from Athenry AC website Report and Photographs Courtesy of Tom Hunt Mayo AC The Ballina 10k, which took place on Sunday, was the sixth race in the 2008 Mayo AC C&C Cellular Road Race League. Conditions were very wet on the day but did not dampen the enthusiasm of participants. This popular course starts and finishes beside the Moy and is a nice combination of town and the sylvan surroundings of Beleek.
Mayo AC’s John Byrne was the clear winner in 32.12, showing the great form he is in at the moment following his PB in 9th place the National Half Marathon the previous week. In that same race in Waterford his clubmate Ronnie Naylor won silver individual in the o50 category in 80.45 and helped Mayo AC to gold in the group 2 masters team section. This was a long awaited and well deserved national medal for Ronnie who has been a great servant and supporter of athletics in Ballina for over 35 years. On Sunday, he was the winner of the o50 category in an excellent 36.22. The women’s race also featured many of Mayo AC’s successful team in Waterford. Mary Gleeson from Claremorris was the winner by a big margin in 38.10, just outside her winning time of last year. Olivia Feeney (Sligo AC) was second and a resurgent Ann Murray (Mayo AC) was back to fine form in third in 41.47. Kathy Connolly (Mayo AC) was 4th in a personal best of 42.14 and helped Mayo AC to first place in the team section.
Many athletes enjoy running in the rain and it enabled quite a few PBs on the day. Among the Mayo AC achievers were Dave Huane who finished in 37.34, PJ Hall in 41.05, Breege Staunton in 47.48 while o50 Chris O’Connell (49.05) knocked a minute off his Carramore time and Mary Moylett finished strongly in 49.06.
Despite the popularity of this 10k course the number of participants seem to be dropping in recent years and the organisers may need to look into the reasons for this as other races around the province seem to be increasing their numbers recently.
Ballina is the venue for the next race, the 7th in the league, the ‘Terry Fox’ 4 miles on Sunday 12th October. This race takes place annually at venues all over the world in support of the Terry Fox Foundation which raises funds for cancer research in memory of a brave young Canadian.
The race starts and finishes beside the track at Beleek.