St. Anne’ National School 10k

Castlerea 10k start

St. Anne’ National School 10k Fund Raiser took place on Sunday March 23rd, 2014. This was the brain child of one of the teachers to raise funds for the school, which saw me line up with around 200 other local people.

Registration began at 11h00 so I took the short stroll from my house to the school and entered. The weather looked to be promising with a mild morning and sunshine but two hours later we were lining up in windy cold conditions.

We started on a down hill, running along the main street through the town of Castlerea. The 5k runners and the kids were moving at a pace that was synonymous of a stampede of buffalo until we came to the first long hill as we left the town and headed out into the country where the charging buffalos turned off the course to continue their onslaught back to the finish at the school.

Once out in the peace and quiet of the country the pace settled down and we had fantastic support from the cattle, horses and the farmers in the few properties we passed. The course was mainly rolling hills with one little hiccup at the seven km mark. The water point was well stocked and manned with encouraging volunteers so on we went to the finish at the school.

As a fun raising event, this race was extremely well organized. The start was on time, marshalling and water point one hundred percent, not to mention a finish arch with timing clock and because this is Ireland the medal presentation got rained on for a short time.

Roll on next year!

Thanks to the article contribution of Owen Hollywood