The National Half Marathon was held in the north Cork town of Charleville on Sunday morning last. Eight runners from North Sligo AC had a very early start to make the long journey to this sold out very well organized event. Conditions were almost perfect, a very calm dry morning greeted the runners as they started out on their 21.1k journey on a relatively flat course A team of six women's from the club were competing in the masters section of the race, one woman in the senior and one man in the men's masters section. Fiona Hennigan ran a superb race this talented runner whose progression this past few years has been curtained by injury had got several months of injury free running under her belt this year, this tall smooth runner crossed the finish line in a huge new personal best of 1 hour 26 min 18 sec almost 5 mins under her previous PB. Patricia McCosker despite missing a good chunk of training showed her great natural ability and dogged determination to run well for her team and finish in in a good time of 1 h 32 min 2 sec. Sarah Healy like her teammate didn't have a smooth run in to this race, this strong determined athlete overcame her challenges to put in another very good performance to finish in 1 h 33 min 23 sec to put her team in 2nd position for team silver in the over 35 section from 29 teams in their category, with a combined total time for the 3 scoring runners of 4 hrs 32 min 21 secs which was 3 minutes faster than last years combined time when the team finished 4th in Tullamore. Marie McDonald the 4th finisher is a runner who has improved vastly this past year and yesterday was no exception as she chopped another two minutes off her PB to cross the finish in 1 h 36 min 23 sec. Marita McMorrow who is more suited to the shorter races was happy with her time of 1 h 37 min 2 sec and Louise O'Connor ran her fastest half marathon so far as she crossed the finish 2 mins inside her PB in 1h 46 min 21 sec. Valeria Petrova was very tired after just returning 24 hours previously from her home city of Kiev in Ukraine and spending 23 hours on trains to get back. She still managed to finish in 1 h 42 min 1 sec.
Alan Wallace put in a very respective performance in the masters men's over 50 section to finish in 1 h 21 min 6 sec.
National Half Marathon L to R: Patricia McCosker, Sarah Healy, Fiona Hennigan, Alan Wallace, Louise O'Connor, Marie McDonald and Marita McMorrow.Â
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