Oisin Lane competes in World Championships in Tokyo

It will be a late night/early morning for all members and friends of Mullingar Harriers, when this Friday at 12 midnight, 8am Saturday morning in Tokyo, Oisin Lane embarks on his 35km race walk.

The road to Tokyo has involved great planning and competing at the highest level for the 23-year-old. The qualifying method meant he had to compete in a number of competitions listed on the World Athletics Calendar. Rigid standards including a minimum of three graded and qualified international racewalking judges were a prerequisite for each event to be listed.

An athlete’s time at each event is converted into points. Additional points are earned based on finishing position and the ranking of the event, based on the standards achieved previously by the competing athletes. With other criteria around course specification and measurements, it means all competitions across the world can be evaluated against each other.

Oisin firstly focused on the Irish National 35km championship held in Raheny last December. He achieved a 6th place finish behind Tokyo Olympic Champion Massimo Stano (1st) and Paris Olympic silver medallist Caio Bonfirm (2nd) in a time of 2:37:35.

While achieving valuable ‘Road to Tokyo’ points, he still needed to improve his time over the distance and earn more points to meet world championship selection criteria.

Three weeks of warm weather training followed in January in the Algarve. That set Oisin up for the Spanish National 35km championship in March and he finished 4th in an excellent time of 2:31:53.

This was 3 and a half minutes inside the qualifying standard. While he had achieved the qualifying standard, Athletics Ireland policy requires that current form and fitness are proven before selection. Oisin did that in style when finishing 11th and setting a new 20km PB at the World University Games in Germany in July.

Focused now on the World championships, Oisin headed to the Swiss Alps for a month of altitude training. He was notified of his official selection on the Irish team in mid-August.

He is now in a training camp with the other elite Irish athletes preparing for the world championships in the heat and humidity of Hong Kong, before transferring in the next few days to Tokyo. The challenge of similar conditions awaits in the Olympic Stadium next Saturday morning.

We wish Oisin the best as he takes the best in the world. There to support will be father and coach Michael, who has contributed so much work to race walking at both club and national level over the last 25 years since retiring himself from a stellar career of race walking both nationally and internationally.

Also in Tokyo is Cian McPhillips (Longford AC), a regular at our facilities. The Mullingar Harriers link is provided by his coach Joe Ryan, our former chair. Best wishes to Cian in the 800m event at the World Championships.

Further medals add to haul of Mullingar Harriers from Tullamore Half Marathon

Last week we reported on the achievements of our athletes at the National Half Marathon championships in Tullamore. During the week when the Leinster County results were complete, as well as updating of individual results, more good news followed.

Aisling Corcoran was awarded both individual national bronze and Leinster silver medals in her master category. She was followed home closely by Criona Reid who captured individual Leinster bronze.

In the Leinster County event, the senior women’s team captured the silver medal, with Susan Glennon, Monika De Alemda (Athlone AC), Mary Stuart, Jacintha Reilly, Aisling Corcoran and Criona Reid making up the scoring members.

In the F35 category it was Gold for Westmeath with Aeilish McGovern, Zane Smukste, Aine O’Reilly, Laura Fitzpatrick, Orla Gillespie and Linda Cunningham.

The F50 team took silver with Maura Dervin, Triona Kinnane (Athlone AC), Lisa O’Rourke (Athlone AC) and Emer O’Hanlon.

The men’s M35 team took bronze with Dan Morris, Alan Crowley, Enda O’Carolan, Eoin Clarke, Paulius Patackas and Darren Carroll.

Fi4Life

This month sees the return of Fit4Life with the announcement this week of a 10-week programme running from Monday 29 September to Monday 8 December. The programme is for beginners and joggers, over 18 wishing to improve on their fitness levels.

With the assistance of trained coaches, participants build up their endurance on the all-weather track with structured training over each night.

Registration is from 6.45pm on 29 September and in each subsequent week the sessions begin at 7pm. An added extra this year is the involvement of McCabe’s Pharmacy who are sponsoring Fit4Life nationally through Athletics Ireland clubs.

They will be present at one of our sessions to provide participants with an opportunity to avail of a free health check on blood pressure, BMI and other related health matters of benefit individually to all involved.

Dingle Half Marathon

Susan Glennon made the long trip to West Kerry to take in the Dingle Half Marathon. An event ran in conjunction with a full marathon; it is noted for its splendid scenery but with many difficult hilly sections. In overcast and cool conditions, Susan ran a very steady race and came home 2nd lady in a time of 1:25:27.

Lucan Harriers 5 miles

The annual Lucan Harriers 5-mile race attracted 567 runners to the Dublin venue on Sunday morning. It was overcast and a stiff breeze reduced the humidity levels on a challenging course with some stiff inclines. Enda Seery was the sole participant from Mullingar Harriers. He was pleased with his time of 31:14.

Morning Trail Run – Kenmare

Leona Behan also took to the Kingdom at the weekend. She completed what is called the Morning Trail Run, a 59km over hill and mountain trails in the Kenmare area of the county. Leona completed the distance in 8 hours 41 minutes 56 seconds. The elevation gain in her trek across the mountains was a staggering 1,716 meters. A great achievement and certainly gives her plenty of confidence to tackle the shorter traditional marathon of 42.2km in Dublin at the end of October.

Upcoming Fixtures

The cross-country season is upon us. From last Saturday and over the coming months our adult group will have their training at Belvedere. Similar arrangements are being made for our juvenile groups. Plenty of cross-country competition coming up over the next number of weeks as set out below:

24 September – Westmeath Schools Cross-Country at Belvedere

28 September – Star of the Sea AC Open Cross Country at Stamullen, Co. Meath

5 October - Athletics Westmeath XC Day 1 (U8, 10, 12, 14, 16 & u/18, u/19, u/20, Novice, Senior, Masters), at Belvedere

12 October - Athletics Westmeath XC Day 2 (U9, 11, 13, 15, 17), Belvedere

50th anniversary book launch

The 50th anniversary book launch takes place on 24 September. There has been a strong take up on pre orders for the book online through our website. Don’t forget to put in your order and we look forward to seeing current and former members assembled for a memorable evening at Bloomfield House Hotel later this month.

Check the club’s website at mullingarharriers.com or its Facebook page for all the latest news.