2015-10-21

The Series have now been broken into 16 different groups, all named with a Planet theme. The atmosphere each night is brilliant and competitive in a friendly way. With 3 different distances to choose from and a non-competitive walk also, the Series offer something for everyone and this is evident from the terrific crowds in attendance each night.

In the group labelled Earth which is competed for over 6km, we had a superb battle for the line as Daniel Hogg and Noel Kennedy went toe to toe all the way up the finishing straight and when crossing the line, the clock was unable to separate the duo and recorded identical times. Both athletes picked up the one minute time bonus on offer to all who broke their personal time and in terms of the overall Series leader board, it is the impressive Hogg who has opened up a slender 30 second lead.

The Mercury group is where you will find the hot-shots of the 6km group and their performances in round 3 certainly didn’t disappoint. Andy Quinlan negotiated the track traffic to brilliantly break the tape in a time of 23:49 followed closely by Liam McCullagh in a time of 24 minutes flat. On the overall leader-board, it’s the Kilcommon man that hold a 12 second lead over the Crokes athlete with Upperchurch man Mike Gleeson making up the top 3. On the night we also had superb runs from both TJ Carey and Trevor Groome and both are primed to make inroads into the overall leaders in the coming weeks.

Some excellent displays from Clodagh Ryan in the three outings to date sees her hold a 7 second lead over the fastly improving Patrice Cooney in the Comets grouping. Both will have to keep a watchful eye on Christine Rabbitte who is sitting in third place overall with Rena Ryan also in close proximity. Aisling Gleeson produce her best Track-Attack performance to date and in doing so announcing herself as one of the favourites for the Space named group. Her 2 closest challengers are 2 of our most improved athletes namely Phil Mason and Helen Hurley and if they can both maintain their current level of improvement, they will be in with a major title shout when the Series draws to an end in early December. Deirdre Collins knocked 17 seconds from her previous best in round 3 resulting in her claiming pole position in the Apollo group. Only 26 seconds separate the top 3 here with Catherine Ryan and Kate Minogue making up the other 2 podium placings.

We have joint leaders in the Stars group with both Sinead Ryan and Eimear O’Donnell amassing a time of 53:35 over the opening 3 weeks. A super performance from Leo Collins however saw him make a major move up the leader board and a similar performance in round 4 could well see him climb that ladder even further.

Joey O’Dwyer butchered nearly two and a half minutes off his personal best to lay claim on the leading position in the Sun labelled group. The youth of Therese Groome will be chasing that lead in the coming weeks as she sits in second spot while Templederry’s Edel Kinane impressively knocked a large chunk from her PB resulting in her occupying the third group place.

All the groupings and general information about the Planet Series as well as all Track-Attack activities can be seen by logging onto our Facebook page at Borrisoleigh Track Attack. We could well see some major movement in the various league tables following week 4’s completion. Week 4 is themed “Drive for Five” with all participants gaining a 5 second time bonus for every 5 seconds they carve off their PB while the top 5 who record the best PB’s will also receive a one minute time bonus. Time bonus’ in week 5 following the break for the Bank Holiday weekend could well shake up the leadership in each of the 16 groups!!!