JUVENILE NEWS

The weather has been against us with Little Athletics & Juvenile training cancelled last week due to torrential rain. Neither the young people nor the coaches would enjoy training in that weather. Hopefully as we continue into spring the weather will be more favourable and the bright evenings will be an added bonus. In the meantime keep an eye on clubZap of the coming weeks as that where training updates will be.

Coaches Training

On Friday Juvenile Coaches Taz, Nicole and Ruth and Little Athletics Coaches Myself, Karen and Wala braved the cold to attend our third and final Athletics Ireland Run, Jump, Throw session and Lucan Harriers. This week Rolus Olusa focused on Hurdles and Long Jump. With the help of 6 Juveniles from Lucan Harriers Rolus brought us step by step through warm ups, drills and coaching hurdles and long jump. We all look forward to putting what we have learned in practice on Thursday evenings.

Newbridge House Junior Park Run

Another super LSA turnout at Junior Parkrun on Sunday. There were 11 listed LSA participants with PB's for Maria Sheridan and Caroline Brady, a fantastic second place finish for Reuben Capocci and a first place finish and new course record for Mark Kelly in an impressive 7.17 Well Done All !

Thanks as Always to the volunteers without their help this fantastic event could not take place. This week the Race Director was our very own Dara Carr who put all the little athletes through their paces with a fabulous warm up. If you have an hour free any Sunday be sure to sign up to volunteer!

Mark Kelly - First Place finisher and new course record holder

Lots of young and not so young volunteers

A fantastic Warm up from Dara Carr

Track & Field

Track and Field Update 11th and 12th March

Report by Enda Gavigan

It was another busy weekend of competition on all fronts with Junior Park run in Newbridge House and super Club results from the Bohermeen Half Marathon and Garristown Windmill 10K and a busy two days both home and abroad on Track and Field.

Saturday action

With the horrendous weather of Saturday, the only place was to be indoors, and where better than the National Indoor Arena for the Leinster Junior U20, Senior and Master Championships where a great selection of our athletes turned out for the event.

Action commenced early on Saturday morning with Suzie Linkiewicz our first athlete on track. Both Suzie and Michelle Branigan will represent LSA at the upcoming National Juvenile Finals and were stepping up in age to the U20 level today to gain some valuable race time ahead of this. After a challenging Junior Womens U20 heat Suzie JUST missed out on qualification for the final by the narrowest of margins with a time of 8.31s.

Suzie & Michelle

Master athletes Dara Carr and Sarah Minto were next in the 60m with Dara Carr W50 continuing her winning ways with Gold and another PB of 8.74s and Sarah Minto in her very first Masters 60m at 9.68s. Well done Sarah

Dara was back in action again for the W50 200m with yet another great performance to win Gold in a time of 29.75s. These two performances set Dara up very well for the upcoming World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships in Toruń in two weeks. Wishing her the best of luck!!

Now it was Anthony Sharkey’s turn in the M35 1500m. Anthony, more accustomed to trail blazing performances on the road is really getting his teeth into track competition now with a fantastic 2nd place Silver medal in a time of 4.23.64.

Not to be outdone, the very versatile Eimear Caulfield running in W40 3000m chalked up another great performance and a Silver medal in a time of 11.05.56.

With proceedings delayed, Michelle Branigan had a long wait for her Junior U20 400m heat. When it eventually got under way, Michelle found herself in a very competitive heat finishing 4th in 1:06:14. This heat produced both the Silver and Bronze medalists on the day and is great experience for Michelle ahead of the upcoming National Juvenile Finals.

The day finished with the Relay excitement! Our W40 womens 200 relay team of Sarah Minto, Karen Moloney, Helen Roche and Dara Carr rounded off a very productive day taking Silver in a time of 2:15:41

Sunday action

We moved south to sunnier climes for our Sunday Field action, as far as Leiria Portugal in fact where LSA’s Anna Gavigan was part of a seven athlete team representing Ireland at the European Throwing Cup, having made the qualification standard for Womens U23 Discus.

Anna, who at 18 is still a Junior U20 athlete was up against many of Europe’s big hitters who were gathered for the event. It all made for a very exciting competition! Anna was undeterred by this, and showed great composure running in eight place after three throws flying out a Seasons Best of 46.95 meters in the process, just one meter shy of her PB 47.95.

In the final three rounds, Anna maintained her great consistency, producing another big 46.68m throw. The final shake up saw the Norwegian girl, Flatum with the last throw of the competition come from 10th to win with a European U23 Lead throw of 56.54, pushing the Italian, Conte who had lead from the start with a PB of 56.18 into second and Anna finishing a very creditable 12th place in the final shake up – edge of the seat stuff indeed.

Other Irish performances of note were Nicola Tuthill’s fantastic podium placing, with a Hammer throw of over 64m to place 2nd with Silver in the U23 Women’s Hammer and a new National Senior Men’s Shot Putt Record of 20.66m for Eric Favors of Raheny Shamrocks.

A big thank you to Coach Gerry Ronan for the hours of work he puts in behind the scenes and to Dave Sweeney and the Athletics Ireland crew who looked after the athletes so well on the trip.

Dates for the Diary

This is the perfect opportunity for our younger athletes to try out a variety of track and field competitions. There’s a change in the format this year with the first three in each event/ age group receiving medals on the day, as well as accumulating points in the league.

We will need the assistance of parents and coaches to participate in this league.

ADULT NEWS

Dublin County Championships - Garristown 10k

LSA well and truly left a lasting impression on the Windmill 10k on Sunday 12th March. This race has become a lot faster & more competitive since the infamous bog Hill was taken out of the route and is part of the Dublin Men's 10k Road Championships. LSA left taking a fine collection of medals with Anthony Sharkey winning Gold M35, Conor Henry taking Bronze M30-34 and Bronze for Steven Rice M50. Well done all.

Conor Henry, Derek Jones, Leslie Brooks, Steven Rice and Anthony Sharkey

Bohermeen Half Marathon

The excitement continued for LSA on Sunday with 21 LSA athletes participating in the Bohermeen Half Marathon! It was a birthday PB for intermediate coach Amanda who ran it in an impressive 01:52 on her 52nd Birthday knocking a full 5 minutes of her previous PB from the Dublin Race Series half marathon. Well done Amanda!!

A special shout our to Cecelia Munro who completed her first half marathon, first of many I am sure Cecilia!

Massive well done to all 21 LSA participants and to the supporters particularly those that came straight from the Windmill Race to support their running buddies.

Amanda with her dream team pacers and coaching buddies Stephan & Fintan

Always nice to have support on route

Donabate Parkrun

LSA was well represented as always at last weeks Donabate Parkrun with 19 members participating and PB's for Cathal Brady, Sarah Roux, Niamh Ni Ghrifin & Taz (Taz has had PB last 3 weeks in a row!!) Huge well done to all who took part. Huge thanks to this weeks volunteers who were all from Fingal Women's Running Group!

DON'T FORGET LSA PARKRUN TAKE OVER 25th March

Ian's 50th Parkrun

Our very own Ian Tiernan will be proudly running is 50th Parkrun this Saturday 18th March. If you are free please join him for the run and tea & cake afterwards.

Did You Know...

LSA currently has members spanning 3 generations! Aisling from our Fit4Life group encouraged her mam Paula to join C25k group before christmas. Having graduated from that in January Paula now also trains with our Fit4Life Group. In February Aisling's daughter Tilly joined our 2016 Little Athletics group. We now have Grandmother Paula, daughter Aisling and granddaughter Tilly all active members of LSA.

LSA on Tour

Ali Conway brought LSA to two countries this week....

Ali braving the cold in Canada

Ali in Seattle - heading on a very exciting 737 Max Factory Tour!

And Finally...

As always if there is anything at all you would like to see in future newsletters please contact me on WhatsApp 0879583807. There is no Newsletter without News!!!! Thanks Kelly x