There was a nice sprinkling of Clonliffe athletes toeing the line in the Phoenix Park yesterday. The annual Donore Harriers Jingle Bells run never fails to bring out some of the best domestic athletes and this year was no different.
Colm Rooney stepped up in level again, with his most competitive road race run since his return. Running in 5th place for most of race he managed to find some of his natural finishing speed over the last few metres to take 4th in a time of 14.44mins. Less than a week after his excellent half marathon win in Waterford, Brian MacMahon was able to run one of his fastest road 5km races to finish 9th in 15.09. Kris Vaulters also returned one of this fastest 5km times to stop the clock at 15.48. Our first woman home was Ailish Malone in 17.46. It was encouraging to see Louise Reilly back racing and her time of 18.26 was a nice starting point.
Other Clonliffe finishers were.
Ciaran McCarthy 16:37, Tom Sherlock 16:49, Philip O’Doherty 17:08, Jeremy chapman 18:02, Richard Mannion 19:04, Ronan McDermott 19:07, Jacqui Dunphy 19:18, Sinead Hartnett 19:27 and David Gomm 26:56
Elsewhere, Gary O’Hanlon returned to Clonakilty to retain the marathon title he won last year. With a time of 2.46.06, this victory will go down as a tactical one! Racing over half the distance, Sergiu Ciobanu ran a comfortable 68.45mins for his victory.
Overseas Pat Bonass took in the Lanzarotte Road Race Festival running in the 10k race on a scenic but somewhat hilly course, yesterday, in 23 degrees where he won the O/65 category in 41.34.