Last Saturday we had our second challenge in the CSH training plan for the upcoming club 5k. The route was a challenging 2.4 mile lap of the Khyber and S bends, starting at the bottom of the Khyber.

The pace was set by Eoin Devlin but Patrick O’Reilly pushed him throughout with both finishing in times of 13:14 and 13:20 respectively. There was race on for 3^rd with Noel Ryan (13:58) setting a good pace but unable to hold off the challenge of Gareth Horgan (13:48) and Paul Foran (13:56) who finished strong for 3^rd & 4^th place respectively.

Andrew Moore (14:25) continued his recovery just holding off Johnny Murphy (14:29) and Sean Ryan (14:50). We had strong finishes from Nick Devery (15:44), Vincent O’Neill (16:07) and John Meagher (16:20) and also Brendan Healy (15:46) who’s on the comeback trail from injury.

Next home was Keith Farrell (17:11), just back to training following the first few weeks of fatherhood. He was “happy to have survived” the race. Next home was our first lady Christina Kerr (17:24) after a great run, followed by Tom Walsh (18:35), Sunil Singh (19:15), Barry Ryan (19:27), Ciaran Belton (19:42), Brain Doyle and Joe Delaney (20:46) who still had a smile on his face afterwards. It was unclear whether it was of joy or delirium.

Paul McEvoy and Andrea Doyle could not be separated over the course in a photo finish of 23:54.

It was a great challenge and one I’m sure we will revisit once we get our breaths back so thanks to Patrick O’Reilly for organising as part of the training plan. Keep up the training – just one challenge to go before the Civil Service Harriers 5k on July 25^th.