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28 November, 2009

2002 Races
BLUE LIGHT League race - Report by Joe Lalor
Blue Light 5/6/02 Fine, warm evening
Arriving at a race start 90 minutes before the off can often a very solitary experience, however arriving at the Blue Light last night both car parks were already full. I know we missed this venue last year and numbers are quite healthy this year but this was way ahead of all expectations. It quickly emerged that most were not there for a race (or capable of racing) rather were still on their lunch break after a certain match five hours previous. When the transport of the 95 runners did arrive we nearly had the traffic police in attendance at a second IMRA race in a week.
Unusually for the Blue Light race nobody got lost, there were no scarred knees and our marking flags did not get moved. Although numbers running were high we had several spectators as quite a few regular hillrunners choose not to run. Was this tiredness after Carrauntoohil or in preparation for the ordeal of the Wicklow Way Relay were several runners are planning on running two or more legs. It will be interesting to see how this impinges on numbers at next weeks race at the Scalp.
As to the race itself, Paul Nolan kept his clean sheet with his six win in a row. With one more win he will have won the league at this very early stage and can relax for the rest of the summer and let the rest fight out for the minor places in the longer races. Vet. league leader Gerry Brady had not got thing his own way with his running colleague of over 20 years Aonghus O?Cleirigh making an appearance and winning that category. You could see the effect of the tiring Carrauntoohil race on the performance of several runners. Bob Lawlor who had a remarkable ascent of Carrauntoohil (third to summit) was below par as was Paul Mahon who piped Paul Nolan on Carrauntoohil who seems to be saving his efforts for the Leinster League. It was surprising to see Eoin Keith and Conor McGrath do so well after their very strenuous efforts in the Adrenalin Rush. John O?Reilly had a very fine run after three weeks of parental duty of doing the short course. Four seconds split the father and son team of Cillian and Ercus Stewart.
Joan Flanagan again won the ladies race with Roisin McDonnell second, both F40, no wonder the chairman is having trouble finding a woman .... (for his WWR team), however there is light on the horizon. Although again there were no junior men two junior ladies Deirde Bell and Jane Hingerty completed the long course.