The final race in this year’s Leinster Mountain Running Championships was run on Mt Leinster on Sunday. There was a good representation of Wexford runners among the 61 strong field drawn from all over Leinster. Eight club members took partin the race.  

The expectation was that Tom Hogan of Racing 795 would put in a strong challenge to regain his title which he won two years ago. Only last Wednesday Tom was declared the winner of the Dublin/Wicklow based Leinster League also run by the Irish Mountain Running Association. He had also finished a close second on Saturday evening in The Kilmore 5K road race.

From the off Tom showed his determination not just to win the 14K mountain run but also to better last year’s record of 59.59 despite a slight lengthening of the course by 300m at the summit due to construction work at the mast. At the summit he had some three minutes to spare over the second man in the field. On the fast descent he gained another one and a half minutes on the field to finish in 59.59.

But mountain running more than most sports is definitely a game of two halves where the strong climber can be overtaken by the surefooted descender. Bernard Fortune of SBR who was 6^th to the summit had a blistering descent to finish in 2^nd place. This resulted in Bernard being crowned Leinster Champion for 2011 for the 5 race championship series.

Next home was Amidou Dembele originally from Mali but now based in Dublin. He too gave a great display of downhill running moving from 8^th place at the summit to finish in third place.

Another Wexford man, Des Kennedy, finished in 4^th place and won the over 40 prize.

Farmer finished in sixth position despite taking a nasty fall on the way down. Niall O’Connor finished 20th with Edward White not far behind in 23rd. There was a good battle between the Murphys, Brian and Paul with Brian finishing just 10 seconds ahead. Next home for the club was Stephen Tyrrell who was followed by another Murphy, Ger. The only Slaney Olympic lady was Deirdre Kavanagh who acquitted herself well on her first mountain run.

In the women’s race Aoife Joyce of Crossabeg who currently runs with Crusaders AC in Dublin was back after a couple of years of injury to have a crack at breaking her own record of 77.02 set in 2008. She had a great race winning in a new record of 76.20 some 4 minutes ahead of her nearest rival, Zoe Melling of Rathfarnham WSAF. First Junior was Martin Breen of SBR in a time of 76.02. First M50 was Jer Moloney who was 5^th overall in the race and Matt Kavanagh won M60.

After the race runners and supporters adjourned to the Holy Grail in Ballindaggan for prize giving and refreshments.

Results

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