Author: CelticDCH Athletic Club

Avondale House near Rathdrum in the garden county hosted the Leinster Novice Championship today. Underfoot conditions were excellent on this undulating twisting 4 lap course of 1Km each.

Some 60 athletes lined up at the uphill start including Niamh, Aislinn, Claire, Sinead and Aoife. Niamh, Aislinn and Sinead were prominent in the leading group after the first lap with Claire beginning her run through the field and Aoife not too far behind. Niamh was in the leading group of three after lap two with Aislinn close at hand, Sinead had drifted back a little with Claire and Aoife continuing their progress.

Going in to the final lap the leading group was down to two with Niamh looking really good, Aislinn was dicing for third, Claire had moved into the top ten and Sinead was recovering having lost a few places with Aoife running strongly well inside the top twenty.

Niamh (14.21) entered the uphill finishing straight marginally behind but had plenty in reserve to open a seven second gap to second place, Aislinn (14.36) just lost out on an individual medal while finishing a close fourth, Claire (14.55)  closed in with seventh place in her first race in over a year following injury, Sinead (14.57) battled to eight with a blistering last 300 Mts, while Aoife (15.16) came home in fourteenth place.

With a very low score of 20 points our team had 60 points to spare over Tullamore with Dunleer in third place. Aoife was non scoring on this occasion  but would have been a leading scoring member on any other team. The Inter County result was not available at the time of departure but as we had the leading five Dublin athletes,  another medal should be winging our way pretty soon.

Great running from the whole team and we are so proud of all of them! Next outing for the girls will be the Leinster intermediate in Adamstown, Co Wexfors on the 9th of November.

Best of luck to our Novice womens team of Aoife, Aislinn, Niamh, Clare and Sinead who are competing in the Leinster Novice cross country in Avondale tomorrow. The girls won the Dublin Novice earlier this month and hope to do well in the Leinsters.

Sat 25th Oct Hole in the Wall 10.30 -everyone

Sun 26th Oct Hole in the Wall 11am -everyone

Tue 27th Oct Hole in the Wall 10.30 am -everyone
Dermots group check

Thur 29th Oct Hole in the Wall 10.30am-everyone
Dermots group check

Sat 1st Nov Hole in the Wall 10.30 everyone not competing on Sun 2nd Nov in Santry
Sun 2nd Nov Dublin uneven age champs in Santry. List will be on website by Tuesday.

There will be no evening training for Mary, Hilary or Brians group this week.

A big well done to Alison Burke who finished 5th in the Junior girls age group at the Leinster schools Combined events in the National Indoor arena in Athlone on Wednesday. Alison competed in the long jump, Shot, hurdles, high jump and the 800m. Along the way she recorded a pb in the high jump and ran a brilliant 800m at the end of a long day where she came 3rd.

Tue 21st Oct Hole in the Wall 7pm – everyone

Thur 23rd Oct Navan Road school hall 7pm – everyone

Thur 23rd Oct Dermots and Brians group Gym 7pm

A very strong wind made for a tough outing for all our athletes in the Phoenix Park today. Despite the tough conditions we had some very strong performances. Team of the day were our under 12 girls who came first overall led in by a great run from Clare Murphy, closely followed by Katie Harrold and backed up really well by Alex Corr, Antonia, Aoibh (despite a heavy fall), Antoinette, Keelin, Claire and Kacey. The boys under 12 had the same long hard lap as the girls and Conor, Blaine and especially Scott who is under 11 battled all the way.

We got two bronze team medals in the under 14 girls and the under 18 boys races. The girls were led in by Ella Mae in a fine 3rd place with very brave running from Dora, Chloe and Libby completing the scoring team. All the under 13 girls who moved up for this race Anna, Emer, Celine and Sara found the race very long but did very well.

Sean Donoghue ran a great race to move from 13th to 8th over the last mile of his race and showed great composure despite running up an age group.

Pierre won his under 18 race in fine style and led the team of Evan, Ben, Annraoi and Christopher to 3rd place. Daire Finn went off a little bit too hard in the under 16 boys race but still managed 6th place. Oscar battled all the way but was down on his best on the day.  Alison Armstrong finished 4th in the under 18 girls race.
Our last top 12 finisher on the day was Leah all alone in the under 10 but that didnt put her off and she was a very happy medallist! In the boys under 10 Felix was our lone ranger and he ran a very good second half of his race having started out a little cautiously.

Well done to all. Our next competition will be on Sunday 2nd November in Santry for the uneven championships and the Dublin Junior championships.