All Pictures Copyright David Bradshaw (aka Wordle)

Full Flickr Set Available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25938822@N07/3476445867/

These and many other great race pictures can be viewed at http://www.racepix365.com

Thanks Dave!

Twelve months on from the excitement of Athenry AC's hosting of the 2008 AAI National 10k Championships, the action moved to Navan yesterday for the 2009 version of this fine race. Whilst we had a huge number of maroon and white singlets participating twelve months ago we were a more modest raiding party in Co.Meath this time around.

Brutes In Full Flow...

Six brave Athenry men and two proud Athenry women flew the flag and maintained our tradition of competing is this race each year since the re-establishment of the senior club. On the male side we had the two Flyin' Brians, (O'Connor and Bruton) along with Alan 'Mr.Chairman' Burke, Maurice 'Mr.Kitman' Clarke, Lyall 'Mr.Beardman' Guiney and myself Mick 'Mr.Injury' Rice. For the females we had Valerie 'Ultramarathon Woman' Glavin and Maria 'Il Capitano' Hehir.

Lyall - PB on the Day...!

For various reasons involving laziness, illness, career changes, holidays, misalligned chakras and goodness know what else we seemed unlikly to challenge for top honours on the day - and so it proved to be the case. It was a day to sit back and run - if that metaphor isn't too mixed. The detailed results of the race are not yet to hand and the people from the AAI say that they'll maintain that situation as long as we keep pumping cash into their bank account.

Don't Mess With The Zohan...!

All joshing aside, Brian Bruton had a fine run being first Athenry member home in a hair's breath over 36 minutes - not bad given that he only had a few weeks to train for this event. New kid on the block Lyall Guiney can also take great pride in his performance as he delivered a personal best performance over 10k of just over 40 minutes. This summer will surely see him well under that barrier. Valerie Glavin, fresh(ish) from her heroics in Connemara and Paris showed us all that is was possible to run well after such tough outings and she was another that posted a PB for the distance of around 44 minutes. Well done once again Valerie! It was a pity that we couldn't have recruited another woman from the club to make up a full women's team entry.

Miracles Never Cease...

The Main Man Maurice

The Start....

The End....