Super Clonliffe cross country squad day

The club held a very successful cross country squad day as part of the preparations for the upcoming nationals this morning in Santry Demesne. There was a fine turnout of some 50+ athletes: senior men and women and U/20 men and women. After a group warmup all broke up into their individual groups with the coaches for the group sessions and then post cool down there was a get together held in the clubhouse. The post training get-together was an excellent affair with the club providing lunch and then a talk by one of Clonliffe best ever athletes, Anne Keenan -Buckley.

Anne is Clonliffe Harriers’ last women Olympian, having competed in the 3000 at the 1988 Games in Seoul. She is a 3 time National cross country champion, and prior to winning her first national an 8 time runner-up, she completed for Ireland on 13 occasions in the world Cross country Championships posting a best ever finish of 10th place and helping the Irish team to win world cross-country bronze and European cross-country silver. Anne was a most engaging speaker, talking about her lengthy career in athletics, her motivation, her training and how this has changed over the years, how she prepared for races and the skills that she had learned over the years.

The attendance included not just the clubs athletes but also our junior and senior coaches, the club president Mick Kearney, Stephen Bateson, club secretary, Brian McDonald, treasurer and the 3 club captains, Noel Guiden, Jenny Johnston and Eugenia Bateson. The club president in concluding the day’s proceedings thanked Anne for taking the time to come along, the club’s coaches and the captains and he wished the club’s athletes the very best in the preparations for the nationals in 3 weeks time.