Ladies First

In the ladies race there were some early moves on lap one by several visiting athletes, but it was home grown Diane Behan of West Waterford, who gradually moved through the field, showing good speed and endurance, to open a winning 50m lead. In second place, Angela Shine of Leevale was also showing no sign of slowing and despite a determined effort by Adele Walsh to haul her in on the final lap, still held a 10m lead at the finish. Still this was an excellent start by our leading lady and augers well for her Leinster campaign next week. Good runs too by Chi training partner Joanne Jackman and also great to see Eilis ni hAodha back to her best again.

Barefoot in the Park

In the men’s race Sandis Bralitis of Ballynonty set a cracking pace and never looked like being headed. One of the most interesting battles was for the Waterford Senior title as the evergreen James Sullivan of Waterford AC showed great fighting spirit but had to give best to Raivis Zakis of West Waterford with Mark Langford in 3^rd place. Owen Gahan was always well placed and looks to be rounding into good form finishing in 11^th place, while Aidan Lanigan continues to improve. Robert Duggan is another that is hitting a purple patch and showed plenty of stamina as he came through strongly on the final lap. Nicholas Halley gave brother Michael a bit of a fright, while Damien Walsh put his tough training of late to good use with a very fine run. Gerry Madden was followed by James Howley, who has been logging up some big miles of late and will benefit from a race at this stage. Next home was the ‘Gallopin’ Snagman’ PJ Dwyer, who was a worthy winner of the O/45 section. Our spiritual leader Bill Lacey had a good run proving that warm ups, warm downs, in fact running of any kind is superfluous, when you have natural talent. Mark Connolly was well placed in the O/40 section, while PJ Irish made his case for the ‘pair of spikes raffle’ by running barefoot through the park, however it was Robert Duggan who was the lucky winner when the draw was made. Others who ran well included Rocky Mernagh and Michael Power of St Josephs, with Rocky in flyin’ form of late. They could well make a movie about this guy!!