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Provisional results of primary schools crosscountry semis

Provisional results of todays races are at:

2017GalwayPrimarySchoolsXC_SemiFinalsResults.pdf

Well done to all participants!

The Top 40 in each race plus the top 5 teams in each race will go forward to the County Finals, which will be held next Tuesday 26th September in Renmore, Galway again (start of first race will be 12 noon).

There will be four races, 3rd and 4th Class Girls, 3rd/4th Boys, 5th /6th Girls and 5th /6th Boys.

Great Day Out at XYEA 5k and Inflatable Colour Run

Main sponsor Pat Reidy presenting the Family 5k Trophy to Craughwell's fastest family ... the Miskellas!

The club enjoyed another wonderful day of colour and fun at the XYEA 5k which was held around the Grenage loop and the Inflatable Colour Run held in the club’s grounds and the adjoining fields. The meandering 2.1km route through the fields proved a popular challenge with all 700 participants, with plenty of colour dashes on the way around and exciting inflatable obstacles to add to the challenge. A big thank you to Packy and Anne Martyn for the use of their fields and also to John O'Connor and Daniel O'Brien for their brilliant photos of the event ... all on his website here ... https://www.flickr.com/photos/edenhill77/albums/with/72157686764449644. The club is also very grateful to Craughwell GAA for the use of their carpark and to Craughwell NS for the use of their grounds.

Enjoying the fun before the start of the colour run

A small but formidable group later took to the roads for the XYEA 5k race sponsored by Pat Reidy’s Xyea (IT Consultancy). William Fitzgerald put in a blistering run to take victory in an excellent time of 17:07. He was following in by David Carter, formerly one of GCH’s leading juveniles making a return to the sport and recording a time of 17:35 with Jack Miskella taking 3rd place in a time of 17:57. Luke Evans took the U18 prize in a time of 18:06 while Mark Davis was first O40 in a time of 18:14.

Caron Ryan took victory in the women’s race in a super time of 18:48 while sisters Ailbhe and Emily Miskella took second and third places in 21:49 and 22:50 – fantastic times! And mum Celia make it a remarkable day when taking victory in the women’s O40 category in a time of 25:45. And dad Paul got in on the excitement too when combining with his prize-winning family to take the Family Trophy for the fastest family!

Results of the 5k are here:- 5kresults.pdf. 

The club wish to express its gratitude to the main sponsor of the event - Pat Reidy (Xyea) and to the sponsors of the 5k prizes - Tom French - Enhanced Performance Galway; Ronnie Warde - Optimum Body; Galway Bay Physio; French Vanoli; Aileen O Rourke - Galway Physio PIlates; Jane-Ann Meehan - Athenry Physiotherapy and Performance Clinic; Dan O'Callaghan - Force Fitness; Ronnie Galvin - Creole Restaraunt; The Backballer. And a big well done also on behalf of all members of the club to the main coordinators of the day - Tracy Moran (colour run) and Michael Walsh (5k race director).

Pat Reidy (Xyea) with the top 3 in the Men's 5k
David Carter (2nd), William Fitzgerald (1st), Jack Miskella (3rd)

Pat Reidy (Xyea) with the top 3 in the Women's 5k
Ailbhe Miskella (2nd), Caron Ryan (1st), EmilyMiskella (3rd)

Pat Reidy (Xyea) with Luke Evans, winner of the U18 category

Pat Reidy (Xyea) with Celia Miskella, winner of the O40 Women's category

Pat Reidy (Xyea) with Mark Davis, winner of the O40 Men's category

Pat Reidy (Xyea) presenting a sponsorship cheque to Race Director Michael Walsh
along with Club Chairperson Marian McEvilly and PRO Mike Tobin

Excitement is mounting! Get your tickets today!

Inflatable Colour Run Coming to Craughwell AC!

The highly popular Inflatable Colour Run which is currently running at venues throughout Ireland have selected Craughwell AC as their only Galway venue ... on Saturday 16th September. The organisers of this nationwide event will donate 20% of the entrance fee to the club's facility funds for every ticket booked through the club's website/link. A discount of 10% will be given for bookings that use the promotional code CRAUGHWELL10.

Note its important to use this website link rather than the main eventbrite Galway link as the organisers use this to determine the bookings associated with the club and the funds raised for the club is determined by just the bookings though our own link.

The event will run back to back with the club's Xyea Family 5k on the same day. Families or individuals booking into both the colour run and the 5k will receive a discount on the 5k entry fee. 

Who can forget the wonderful day we had last year when we hosted Operation Transformation at our colour run and our Xyea Family 5k. This year’s event promises to be even bigger and better. Pat Reidy's Xyea are back on board as the main sponsor of the Family 5k and we will be adding more prizes for dad/daughter pair, mum/son pair etc ... more information will be announced on this shortly.

The colour run is a seperate event and is part of a nationwide series of inflatable colour runs throughout Ireland with the organisers hiring our grounds for the day and donating

All funds generated from the event will go to the next phase of the club’s development – which is the provision of a walking pathway around the facility and the first phase of a fabulous multi-sport indoor training centre.

So the club is encouraging all of our members and supporters to check out www.craughwellac.com and book your tickets early through its link https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/inflatable-colour-run-craughwell-ac-galway-tickets-35641075416. Members and friends are asked to use this link in order for the organisers to pass 20% of the income to the club. It promises to be fabulous fun day out for all of the family and community right on our doorsteps, while at the same time raising much needed funds for what is becoming a wonderful community facility.

Flashback to last year's event

Most of our members and the community will have seen the work done on the facility so far. We have made such massive progress in a short space of time since buying the 8 acre side beside the school in September 2014. The event will be the 3-year anniversary of the site purchase and together with the purchase and initial development, the club has so far invested €460k in the project through a combination of fund-raising, loans and grants. Alongside this, our coaches and committee are working hard through the different age groups to make training and competition enjoyable and help our members achieve to their potential. Our facility will be instrumental in supporting our members to enjoy the sport even more and will make training easier in adverse weather conditions.

The next phase of the facility is another major undertaking but the club is strong and with everyone's support, it will be a success. So please support our day. If not taking part, come on down to enjoy the fun and support us anyway as it promises to be a great community day out.

Artistic impressiion of our new facility by the talented Emma Urquhart

Upcoming fixtures

Tue 19-Sep-17 Primary School Galway Primary Schools Cross-Country Semi-Finals, Renmore
Sat 23-Sep-17 Castlegar Open Cross Country - juveniles and seniors, Doughiska
Tue 26-Sep-17 Primary School Galway Primary Schools Cross-Country Finals, Renmore
Sat 30-Sep-17 Longford AC Open Cross Country -1st/2nd years and adults, Moyne Community School, Longford
Sun 01-Oct-17 U10/Older Galway U10/12/14/16/18 & Adult Cross Country, Tuam
Sun 08-Oct-17 U9/Older Galway U9/U11/13/15/17/19 Cross Country, venue tbd
Thu 12-Oct-17 Secondary School Connacht Schools Multi-Events, Athlone IT
Sat 21-Oct-17 Primary School Connacht Primary Schools Cross-Country & Senior League, Roscommon
Sat 28-Oct-17 Secondary School All-Ireland Schools Multi-Events, Athlone IT
Sun 29-Oct-17 U12/Older Connacht U12/14/16/18 XC & Seniors, Calry, Hazelwood, Sligo
Sun 05-Nov-17 U11/Older Connacht U11/13/15/17/19/Junior XC & Seniors, Moyne Community School, Longford
Fri 10-Nov-17 International Schools Combined Events, Glasgow
Sun 26-Nov-17 U12/Older AAI Inter Club and Even Juvenile Age Groups Cross Country, Abbotstown
Sun 17-Dec-17 U11/Older AAI Novice and Uneven Juvenile Age Groups Cross Country, venue tbd

Sports & Recreation Park Membership

Craughwell AC Sports & Recreation Park Membership 

Craughwell AC’s Sports & Recreation Park is an 8-acre park adjacent to Craughwell village and Craughwell National School. The club are continually are continually developing the park to provide high quality facilities and to help finance this, the club make its facilities available to the public at certain hours for a small annual fee of €50 which equates to less than €1 per week. This fee contributes to the upkeep of the facility and the repayment of loans.

Current facilities available include:-

Read more: Sports & Recreation Park Membership

Triple Track Titles for Shauna!

Shauna Bocquet had an incredible weekend at the England Age Group Championships held in Bedford on Sunday. These championships are widely considered to be the pinnacle of athletics competitions in these islands across all disciplines and abilities.

Shauna put in a magnificent series of performances to come away with the Championship titles in three of the four events in which she took part - winning the 100m in a time of 19.40, the 400m in 1:06.64 and the 1500m in a time of 4:23.71.

For good measure Shauna also took silver in the 200m in a time of 34.41 – crossing the line first but placed 2nd as it’s a Paralympic discipline so the final placings are decided using a point system to allow all disability categories to compete together.

Videos of some of Shauna’s races are online at the links below:-

    100 200 400

It was an exceptional performance against the best wheelchair athletes on these islands, one that even England Athletics remarked on in their report on the event and one that certainly marks out the Ardrahan athlete as one to watch for the future.

New Craughwell AC Clothes Recycling Facility

We want to become your (and your neighbors) sole destination for recycling old clothes and shoes.  It has the potential to generate significant revenue for the club to help pay back loans used to develop the club’s facilities.

With over 300 families in the club:-

• 300 families giving 4 bags of old clothes each per year = 1200 bags
  
• 1200 bags = approx. €6000!
  
• 300 families asking their neighbors to do same or offering to bring the bags up on their behalf = €€€ 
  
  

To help this, we have moved our clothes recycling facility down to the container on the new field. It will be emptied weekly or fortnightly. See picture above - a big thank you to Eamonn Cummins and Mick Gallagher for the work on adapting the container for recycling. We are asking parents to really get behind recycling as it helps us and helps you.

Please don’t use the toilets container on the school grounds anymore for leaving clothes – please drop it into the container on the new grounds which has a purpose-made window for this. And please don’t use the old blue bin on the school grounds anymore – it is now padlocked.

WE WANT

• New or old clothes, sheets, curtains.
• Pairs of old shoes
  
  

WE DON’T WANT (and please don’t leave this stuff as we get stuck with it and have to pay to dispose it):

• Duvets
• Pillows
• Books
• Household rubbish (yes unfortunately – even nappies were left in the old bin)
  
  

So please help us to make this a success. Our target is to generate €10,000 per year on this but we can only do it with everyone's support. €10,000 allows us to borrow 10 times this - so it has the potential to build alot of facilities and is easy to do if families get behind it.

Athletes Shine in National Community Games and National League

Craughwell’s Ryan Gallagher and Ava Finn
who competed in the U16 Boys High Jump and U14 Girls Long Jump
at the National Community Games finals

The track and field season wrapped up last weekend with the National finals of both the Community Games and the National Track & Field League. In the League in Tullamore, the club had a number of athletes representing County Galway where the county team put in a strong performance to place 6th overall and retain their position in the Premier Division. Maeve Curley strode to victory in the 1500m race walk in a time of 7.08.24 while Laura Cunningham and Sineád Treacy combined with GCH to take 3rd place in the 4x100m in a time of 50.91. There were a number of 4th place finishes including Rachel Finnegan in the 400m hurdles (70.70), Lorraine Delaney in the high jump (1.50m), Sinead Treacy in the 200m (26.83) and Arlene Earls in the 4x400m (4.13.51) while Sarah Finnegan placed 5th in the 100m hurdles (18.34), Laura Cunningham 6th in the triple jump (9.70m) and Sinead Treacy 6th in the long jump (4.87m).

Finbar McFadden and Chloe Casey who competed in the U16 Boys 1500m and U16 Girls Discus 
at the National Community Games finals with Finbar placing 10th and Chloe 2nd

Craughwell's U13 4x100m Mixed Relay who competed at the National Community Games finals in Abbotstown

The National finals of the Community Games were held in the marvellous facilities of the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown for the first time where several athletes from the club took part. Chloe Casey took the silver medal in the U16 Girls discus while Conor Hoade took bronze in the U14 Boys Hurdles. Ryan Gallagher tied for 4th place in the U16 Boys High Jump with a PB of 1.70m but had to settle for 6th place on countback of knocked bars. The U13 Mixed Relay Team of Fauve Aylmer, Evan Hallinan, Jade Moorhead and Ryan McDonnell made it through to the semi-finals of the 4x100m where they placed 6th. Finbar McFadden had a strong run to make the final of the U16 Boys 1500m where he placed 10th in an excellent 4.32 while Aleisha Larkin, Rebecca Lynch and Ava Finn battled hard in the U16 100m, U14 javelin and U14 long jump with Ava unlucky to have to withdraw due to injury after her first jump. 

Ryan Gallagher continued to impress after the event with an excellent interview in the Irish Independent !! See below for details.

Shauna Stars in Coventry Classic!

Shauna Bocquet pictured with Kare Adenegan at the Coventry Godiva Classic
Kate won silver in the 100m and bronze in the 800m
at the World Paralympics Championships in London this year

Shauna Bocquet competed recently in Coventry at the Godiva Classic with some excellent performances and 4 Personal Bests out of 5 events. Shauna raced 100m, 400m and 1500m on the Saturday and 100m, 200m and 800m on the Sunday.

Saturday started off with the 100m where Shauna raced to a time of 19.08 but the wind reading was not legal at +2.3m/s. Later that day in 400m Shauna clocked a 2 seconds PB of 65.66 to better the time she had set at the Diamond League back in September 2016 and she rounded off the day with a massive 14 seconds PB in the 1500m in a time of 4.20.15!

Sunday went off to a flyer with the 800m where Shauna managed to hang on with some senior athletes and then came around them to win in a sprint finish earning herself a 7 seconds PB in a time of 2.10.97! Three hours later in the 100m, she could not better her PB but still posted a strong performance with 19.34 only 0.07 away from her best time and finished the day with another PB in the 200m where she clocked 34.20 to take 2nd place thanks to a very strong finish in the last 50m. Great results after a good block of training before this competition.

Shauna has one more competition next Sunday with the England Age Group in Bedford where she will be competing in the U14 girls over 100m, 200m, 400m and 1500m.

Athletics Training Times - Get Fit, Be Active!

Athletics training will be resuming shortly for all age groups. Please see below for the different times.

Parents and teenagers and young adults please read on!

For anyone new or considering the sport, we accept new members at any time of the year. You can try it out for 3 training sessions and then would need to register with the club in order to continue.

You are never too old to start a new activity.

Athletics is a super activity from both a health and fitness and a competitive perspective. Many of our members do it for just for health/fitness/social reasons. Many more do it for both that and for competitive reasons with 100s of our members winning county and regional medals and many going on to win National medals and in several instances represent Ireland internationally.

Media outlets regularly flag the oncoming health crisis which is looming in Ireland. The World Health Organisation have predicted that Ireland will be the most obese country in Europe by 2030. The Irish Independent reported today that a large % of teenagers lack the basic fundamental movement skills of running, jumping, throwing and catching.

The onus is on parents to ensure our kids exercise and the easiest way to do this is to have a regular sport. Most of us would likely happily spend our time on the Internet all evening reading the online news, watching sport or music, keeping up with other people’s holiday snaps on Facebook, etc. But we know we need to exercise also and many of us do. But many of our kids don’t. So they need to understand that like food and drink and sleep, their bodies need exercise and the best way of achieving this is to be involved in a regular sport several days a week.

And please, it’s even more important to continue your sport when changing from primary school to secondary school, when in Junior Cert or Leaving Cert or starting college. Those 4 milestones are the main times when children and teenagers fall away from sport and many never return as it’s hard to reform habits.

Your health is your wealth as we all know as we get older. No point in being a genius with a large salary if you are sick much of the time – so let’s remember this when setting our priorities in school and try to have a balance between study and exercise.

It’s never too late to start athletics. Athletics encourages a healthy habit of regular exercise in either a non-competitive or competitive manner depending on what suits the individual.

We take members of all ages from senior infants upwards. If you are already fit and want to test yourself out at a new sport, then go for it. If you are unfit and want to try it out, then likewise go for it. We can focus on getting you fit first and then months later if you wish, on competition events.

See our training times below and list of contacts for the different training groups.Click the picture for larger view.

Record Breakers and Tops Lists

U18 4x400m Record Setters

With just 1 or 2 events remaining in the outdoor track & field season, it has been another remarkable season for athletes from the club with countless PB performances and several club records broken - with 8 senior records broken and 9 junior records broken.

The updated list of club records is here Outdoor Track and Field. The following is a brief recapture of the fantastic record breaking performances. I have also compiled a list of the outdoor bests across all the age groups for this year and also the top 25 alltime bests in each event irrespective of age and the top 10 bests in each age group. If there are any inaccuracies, please let me know and I will correct. The lists are here:-

• All-time Bests (top 25)
• Age-groups Bests (top 10)
• 2017 Outdoor Performances
  
  

	Sineád Gaffney who has been in flying form all year broke the club's senior 800m record twice, lowering it to 2.21.34 at the Dublin Graded Meet in Irishtown and following this up days later with 2.20.43 in rain-sodden conditions in her internatonal debut in the Universities International against Scotland. A fantastic year for a very dedicated athlete.
	Caron Ryan who quietly smashed both the club's junior and senior 3000m record during the Connacht Schools track and field in May running an incredible 10.36.87. Caron's main focus has been triathlons and will almost certainly take further chunks off our club records in the months and years to come.
	Laura Cunningham who leaped a massive 11 metres in the triple jump at the Connacht Schools championships to break both the junior and senior record for the club and in the process add almost a half-metre to her indoor best from earlier in the year, fantastic progress in this event.
	Ciana Reidy who has been tearing chunks out of the club's pole vault records, clearing 2.65m at the Connacht Championships to set both junior and senior records in an event in which Ciana has huge potential and I'm sure we will see further record breaking performances next year.
	Arlene Earls who switched down from 800m to 400m in the recent National League and in the process knocked a second off the club record when running 61.63 in the National League in what was her first ever 400m and  clearly an event in which Arlene is going to shine.
	Chloe Casey who thew the discus for the first time in the Connacht Schools Championships in June and went on to break the club record several times, most recently in the Celtic Games International with a huge throw of 33.39m - again an event in which Chloe is going to shine, incredible to make an international so quickly.
	Lorraine Delaney, Caoilin Milton, Arlene Earls and Laura Cunningham with sub Shauna Tobin in the 4x400m, setting the club record in the National U18 relays in a time of 4.21.87 - a time that normally would have medalled in the championships and great potential for the girls in this event.
	Jerry Keary who smashed his own PB and club record 3 times on the same day in the National League, clearing 2.01m to eclipse his previous best of 2 metres and then going on to clear 2.04m and 2.07m and almost nail 2.10m in an amazing series of jumps - with Jerry's 2.07m rankning him as Ireland's 27th best ever high jumper - incredible for a 17 year old to be placed so highly in over 100 years of high jumpers.
	Ben Garrard with a powerful throw in an unaccustomed event at the National League - heaving the 7.26kg shot putt out to a massive 7.86m to break the club's junior men's record.
	Oisin Lyons in an even more unaccustomed event, bravely tackling the 2kg discus to gain points for the Galway team in the National League and slinging it out to a huge 21.70m on his first time ever even handling a discus - fantastic performance and great team spirit.