AAI Autumn Open XC 2019 (20th Oct)
Eileen Kenny, Elizabeth Carr, Sinead Whitelaw, Michelle Bohan, Brigid McCabe, Maura Dervin, Aine O’Reilly
Good early season form by Mullingar at AAI Autumn Cross Country
The domestic cross country kicked off in earnest on Sunday afternoon 20th October when the AAI Autumn Open Cross Country took place at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown, Co. Dublin. This marked the start of the build-up to the European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon, Portugal in December and many of Ireland’s leading runners were in action, including a number from Mullingar. The races incorporated the trials for the Irish Masters team to compete at the British and Irish Masters International Cross Country in England in mid-November and Mullingar had a number of its master athletes in action vying for selection on the Irish team.
The programme consisted of two races. The first race was the 6,000m for Senior and Master Women and finishing well up in the top 30 of the nearly 100 that competed was Aine O’Reilly in 23:35, the 7th master woman to finish, 5th in her master category. Following Aine in were Sinead Whitelaw (23:57) and Elizabeth Carr (24:54) finishing strongly in the Senior Women race, followed by Michelle Bohan (25:47) 8th in her master category and Maura Dervin (27:38) 5th in her master category. Combined in the first race was the 4,500m for Junior Women and older Master Women who ran a lap less and where Eileen Kenny finished in 21:32, 2nd in her in master category, beaten for gold by just three seconds, ahead of Brigid McCabe in 21:50, 3rd in her master category. These fine performances should earn Eileen and Brigid selection on the Irish Masters team.
The second race was the 7,500m for Senior and Master Men and had a huge field of nearly 150 athletes. After a very fast opening lap, Cormac Dalton settled into his running and had an excellent race to finish 8th senior man in 23:37, fifth Irish man to finish and looks set to have a very good cross country season ahead. Among the masters, best for Mullingar was Gerard Gavin (27:13) 8th in his master category, followed by Eddie Newman (29:05) 5th in his master category and Pat Muldoon Senior (33:55) 7th in his master category. Like the first race, the second race was a combined race and running a lap less was the 6,000m for Junior Men, where Jamie Battle finished well up in 5th place against some of the top juniors in Ireland in 19:13. The pre-race publicity mentioned Jamie as one who should strongly feature, and this performance certainly saw him put down an early season marker of intent. Competing well also and sticking to their task was Euan Lagan (21:00) and Jack Moran (21:33).
