Sunshine greeted all the athletes last Sunday for the Boston Scientific Half Marathon, which this year was held over a new route. Right from the start Paul Minogue went into the lead and soon opened a gap on the chasing pack of five athletes after 200m. Paul maintained this tempo over a familiar route to come home a very worthy and convincing winner in 73 mins 56 secs. He becomes the 3rd club member to win this Classic event as Kevin Maunsell won it in 2015 and David Mansfield won it in 2019. Paul was 3rd in this event in 2019 when running 75 mins 52 secs, some improvement.
Back through the field as Paul was leading them all home, we had many fine performances from Club members, like Angela McCann who again put in a brilliant performance when winning the women’s race in 83 mins 46 secs and improving on her Limerick run of 84 mins 36 secs. Eelco Beckers ran a brilliant race when finishing 31st in a new PB of 88 mins 53. This is a massive improvement on his previous best, earlier this year in Cork where he ran 90:25. Then we had Daniel Brosnan running a brilliant race when 32nd in 89 mins 2 secs. Jamie Byrne produced a great effort when posting a new PB of 89 mins 15 secs when 35th. Niall Murphy also ran well when finishing 36th in 89 mins 18 secs. Eddy O Donoghue ran very well when 38th in 99:27. Vasiliy Neumerzhitskiy also ran very well when54th in 1:3 2:03.
Aisling English ran a fantastic race when finishing 62nd in 1 hour 34 mins 7 secs, a massive improvement of her Clonakilty run last year of 1:41:43. Brendan Walshe was 63rd in 1:34:08 while Anthony Power was 73rd in 1:35:29. Mark Kehir was 75th in 1:35:45 with Ailish Mansfield 85th in 1:36:46, Vincent McHugh 89th in 1:37:16, Mick Pender 97th in 98:54, Michelle Doherty 105th in 1:40:38 and David Lorigan 106th in 1:40:06.
Ian Patterson ran a brilliant race when finishing 1:41:30, a massive improvement on his recent Cork run of 1:47:42 and a new PB, brilliant. Michael Doocey was 115th in 1:41:50 while Kenny Brett was 117th in 1:42:06 and a major improvement on his Clonakilty 2019 performances and a PB. Rebecca Doocey was 119th in 1:42:18 with Niall Kelly 137th in 1:44:10.
Then we had Peter Kiely finishing 154th in 1:46:24. Peter along with John Laste are the only two athletes who have competed in all the Boston Scientific Half marathon which were started in 2010, brilliant achievement by both athletes. Sinead Kennedy re wrote her PB with a massive performance last Sunday when finishing 185th in 1:50:18 and massively improving on her Waterford 2019 performance of 1:53:15, brilliant. Brid Hearne was next in 1:51:49. Caroline O Donoghue put in a great performance when finishing 198th in 1 hour 51 mins 55 secs, a massive improvement on her Cork performances this year of 1:53:47. Michael Ryan was 217th in 1:53:40.
Marina Quinlan put in a brilliant performance when finishing 222nd in 1:54:35 and she was quickly followed across the finishing line by her sister, Jennifer, finishing in 1:54:45. Paul Weymouth should be delighted with this performance when finishing 233rd in 1:55:31 with Tom Quinn 235th in 1:55:48. John Laste once again produced a brilliant effort. In 2019 he found a new niche, race walking and one of his first distances was the Boston Scientific Half Marathon that year where he race walked the distance in 2 hours 13 mins 11 secs. This year he put in a brilliant effort when Race walking the distance in 1:56:09. Liam Kiely is another debutant for the Club in this event and he was 246th in 1:57:31 while Grainne O Malley was 250th in 1:57:59.
Helen O Ceallaigh ran a brilliant race when finishing 259th in 1:58:55 and a massive improvement on her Waterford run earlier this year of 2:02:59. Then we had her training partner, Denise Donnelly finishing 274th in 2:00:40 with Monica Lambe 281st in 2:02:40 and a major improvement on her Boston Scientific 2019 run. Grzegorz Kecik was 287th in 2:03:25 with Niall Brannigan 300th in 2:05:48, Michael Egan 327th in 2:13:36 and William Lonergan 351st in 2:25:43.