2011/2012 was a strange cross country season for the Senior team.  There were some great individual performances from Gerry in the Summer and Peter in 2011, but a large portion of the Senior team were thrown back by injury or life events through the year, meaning we had a depleted squad when it came to competitions.  We have a very small panel of athletes that compete and it wasn't easy to cope with the loss of people like Gerry, Jason, myself, Johnny, etc for  most of the season.  Strangely though, it ended up being the best year on record for the club in cross country, even if we did have to field the same four lads in all competitions..

We started out by winning the Galway Cross Country, defending our title from  last year in a tough battle.  There was a bit of history here too as Peter put on a powerhouse display to win the Senior individual Galway cross country – the first time a Craughwell AC athlete has done so.   It looked unlikely that we were going to get a team together for the Connaught Cross country, coming as it did a week after Dublin Marathon but somehow Paul heroically shook off his 26.2 mile race and lined up for us in Sligo to help us to Connacht gold in another very close contest.

Last Sunday we made history by competing for the first time in the National Interclub cross country.  It was held over 12k of the nicest running surface I've ever seen in Cross Country.  In fact the first thing I did was unscrew my spikes.  Peter was first home in 34th followed by myself in 59th, Martin in 60th and Paul in 73rd.  They don't seem like very high positions but there are a lot of very good runners in the race, so we had to run pretty hard!    The result was enough to see us get a Category C bronze.  Actually it was enough to get a Category B bronze, but we chose the Category C bronze as we were only 2 points off Silver and we want to make a stab at winning category C next year. 🙂  Congratulations to Ennis Track who fielded a super-strong team and took Category C Gold. 

The next club target is the National 10k in Phoenix Park.  The squad is looking a bit healthier for this year as Jason also surprised himself (and us) last weekend by running a very impressive 34:27 in the Adare 10k and we have a "brat pack" of older Juvenilles that are really flying.  

Team results for the first 17 teams are below: 

Place        Team                                                       Total

  1            Clonliffe Harriers A.C.   (A)                     25             2              3              4             16

  2            Raheny Shamrock A.C.   (A)                    45             5              6             13            21

  3            Dundrum South Dublin A.C.   (A)           78            10            12            27            29

  4            Ennis Track A.C.   (C)                            159           24            32            39            64

  5            Ferrybank A.C.   (B)                               183           22            33            42            86

  6            Tullamore Harriers A.C.   (B)                 221           45            47            63            66

  7            Sliabh Bhuide Rovers A.C.   (C)            224           31            48            50            95

  8            Donore Harriers A.C.   (A)                     225           25            53            67            80

  9            Craughwell A.C.   (C)                             226           34            59            60            73

 10           Sportsworld A.C.   (A)                           241           43            55            65            78

 11           Togher A.C.   (C)                                    247           44            51            52          100

 12           Tallaght A.C.   (C)                                  251            7             68            77            99

 13           Clonliffe Harriers A.C. 'B'   (A)              292           49            58            79          106

 14           Liffey Valley A.C.   (B)                          303           57            71            87            88

 15           Drogheda & District A.C.   (C)               318           40            83            85          110

 16           Galway City Harriers A.C.   (A)             325           56            82            90            97

 17           Inishowen A.C.   (C)                              378           72            98          101         107 

Full results here. 

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/senior-men-inter-club.doc