by Perri Williams
This Sunday Sept 15th, the National Half Marathon Championships takes places in conjunction with the Charleville Half Marathon. Hosted by North Corks AC the race starts at 10am at Charleville and takes in a loop that sees runners head to Kilmallock and back again. Just under a thousand athletes will take part in what promises to be another year of successful half marathon racing.
National 10km champion Shona Heaslip (An Riocht) will want to add another title to her growing repertoire of national titles. Heaslip competed for Ireland at the European Half Marathon Championships in Rome in June and boosts a personal best of 1.10.35 which she achieved at the Antrim Coast Half Marathon last year. Her seasons best is 1.12.19 from the European Championships. However, with a string of personal bests achieved this year already in distances ranging from 1500m to 10km (32.49), she looks like the athlete to beat. Hot on her heals will be Grace Lynch (DSD) who also has a national title to her name. Lynch won the national 10-mile championships in July in a time of 56.58 and has a half marathon personal best of 1:13.50 which she achieved back in 2022. Other athletes to look out for are Ciara Wilson (DMP) and Lauren Dearmody (Castlecomer).
The 2023 winner Ryan Creech (Leevale) will be out to defend his title. Creech ran 1:05.47 in Tullamore last year before going on to run 2:12.28 for the Seville Marathon in February this year. Having not raced much since, he will be looking to run something impressive this Sunday. Challenging him will be Hugh Armstrong (Ballina) who ran 1:04.54 in Barcelona in February over the half marathon distance. Armstrong also boosts a 2:13.24 marathon from his Hamburg effort in April. The question for Armstrong is can he run close to his personal best of 1:03.37 for the half which he achieved in 2020. There will be a host of other athletes who cannot be discounted such as John Travers (Donore), Sergiu Ciobanu (Clonliffe), Emmet Jennings (DSD) and closer to home Jake O’Regan (St Johns).
The team titles could prove even more interesting. In 2023 Celbridge took that men’s title on the back of a 5th place finish by Martin Hoare and a 7th place finish by Martin Conroy. Both Hoare and Conroy are absent from this year’s list. This leaves the mostly munster based teams to battle out the team honours. Having a race close to home often brings out the stronger local runners.
For the ladies the 2023 winners Sli Cualann are not fielding a team this year. Again similar to the men’s race, we could see some of the Munster teams grab those team medals.
Start time 10.00am
Route map & Entries: https://www.popupraces.ie/race/charleville-international-half-marathon-2024/#1_F49593