Mary Scully showed she is really well on the way back to full fitness after injury and had a real ding dong battle with Tullamore’s Pauline Curley throughout the master women race at the AAI Masters Cross Country Championships in Lough Key Forest Park, Boyle, Co. Roscommon on Sunday 5th February, only losing out by a very narrow margin in the end to finish second. Despite getting spiked during the race, Michelle O’Halloran raced on to finish well up in her category, with Maura Dervin also running extremely well to complete the Mullingar trio. Unfortunately, we had no women’s team.

In the corresponding men’s race, Tom McGrath battled with the rapidly deteriorating course that had turned to mud and made running very difficult, especially on the uphill sections. Tom still managed to finish well up but out of the medals in his category. Matt Glennon was next to finish for Mullingar, followed by Ben Vaitkevichius who took bronze in his category and Sean McMullin completing the Mullingar contingent. Due to injuries, we didn’t field teams in either of the master men team categories either.

The final race, the AAI Intermediate Men, saw Michael Gibson-Brabazon put in a tremendous display, staying right with the leading group most of the way and unlucky to finish out of the medals at the finish. Mark Carroll was next to finish having run a really good solid race and competing well throughout, followed in by Martin Lyons who also ran well. Kevin Baker lost a shoe on the first lap but found it and quickly put it back on again on the second lap. Then he really put in a storming race to come from near the back having lost so much time, to finish well up. Justin Murtagh also ran a good race in the mud and slop and completed the Mullingar team that finished out of the team medals this time but well done to one and all for terrific effort.