Week ending Saturday 6th March
Virtual Medley Road League continues
Round two of the members-only Medley Road League took place two weeks ago and the age graded results were confirmed last Monday evening. Round two was a 5k and numbers taking part were up on round one, with nearly 80 adult Club members running the distance on their own within 5k of home on either the Saturday or Sunday, timing themselves with a GPS device and submitting proof of their times. Conditions were good for running, cool and dry, though a bit windy, but like in round one, at least runners could organise their route to keep the wind on their backs for most if not all of the distance, which helped. The times submitted were age graded, which adjusts the times to reflect the effort of someone in their twenties and balances out the results across the wide age range of our adult senior and master members. In round two, the top three places were filled by Eddie Newman, Maurice Looby and Alan Crowley, the same order as in round one, but there was a small change in the top three women places, which were filled by Mary Stuart, Aine O’Reilly and Sinead Whitelaw. Round three is one mile and can be run either this coming Saturday or Sunday.
Track Development Fundraiser
We’re asking all members and friends of Mullingar Harriers to get behind and support the virtual 10k on St. Patrick’s Day, which is an important fundraiser for the new all-weather track at the Club Grounds, on which an important and welcome announcement on construction will be made shortly. You can walk, jog or run 10k anywhere you wish within a 5k radius of home. To register, simply log on to the My Run Results website where you can purchase a tee shirt or a commemorative medal if you want to add it to your race entry. Every euro raised will add to the delivery of the long-awaited track.
Club closure update
Last week the Government published “Covid-19 Resilience and Recovery – The Path Ahead” and the document focuses on facilitating the reopening of schools on a phased basis during March and April, alongside the scaling up of the vaccination programme, which is positive. However, the Level 5 public health restrictions will remain in place until 5th April when a further review will be conducted and this means all sporting activity is on hold, so the Club remains closed for now.
If the transmission of the virus reaches acceptable levels, the vaccination programme progresses as planned, and public health advice allows, further options that will be considered after 5th April include consideration of extending the current 5km limit and the staggered start of easing of other areas of restriction with a focus on outdoor activities, including sport. Any further easing of restrictions after 5th April will need a further three to four week period to allow for assessment of the impact of changes, so it looks like the Club could remain closed for quite some time yet, possibly for all of April and even until early May.
In the meantime, Athletics Ireland continues to work closely with the Sport Ireland Expert Group and is coordinating regular, on-going discussions with key stakeholders on a return to training and competition as soon as possible. The recent Indoor Micro-Meeting organised by Athletics Ireland was rightly lauded as a tremendous success and should help in the case to reopen athletics activities sooner rather than later, as soon after 5th April as possible and hopefully before May.
This time last year
We had no idea this time last year that we were only weeks away from the first Covid-19 lockdown and unaware of the havoc the pandemic would cause on the Country and that we’d still be dealing with it a year later.
Covid was far from anyone’s mind at the Gala Function in Tullamore, where Charles Okafor was presented with the National Juvenile Star Award for Westmeath for 2019 and Oisin Lane with the Roisin O’Callaghan Special Award for Walks. Charles won All-Ireland silver medals for the indoor 60m and 200m and double gold for the outdoor 100m and 200m in 2019, but the highlight was making his International debut for Ireland at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Baku (Azerbaijan) where he competed in the 200m and in the medley relay. Oisin’s award was in recognition of the outstanding year he had in 2019. He won the All-Ireland Junior Indoor 3,000m race walk and the u/18 Outdoor 5,000m race walk. The highlights though were an excellent fourteenth place at the Junior European Cup of Race Walking in Lithuania, which is a Major event and is the race walking equivalent of the European Cross Country, and finishing fourth in the 10,000m race walk at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Azerbaijan. Leinster also retained the Bishop McFeeley Cup for best juvenile cross country Region and with Mullingar athletes scoring on seven of the thirteen Leinster teams that won medals they can take some of the credit for helping Leinster to win this cup. This was a great testament to the hard work put in by our outstanding juvenile cross country athletes and their coaches.
At the AAI Senior Indoors at the National Indoor Arena, Sarah Glennon turned in a gutsy effort in the women’s 3,000m race walk, tracking the pre-race favourite and eventual winner Kate Veale (West Waterford) for much of the way but when the pressure increased, Sarah had to drop back and was eventually caught and relegated to third place with three laps to go. A late rally saw her closing hard on the silver medal in the final lap but the finish line came too soon and she had to settle for bronze, though was still very happy to win a National senior medal.
Sympathy
Finally, the Executive and members of the Club extend sincere sympathy to the family of the late Joe Kilgannon, who died in Galway last week. Joe was a member of the Club’s executive committee for a few years and all his family were members, namely Breege, Joe, Seamus and Marie. Breege is one the Club’s earliest International athletes and made her International debut in 1980 at the Nations Cup in Italy where she enjoyed a comprehensive victory.
Check the Club’s website at www.mullingarharriers.com or its Facebook page for all the latest news.
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