Tuam AC in the Fields of Athenry

The GOAL Mile provided a perfect opportunity for some last minute speed work ahead of the annual Fields of Athenry 10K Road Race which takes place every year on St Stephen’s Day and this race has now become so popular that entries were limited to the first 1000 runners and walkers who entered either online or were lucky enough to get one of the very few remaining entries available on the day.

Tuam AC were out in force with almost 20 members at the start and some memorable performances were recorded. Dan O’Rourke was the first Tuam runner in a very fast time of 36m10s. He was followed by Tommy Joe Whyte in 37m39s and Brendan Monaghan who set a new personal best finishing in 40m34s. Jim Daly ran another very good race to finish in 41:08 and our super veterans Roger Rushe (44:48) and Mickey Kelly (54:22), who both won their categories (M65 and M70 respectively), finished in outstanding times and crossed the train tracks in Athenry with about 500 metres to go quicker than most express trains pass through the town.

Other very notable performances on the day were John Mongan (47:20), who ran another fine race, the ever improving James Gleeson (50:02) who is in great form and we were delighted to see Rory Brennan (51:02) back in action after a long injury lay-off. Rory has recorded some spectacular times in the past and will be very hard to compete with when he is back to full fitness and on this showing it will be a long hot summer in 2009 trying to keep up with him. Michael McLoughlin (51:37) was also in action and knocked 2 minutes off his previous Personal Best for this distance. Seamus Sweeney (53:06) made light work of this tough 10K course as he finished phase 2 of his hectic schedule.

The Ladies section of Tuam AC were in outstanding form on the day and really are a credit to the club. Whilst most of the male athletes relaxed on Christmas Day and ate and drank just the right amount(!), the ladies did the majority of the work and were still on the starting line at 11am. Andrea Ridge (56:05) was the first Tuam lady home and she was followed by Norma O’Rourke and Caroline Heffernan fresh from their success in the New York Marathon and brilliant displays from Patricia Monaghan and our reigning All Ireland Champion over this distance Kathleen Hogan.

Most of us returned to Tuam for a relaxing afternoon but Superman Seamus Sweeney jumped out of his car on Athenry Road and ran straight onto the soccer pitch to referee the annual St Stephen’s Day match between Dynamo Blues and Tuam Celtic, as the two sides could not be separated after 90 mins the match went to extra time and lasted a full two hours.

The full results of the race are available here.