County Galway’s Valerie Glavin has set a new Irish indoor record after running more than 200km.
The Athenry AC athlete was one of four athletes from the club to compete in the recent 24 hour indoor endurance marathon held in Finland. Glavin completed 558 laps - the equivalent of 217.8km - more than five marathons and longer than the distance from Eyre Square to the Millennium Spike in O’Connell Street.
Her effort was enough to take second place in the ladies’ event and sixth place overall as she led home the Athenry AC team with clubmates Ruth Ann Sheehan (188km and seventh place ), Mick Rice (165k ) and Ray O’Connor (122k ).
In the Celtic Schools International in Cardiff, two Galway athletes made the Irish team. GCH's Alanna Lally continued her classy form by winning the 800m with an indoor PB of 2:18.17, narrowly missing the event record of 2.18.01. Lally has also been selected by Athletics Ireland as the Galway juvenile star for 2010 at an awards ceremony to be held in the Sheraton Hotel in Athlone on February 12. She will next compete for Ireland in the Celtic International cross country in Dublin on Sunday.
Galway’s second athlete on her international debut, Claire Ryder of Craughwell AC, finished second in the long jump with a 4.88 indoor PB. Ryder’s best jump of the day was her second attempt when she recorded 4.79m jump despite being behind the board . Her 4.88m came on her fourth and final jump to put her into second place. The medal-winning performances of both girls helped the Irish girls to victory in the team event.
The national combined events took place in Nenagh on Saturday. The performance of the day came from Craughwell AC’s Maria McNamara who won with 400 points to spare over her competitors. She came first in the high jump (1.59 ) and the 800m (2.43 ) and second in the long jump and shot. Evan McGuire of GCH won a silver medal in the under 17 boys - his first competition after missing the 2010 T&F season through illness.
. The Connaught Schools Cross Country was held last Thursday in St Mary’s College Galway. Of the eight races there were three individual victories for members from Athenry AC ( Ciara Greene of Bower Athlone, Nicholas Sheehan of Calasanctius Oranmore, Finn Stoneman of St Enda’s ) and four individual silvers (Sinead Treacy of St Raphael’s, Linda Porter of Loughrea VS, Conor Gillen of Athenry VS, Peadar Harvey of Colaiste an Eacreidh ) and one individual bronze (Jamie Spelman of Calasanctius Oranmore ).
