The National Indoor Combined Events took place yesterday in Abbotstown and MSB had a record number of participants with 5 juveniles and 3 masters athletes competing.
The events consist of 60mH, Long Jump, High Jump Shot Put and 800m/1000m – it’s a long day but a fun one with loads of camaraderie between the participants.
The U14 girls had four entries with Cara and Laise Gorman, Una White and Emily Ryan. Lots of PBs and great performances led to an exciting finale. Most multi-eventers don’t like the longer distance event as they tend to be power athletes so if it’s an event that suits you then you can make up a lot of ground. . Cara was top 6 going into the final event of 800m but in with an outside chance of getting on the podium with a good run.
She delivered brilliantly and running a 2:34 800m jumped from 6th to the Bronze medal. Her sister Laoise also jumped from around 13th to 7th with her excellent 2:35 in the 800m. Fine performances from Emily and Una put them in 13th and 20th place respectively.
Isla O’Dwyer was it the U16 event, her first time doing combined events and performed very well finishing off with a brilliant 800m in a time of 2:32, the fastest MSBer of the day, and finished in 16th place overall.
Three masters’ athletes took part with Declan McDonagh in the M35, Rob Ryan in the M40 and Mark Woodger in the M50 category.
The first event tends to be the hurdles but after a good hurdles warm up we were sent straight to the Long Jump. You have to learn to adapt and be patient at these events as things can chop and change throughout the day.
They all had a decent first event with a PB (off the wrong foot!) for Mark Woodger – he’ll have to re-think training there!
The hurdles tend to be the most challenging as running at barriers at full speed is not clever at the best of times but they all navigated the hurdles well with Declan and Rob doing them for the first time ever!
The other events went well with a few PBs along the way with a nice burn-up in the final 1000m race!
A total points PB at the end for all three with Mark Woodger just exceeding the 2500-point barrier which is a good marker for these events.
All three came away with a medal with Declan taking Gold in the M35, Rob Silver in the M40 and Mark Silver in the M50.
Four medals for MSB is a fantastic return and shows how the club really has evolved from a mainly running club to cover almost all aspects of athletics. When are we getting the pole vault!?
Thanks to all the coaches and a big thanks as ever to the officials without whose work these events do not take place.
Special mention to our own Jackie Mulhall and to Ciara White who stepped up to help out officiating in the long jump. The athletes may have had a long day but the officials have a longer one with set up and take down at the end of the day.
Report: Mark Woodger