The day after the Northern Lights lit up the night skies it was the turn of Clonliffe Harriers to light up the Mary Peters track up North at today’s Belfast Milers Meet. There was a large contingent of Clonliffe athletes competing and with the weather conditions perfect all were shining brightly with another day of PB’s galore.
First PB of the day came courtesy of Marcus Lawler, back torturing himself over 400, as he finished 2nd in a time of 47.19 in the 400 B race. Later in the afternoon it was good to see Brian Gregan back racing, running his 1st outdoor 400 of the season, clocking a time of 47.57 in placing 5th in the A race. In the C race Aaron Tierney Smith was 4th (50.37).
In the 3000 B both of the club’s athletes put in excellent performances, Stephen Cashin really got himself into the race and battled back gamely over the final lap making up a deficit of several meters to take an excellent 3rd place and lobbing all of 5 seconds off his PB as he ran 8.31.24. In 9th place Mahad Egaal was running his first 3000 and it was a superb opening run of 8.47.96.
Niamh Kelly continued her excellent season, after running an 800 pb of 2.14.82 at last Saturday’s IMC Morton Meet she went even faster today finishing 3rd, and chopping two full seconds off that time, as she finished in 2.12.46, moving her up to 14th on the Clonliffe all-time list.
In the men’s 800 Fintan Kerins also PB’d by a similar margin as he battled down the home straight to an excellent 1st position in the D race finishing in 1.55.98.
Sean Cronin was another in brilliant form today, in the 1500 A he took 4 seconds or so off his previous best as he ran a time of 3.48.92 taking 6th place. A fine PB also in race C by Lorcan Benjacar as he finished 2nd in 3.57.32 and in the D race Jack Quinn ran a huge PB of 4.18.84. Unfortunately Jack Maughan hit the deck in the 1500 B race, he did pick himself up but his race was over and he eventually crossed the line in 4.17.67.
Sarah Bateson repeated her performance of last weekend’s IMC 7 second 3000 PB although this time over 1500, and by coincidence took 7 seconds off her previous best as she clocked a time of 4.40.21 in placing 8th. Julie Larkin was 15th in this race taking something like 9 seconds off the previous best as she ran 4.54.65.
The final race of the day with Clonliffe interest was the 100 A were Keith Pike took 7th position in a time of 11.09.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146364500@N04/albums/72177720316884919/