Well done to our other Mayo AC finishers who worked hard to put down a early season marker: in 9th place was last week’s Carra Classic 8k winner John Higgins 36:13, Michael McNeela 42:24, David Dinsmore 44:09, Ann Murray 46:55, Justin McDonagh 50:05, Tracy Cunnane 57:03, Anne Cunnane 60:37, Marcella McDonnell 51:55, Philip McGoldrick 54:55)
And well done Catriona Houlihan who ran 27:02 in the 5k race.
Provisional results Tubbercurry 2019
Mullingar Half Marathon:
Six Mayo AC runners chose the flatlands and wilderness of the Westmeath country side, on a bog-land and canal side course with the finish in the centre of Mullingar Town Park.
Congratulations to Colette Tuohy who won the W50 category in 1:34.07, and well done to all the other finishers: Eamonn Joyce 1:23.14, Ambrose Gaughan 1:33.14 (1:33.04 chip), Brendan Murphy 1:33.14, Stephen Skillington 1:33.32 (1:33.27) and Thomas Jennings 1:50.04 (1:49.34).
https://www.myrunresults.com/events/aon_mullingar_half_marathon_2019/2965/results
Here is Stephen Skillington’s story of the race:
“On a cold wet windy day in Mullingar 6 members of Mayo AC lined up to represent our running Club on what proved to be a very challenging half marathon course.
The weather at the start before the race ensured that the local McDonalds did a roaring trade as runners did whatever they could to avoid the rain and sleet which was a feature of the start line.
Once all runners gathered together at the start line the comradery of like-minded people came to the fore with plenty of jokes about the impending suffering that we were about to endure.
The gun went off at 10:30am and we were off, pacers helped those hoping for 1:20, 1:30 and 1:40.
With the initial pace at sub 4/km we all settled into our like pacing groups with myself running at 6:45 / mile for the first 7 miles where I was passed by the ever strong Brendan Murphy. I kept Brendan in my sights until we reached the motorway overpass, when to my surprise I saw Brendan stop running and start to walk up the slight incline.
I knew something had gone wrong so as I caught up to him he told me his achilles was very sore “Disaster” he told to carry on so I did and to my surprise I had Brendan again on my shoulder at mile 9, when again he had to stop and walk (achilles ).
10 minutes later Brendan had fought his way back to my group and this time he went ahead of us and gained a gap of 5 metres when again he had to stop and walk because of the pain in his achilles. Again he fought the pain and got back running and he was back with our group in no time at all.
Brendan had to stop and walk 3 further times up to mile 12 and each and every time he fought back and regained his place at the front of our little group.
The winds and the rain in the last 4 miles along the towpath were so strong that I cannot put into words just what an effect they had on our finishing times , at one stage it was all I could do to stay on the path as the wind did all it could to force me into the waters of the canal.
At mile 12 , Brendan, myself and Ambrose who had run a very steady even paced race were all together. At mile 13 Ambrose put in his final effort closely followed by Brendan and I had nothing left to give so I just kept running at what was now 7:18/mile pace.
Eamonn Joyce ran a great race and he was so far in front of me that I did not see him for the whole race. Colette Tuohy was running with a sore back so her finish time was impacted but she still fought hard to come in first in her age category F50. Thomas Jennings who has lost weeks of training with a torn calf still ran a very creditable 1:49:34
Safe to say we will all be back again in 2020 hoping for no wind and blue skies.”
37 Eamonn JOYCE 01:23:14 715 M (34) MS (20) Mayo AC
140 Ambrose GAUGHAN 01:33:04 549 M (133) M40 (58)Mayo AC
141 Brendan MURPHY 01:33:05 1060 M (134) M40 (59)Mayo AC
143 Stephen SKILLINGTON 01:33:27 1357 M (136) M50 (8) Mayo AC
146 Colette TUOHY 01:34:07 1613 F (9) F50 (1) Mayo AC
557 Thomas JENNINGS 01:49:34 707 M (447) M50 (59)Mayo AC
