June Bank Holiday weekend saw a number of Marathons and Half Marathon take place and it was great to see the Club colours prominent in them. The Cork Races, which were held in heavy rain and winds, saw a sizeable number of members taking part, especially in the Half Marathon. Here Courtney McGuire continued her good form over this distance when winning the women’s event very impressively in 1 hour 19 mins 22 secs when finishing 38th overall, following on from her great winning performance in the Tipperary Water 10k a few weeks ago in Clonmel when she ran 35 mins 47 secs for the distance. Then we had Angela McCann also running very well when finishing 4th woman in a very good time of 82 mins 19 secs. We also had good performances from Brendan Walshe 133rd in 88 mins 56 secs, Eddy O Donoghue 147th in 89:39, Donal Ryan 167th in 90 mins. Then we had Anthony Power running a brilliant race when winning the over 60 prize by finishing 176th in 90:25, Eelco Beckers was 177th in 90:25 and this was a 4 mins 25 secs improvement on his Charleville Half Marathon, brilliant, Anne Marie Halpin 247th in 94:21, Nicola Maunsell 307th in 97:18, a new PB over this classic distance and improving on her Blarney Half by 89 secs, David Lorigan 426th in 100:58, Ian Patterson 725th in 107:42 and improving on his great Limerick Half performance by 4 mins 37 secs, Pat Walsh 855th in 110:40, Caroline O Donoghue 1057th in 113:47, Niall Murphy 1208th in 116:10, Barbara Doran 1821th in 124:24, Vasiliy Neumerzhitskiy 1926th in 126:19 and Catherine Ryan 3036th in 171:14. It is great to see so many great performances on what were trying conditions. We also had a relay team of Jennifer Quinlan, Marina Quinlan and Brid Hearne competing in the Relay event. These three athletes got a taste of what a marathon is all about as they set their sights on a Full Marathon later this year, their combined time was 3 hours 30 mins 17 secs.
In the Marathon Gary Grant ran well when finishing 216th in 3 hours 18 mins 29 secs, having gone through halfway in 1 hour 41 mins 24 secs, great pacing. Then we had his training partner Brendan Coffey finishing 628th in 3 hours 47 mins 17 secs with Brendan reaching halfway in 1 hour 50 mins 44 secs. It was also great to see Ned O Brien participating in today’s event as part of the C team Cancer survivors, their 11th outing in this event since 2009.
