Leinster Intermediate Cross Country Champions!

A great description of today’s achievements by Dermot below!

We didn’t know until today that the Irish for Adamstown is “Maigh Arnaighe” or “The plain of the Berries”. One would assume it was called after an ancient family or perhaps the first homo sapien to roam the earth but as far as we are concerned we were in Evestown as our women’s cross country team continued their winning ways in the Leinster Intermediate Cross Country Championship today.

Due to a variety of circumstances we had only four runners today, and added to the fact that we were going up a class from Novice there was no room from error in our quest to add this title to the years haul.  The winter green grass of this challenging course which comprised of one lap of 1000M and two of 1500M  took a full cross country spike. While the course had dried out after recent rain there were some sticky muddy patches to be negotiated together with a 300m hill on each lap, with a smaller hill within the squiggle on the two large laps.

The field of 52 athletes started on time in this well organised event and Niamh joined a breakaway group of three early in the race. Aislinn was prominent in 9th place with Sinead in 11^th and Aoife running a well thought out race in 22^nd position.  After the first lap we scored 44 points against a tight packing Liffey Valleys 42, but one was confident we had a bit in hand.  At the end of lap two Niamh was in 3^rd, Aislinn in 8^th, Sinead in 11^th and Aoife running strongly was inside the first 20. Our score was now in the high 30’s but Liffey Valley with runners drifting back had lost the team lead.

On the final lap Niamh consolidated her 3^rd position while with great determination Aislinn, Sinead and Aoife picked off runners all the way round to finish in 7^th, 8^th and 12^th respectively yielding a winning score of 30 points against Liffey Valley’s 56 and Kilmore’s 81. Our first three finishers also scored on the Dublin team for the inter county section with Aoife, despite her best ever cross country run just missing out on a second gold medal.

Another great day for our women’s team and its full steam ahead to the Dublin Intermediate on November 30^thwhere we hope to have the full team available.