Winter League – Round 1 (9th Nov)

To give something different for our adult members to train for, Mullingar Harriers is holding a league at the Club’s grounds over the winter months. This is a 5-event league and will be held on our all-weather track. The events scheduled are 800m, which took place on Wednesday evening 9th November, and will be followed by 1,500m in two weeks, then 3,000m two weeks after that in mid-December, then 2 miles early in the New Year, and the league will finish with a 5k at the end of January.

This is a mixed team event with ten teams involved and every athlete counting each night. The men and women go off in separate races and the scoring is based on finishing positions. The overall team winner will be the team with the lowest combined score across all 5 events.

Fifty five athletes took part last on Wednesday evening 9th November, and it proved an enjoyable and interesting challenge. Many were attempting their first ever 800m on the track. Some excellent individual efforts included a very good run by Jenny Algar in leading home the ladies race in a fine 2 minutes 36 seconds. In total 12 of the ladies dipped under 3 minutes, very creditable running. Kedagh Geoghegan led home the men’s race in 2 minutes 14 seconds, and we had a total of 27 athletes getting under 3 minutes in the men’s race.

Following from night one we have teams closely matched and the current standings are team 8 on 11.5 points, teams 9 and 6 each on 13 points, teams 7 and 1 on 14 points, team 4 is on 14.5 points, teams 3, 5 and 10 on 16 points and team 2 on 17.5 points. The standings are likely to change as we go through the different events, with athletes who are more adept at the longer distances likely to come to the fore later in the series, so it’s all very much to play for still.