Results from Oslo, Ollie, Sligo

Michael McNeela took the tall ship to Norway to run in the Nordmarka Skogsmaraton (Forest Marathon) and finished in an excellent time 3:24:58, Michael ran 3:14:08 in Dublin 2012. According to organisers “This race starts and finishes at the athletic arena at Sognsvann, Oslo. The course is entirely in the forest of Nordmarka, mostly on good forest road tracks. The course has a tough profile, the challenge for lot of the runners is to complete the race rather than chasing a record.(course records are 2:37M, 2:58W)   On the other hand, the course offers beautiful natural surroundings, a more “runner friendly” ground,  and fresh air.  This gives the race a uniqueness in contrast to ordinary flat ground urban marathon races.”

In Milltown the annual Run for Ollie (544 runner/walker finishers) , John Mannion was the winner in 33.31,  just edging John Byrne into second place by a second, with David Tiernan  3rd in 36:07.  Other Mayo AC: Brendan Hession 6th 37:57, Sean Murphy 38:33, Patrick Walsh 42:34, Colm Cleary 44:07, Christy O’Malley 50:50. The women’s race was won by our leading lady Mary Gleeson  in 38:09 in overall 8th, 2nd  Eimear O’Leary 39:09, 3rd Ann Lennon 39:12 and Sarah Syron in 4th chipping a few more seconds off for a new PB 39:34.  Chris Gallagher was fifth in 42:43.  results here: RunForOllie10km_2013

The Streets of Sligo 5k (389 finishers, results www. precisiontiming.net) is one of the fastest town centre courses around. It also produced a thrilling finish with Emmett Dunleavy (Sligo AC) beating ‘fast’ improving Roger Barrett (Ballina AC) by one second to win in 15:09. Teresa McGloin (Finn Valley AC) was first woman in 16:48.