Ciara Peelo: Last Sunday saw the 41st Women’s Mini Marathon take place. There was a relatively small contingent from Clonliffe toeing the line. The race started promptly at 12:30. Over 16,500 women took part this year. The race was won by Nakita Burke of Letterkenny A.C.
The Clonliffe contingent was led home by Ciara Peelo in 41:48. Next home was Anne Lyons, running a PB of 45:09. In her first ever 10k, Lucy McFetridge finished in 50:25. Joanne McCabe also ran a PB on the day of 52:17. Hazel Kenny had a very impressive run given how much traffic she had to pass en route due to her allocated wave. Though passing the line in just over an hour, Hazel’s chip time was 45:04, giving an idea of just how many runners/joggers she needed to pass to get into any sort of stride. She likely ran further than the rest of us with all the people dodging she had to do. Similarly Harriet Kenny also contended with a lot of traffic having been allocated to a very late wave. Unfortunately this meant she had no chance of trying to beat her time from last year.
It was another wonderful day for celebrating women’s running in the city. Once again a huge shout out to the ever present Paddy Tuite who without fail was waiting on Baggot Street to encourage us home. His presence is always a welcome sign knowing there is less than 400m to go.Unfortunately despite the intention for this race to be the Dublin Women’s 10km Road Championships, a decision was taken just the Thursday before, that the race was no longer a Dublin Championship. While this was very disappointing at the time, it most certainly did not dampen spirits on a very warm day. The only solution for cooling down was to visit one of the many establishments in the city for an ice cold beverage.
Well done to all who took part and apologies if anyone is missing, it was hard to pick everyone out on the road.