Indoors in the weeks ahead [GD].
Duleek 5k
Duleek & District AC hosted their annual 5k road race last Sunday morning. The weather conditions on the day were extremely unfavourable, with heavy rain and very strong winds, not at all conducive to good racing. Four athletes from Mullingar completed the tough race along with a strong entry of 330 others. Mark Ronan was our first competitor home in an excellent seventeenth place overall in a time of 18:19. Next to finish was Linda Cunningham in 22:26, third in her master category, followed by Claire Lennon Gavin (24.23) and Kelly Dunne (25.37). The three ladies combined to place fourth Club, only five points away from the third place prize [LC].
Check the Club’s website at www.mullingarharriers.com or its Facebook page for all the latest news.
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