Mullingar Harriers athletes excel at recent meetings

A number of Mullingar Harriers athletes were in action on a warm and dry evening in Tallaght on Wednesday of last week – lovely conditions for running – for the second Dublin Graded Meeting.

Charles Okafor (pictured above with Brian Martin) competed in the 200m A race, his first race since the National Senior Indoors at the end of March, over four months ago.

Running in lane eight he powered around the bend to put himself in contention coming into the straight, keeping his form and pace reasonably well into a headwind on the home straight to finish third in 22.50 seconds, below his best but no surprise in his first race after such a long layoff.

Charles was upbeat after the race, delighted to finally get an outdoor track race under his belt this year, and looking forward to sharpening up with further competition in the coming weeks.

The 800m A race was extremely competitive and the two Mullingar Colin Smiths were in action. The elder Colin ran a very aggressive opening lap but paid for it somewhat in the final stages to finish in 1:56.32, off his best but this was his first 800m in a long time and he badly needed to race again.

The younger Colin ran a conservative first lap and was full of running in the closing stages, finishing strongly in a new personal best of 1:58.09 and will certainly improve on this as he grows in confidence and runs more aggressively in the early stages.

Brian Martin has been nursing a recent ankle injury, so he elected to run in the 800m B race where he won comfortably, pulling away to finish in 2:00.75, which will give him confidence for his next outing.

Fagan dominates in Leixlip

The Le Chéile AC Senior Summer Meeting took place in warm dry but quite windy conditions in Leixlip last Friday evening where the clear 5,000m pre-race favourite, Harriers’ Claire Fagan stamped her authority on the race after a few kilometres.

Turning the screw and increasing her lead with every step and going on to win in a very good 16:59.39, she lapped everyone else in the field, except one, and finished nearly a full lap ahead of second place demonstrating her class and will be one to watch in the National Senior T&F.

Colin Smith (the older one), learning from the Dublin Graded just days before, put in a more measured performance in the 800m. He was nicely positioned at the bell and stayed in contention for most of the race, and even though he came home in 1:57.07, allowing for the windy conditions, this was a better race for him and he continues to hone and improve his racing tactics with every outing.

Triple jump PB for Shauna Leydon

Making the long trip to Cork for the second evening of the Leevale 2020 Summer Evening T&F at Cork IT on Thursday July 30, despite not having jumped in competition since the indoors, Shauna Leydon was delighted to post a new personal best of 10.69m in the triple jump.

Looking to build on that, taking full advantage of the beautiful warm and sunny weather for the AAI National Field Events Festival in Santry last Saturday morning, Shauna Leydon put together another great series of jumps in the triple jump, five of them near her best, and is coming right into form in this very challenging technical event.