Ruth Walsh – Lead female
Neil O’Rourke – Lead male
By Rod Toner
To gently ease members into 2022 and help kickstart their preparation for a variety of run events in February and March leading into a summer of triathlons, Sligo Tri Club ran a series of 5k runs over six consecutive weeks from February 03 to March 13.
There was great excitement on Sunday night, February 05, following the first weekend of the series with Club Committee PRO, Neil O’Rourke, appearing to top the leader board only to have experienced club men Kevin O’Donnell and Trevor Hunter spoil his celebrations with their last-minute submission of faster times.
In total, twenty-one members participated in the series; eight of whom completed all six 5k runs.
Week 3 saw new member Lewis Clarke break the 20-minute mark with an impressive time of 19:53.
Elizabeth Flynn was fastest female with a time of 22:37 in week 5, albeit it’s rumoured that Elizabeth had a faster 5k split time running the Bundoran 10-mile event the previous weekend.
As the series concluded, Neil had the last laugh being named as the overall male winner for consistently breaking the 25-minute mark in five of his six 5k runs. The missed week was forgivable as Neil put in a gruelling 16k run at a slower than normal pace in preparation for the Bundoran 10. I actually passed him twice in the car that day giving an acknowledging honk of the horn only to be met with a strained face and dejected nod of the head. The impressive run time in Bundoran made it all worthwhile.
Ruth Walsh was crowned as leading female (the tiara is in the post) for her marked improved times over the series knocking an impressive 5:53 off her week 1 time.
A huge congratulations to all who participated in the 5k run series as we now turn our attention to duathlons and our Club Sprint/Super Sprint Triathlon over the coming weeks.
