Race report by James Lundon. The 2011 Galway road racing bandwagon rolled into the hamlet of
Beagh/Shanaglish yesterday. Race director Margaret Walsh was
organising her 2nd annual 10KM from the Beagh Community Centre,
which was fully AAI permitted and Jones Counter measured etc.
The proceeds from the race are going to the same Community
Centre.
The weather gods mostly smiled on her and her crew’s super
efforts yesterday, with only spits of rain coming before and
after the race itself. She could do nothing about that or the
very bitter wind that swirling around the start/finish line all
afternoon. It was a bitter day to be standing about, if not
running :-].
Over 125 (runners and walkers) toed the line, running around a
pan-handled clockwise course which included the small village of
Shanaglish – not unlike Ballycotton in layout. Thoughts of the
old-time Shanaglish Sports abounded – the Beagh race is a direct
descendent of those mythical flapper sports of the 40s right up to
very recent times.
The men’s race was won by Jason Broderick, very closely followed
by Timmy Glavey (good luck to Clarinbridge on St Patrick’s Day!)
and our own Conor Dolan (fresh from his 67th place finish down in
Ballycotton 7 days earlier) only slightly further back.
The women’s race was just as close with Noreen McGettigan
[Letterkenny AC] winning in a good contest from Helen Corbett
[GCH]. Diarmuid Quill split these two women, clocking yet another
PB in the process – he is dangerously close to sub-41 minute
territory now! Our own Aoife Callan was in the prizes again, for
the third time in a row in recent weeks.
A race result was duly produced and people were out the door and
on their way home 1.75 hours after the race started, 3:45PM. A
good afternoon’s work for all involved.
With the Craughwell 10M next Sunday, I had to test my own fitness
so ran the course myself in semi-time trial mode afterwards,
going out in 23:17 and coming home in a slightly more respectable
22:56. It had started pouring out of the heavens by halfways,
whatever about the bitterly cold March wind that had been there
earlier which I didn’t feel any more.
A scenic and rollercoaster of a course, never knowing what was around the next corner. The 6 and 9 KMs are mostly uphill and are the KMs most likely to lose people time, going in under the new highway around the 5KM marker and back over it around the 7KM one.
Congratulations to Margaret and her merry band of helpers on a very efficient race, the second of many I hope; an event that deserves the support of all road runners in the surrounding areas.
The organizers would like to thank all their sponsors especially MJ Sport in Gort and Amphibian King in Oranmore.