Pauline and Mags master the East Galway weather

Loughrea AC hosted the Connacht Cross Country Championships on Sunday. They were well organised on a difficult day with cold, breezy showery weather making things tough for nearly 500 competitors – Juveniles, Juniors, Novices, Seniors and Masters. The adult races were the first leg of two, second is on next Sunday 9th Nov at Westport. They took place at the end of a busy programme. The course at Loughrea AC’s fine Bushfield facility was good – a well grassed surface with some lumpy ups and downs, but nothing really mucky. One lap was approximately 1.55k with extensions at start/finish to make up the distances.

The adult women’s race over 4k had 66 starters comprising novices, seniors and masters. Sara Doohan (Corran AC) hauled in long time leader Jane Ann Healy (Athenry AC) to win in an exciting finsh in the final metres. Jane Ann had run 3:04 in Dublin on Monday. Pauline Moran was our only runner in the field and ran a great race to finish 11th overall and first master.

The men’s race was over 8k – 5 laps+, and was also a mixture of novice, seniors, masters. A small line of conifers were very popular as the 41 runners tried to keep dry and warm near the start. Gary Thornton (GCH) was the clear winner showing fine form as has done in the Autumn Open XC at the Phoenix Park recently..
We had three masters in the field, Sean Murphy out again after his Dublin Marathon PB, Danny Greene – good to see him back after injury at the National Half in August,  and Tom Hunt.
They all finished well and their placings will count when the second leg is completed.

The atmosphere was reminiscent of pre-boom times, with club runners from all around the province getting the chance to meet and compete, a rarity these days with so many ‘local’ races.

Full results are on this pdf:
http://www.craughwellac.com/site/images/2014/xc/2014ConnachtCrossCountryDay1Results.pdf

Also on Sunday in similar showery cold conditions in nearby Corofin, Mags Glavey ran an excellent race to finish third woman and first o60 in the annual 8k.

Results are on this image page:

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