On Sunday the under 20 and under 23 National Championships took place and there were three top competitors from Craughwell AC.  Conditions were far from ideal for distance running with sweltering heat conditions driving the temperatures close to 30 degreee centigrade. The fantastic wind-blocking hedges in Tullamore served equally well as heat concentrators and the track was quite an oppressive place to run laps on Sunday.

[Credit to Robert McDonnell for the pictures below – he should be at the Worlds in Eugene but rather than sulk over an injured hamstring like I would, he spent the day in Tullamore taking snaps for people – class act!]

Kyle Moorhead was first up in the 800m.  Very quickly the race broke into two as Jake Bagge took it out very hard in 55s, with Lois O’Loughlin and Kyle tracking him to make a big gap on the rest of the field.  The second lap was much slower as the heat and the very fast start caught up with all three athletes. O’Loughlin pushed forward and took the lead and it looked certain that Kyle would follow his wake to silver but Bagge found just enough to fend Kyle off on the finishing straight. Another fantastic outdoor National 800m bronze for Kyle to add to the Indoor one he won earlier this year.

Kyle laced up his spikes again a little over two hours later for a stacked 1500m and this time he was accompanied by club mate and National Indoor 1500m Champion Patrick Noonan. The race started out slowly as the large group bunched together.  Kyle and Patrick were both running very wide in lane two and three for the first two laps.  As the pace heated up the lads began to move up the field.  At the start of the last lap, Patrick was still in about 8th position but a hard lap of 58 seconds was enough to see him claim a fantastic Bronze medal.  Club 1500m record holder Kyle tried to track Patrick but felt the 800m in his legs and ended up 8th from the large field.  

The final Craughwell AC athlete of the day had the toughest task.  The Junior 3000m featured the finest under-20 athletes in the country all vying for a qualification time for the World Juniors later this year. The race quickly split into three with European u20 3000m champion Nick Griggs among the first group of seven and Sean leading the chasing pack who picked off the odd one that dropped from the punishing lead group pace. 

Sean ran well all the way and finished in 7th overall in 8:45, a fantastic time in such heat.