Leinster Novice & Masters Road Championships 2026 (2nd May)
With so many other races on a crowded fixture list over the May Bank Holiday weekend, it’s little surprise that in contrast to the normal more than 20 athletes from Mullingar Harriers, we had just 8 competing at the Leinster Novice & Masters Road Championships on Saturday afternoon 2nd May in Gowran, Co. Kilkenny.
The weather was really good for racing, nice and mild, and with only the occasional light misty rain, everyone could stay outside near the finish area to cheer others on in every race. The course in Gowran is made up of 1,500m laps, with a downhill start followed by a gradual long climb, an excellent course for a Championship race. Gowran AC again proved excellent hosts for the event with every facility provided, including a large hall for registration, bag drop and medal presentation, toilets, public address, lead car, lots of race marshals and stewards, some on bikes, and plenty of refreshments after. While we had no teams, after four excellent competitive races, Mullingar won 4 individual masters medals, 1 individual novice medal, good results for the Club.
The first race was the Master Women 3,000m, covering two laps. Finishing fast and inside the top twenty overall was Linda Cunningham to win the silver medal in her category. Brigid McCabe followed Linda in and was delighted to win the gold medal in her category.
Always the biggest race of these Championships, we had four Mullingar men in the Master Men 6,000m. With 4 laps of the course, everyone got plenty of encouragement as they passed the finish area. Leading the Mullingar trio home was Enda Seery who had targeted a sub-22 minute finish, so he was delighted to finish well under it in 21:44. In the “Battle of the Eddies” behind Enda, Eddie Newman had the edge on Eddie Lynch, and with both in the same category, it was great to see Mullingar winning the gold and silver medals in the category. Nicky McCabe completed the Mullingar quartet and he expressed satisfaction afterwards with his race.
We had no entries from Mullingar in the novice women race, but we had two men in the final race of the afternoon, the Novice Men 6,000m where both were always to the fore throughout the four lap race. Keeping right up with the lead group was Mark Darby and he was rewarded for his efforts with an excellent second place finish to win Leinster silver, a great result for a man that only recently joined Mullingar Harriers. He was followed home by Mark Ronan who finished strong and crossed the line well up in a fine 11th place [GD].
