Craughwell AC Leg of the County May 5K Series

The 5K series continues with a vengeance and last Tuesday evening an incredible field of 500 runners gathered in Craughwell in glorious sunshine for Round 3. Tuam AC was very well represented with over 20 members taking part and all of them are improving as the series continues.

Gerry Ryan of GCH led the field once again from start to finish and set a new course record in the process of 15m 34 secs and Regina Casey of GCH was the first lady home.

As usual two Tuam AC runners were right up there with the leading group as Dave Mullins continued his fine form finishing in 17m 36s and closely followed by Dan O’Rourke. The next 4 Tuam AC runners all finished within 6 seconds of each other in a desperate sprint for the line with Jim Daly edging out Ann Marie Miskell, Seamus Walsh and Brendan Monaghan. This resulted in Tuam AC having 7 runners finishing under the magical 20mins mark. They were followed a few seconds later by Gerry Synott and Brian Sweeney who are both improving fast and the evergreen Roger Rushe who is in great form. James Gleeson had a very good run in 23.25 and Sharon Walsh was the 2nd Tuam lady.

John Mongan and Seamus Sweeney put in two great performances as did Suzanne Brennan who finished in a very impressive 26 mins. Andrea Ridge was close behind followed by the one and only Mickey Kelly who is this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of winning a National medal in the 1959 All Ireland Cross Country Finals what an ambassador for Tuam and the entire sport of Athletics.

The best finish of the night was a massive sprint to the line by Norma O’Rourke and Leonie Gibbons it couldn’t have been any closer and they were absolutely flying as they crossed the line and the race referee had to rely on video evidence to decide who took the honours!

Paddy Gilmore continues to improve as he knocked valuable seconds off his previous time and Patricia Monaghan knocked well over a minute off her time in Athenry 2 weeks earlier. Kathleen Hogan was the 21st Tuam AC runner across the line which is hopefully a record number of finishers for Tuam AC and they are all sure to be ready again for Claregalway on the 19th.

The full results of the race are available here.