NEWCASTLE AC’s Zak Hanna was back in action again last weekend in the Italian Mountain Racing Championships as he continued his recent fine form with another impressive show.
Three weeks after his brilliant racing weekend in Lombardy, where he took third and fifth place finishes, the Dromore flyer was back in northern Italy for the 32nd version of the Challenge Stellina in Susa, north-west of Turin.
Zak, along with Sylvain Cachard of France and Slovenia’s Miran Cvet, were the only non-Italians in the race.
A two-hour flight on Friday morning, having battled from 3am in the autumnal storm to Dublin, saw Hanna land in a hot and sunny Milano Bergamo.. He took trains from Milan to Torino, and then up the Susa Valley and around six hours later he was installed in Susa where it was 29 degrees.
Race day dawned without a cloud in the sky and with the temperature already soaring, Hanna joined the front row of the grid designed for social distancing wearing his mask. The mask was obligatory for the first 500m. Hanna tucked into a front bunch that was a who’s who of Italian mountain racing. Hanna covered the first mile in 5:09, and then at 2km the race became steep. He climbed well, as ever, encountering a difficult patch around the middle and then at about 9.5km he spotted Baldaccini ahead of him, a past winner in 2015 and 2017.
By now Hanna was in tenth place and with his climbing legs feeling good again set about moving up the field. He caught Baldaccini and kept pushing and on to the final 3k, with false flats and true flats at over 6,000 feet altitude, Hanna surged to cross the line in a brilliant eighth place.
In the process he had taken the scalps of, not just the former winner of the race Baldaccini, but also Puppi, who had taken second place in last year’s World Long-Distance Mountain Racing Championships, and Bernard Dematteis, the former European mountain racing champion.
At Down Royal on Saturday, the sound of hi-tec racing flats reverberated around the horse racing turf as the ChampionChip Ireland Road Race Series continued following its event at Eikon, Balmoral, three weeks ago.
It was only August 22, but could easily have been mistaken for late autumn as the blustery conditions from the remnants of tropical Storm Ellen continued to cause havoc in the quest for personal bests.
It was a testament to the consistent running many had done during lockdown and throughout the winter before that there were many personal bests achieved.
First up was the 5km, won by Mourne man Andrew Annett in 15:03 in a sprint finish with Annadale’s Eskander Turki (15:04). Three weeks ago, David McNeilly, who now graces the ranks of the M40 category, ran a 10k PB of 33:03 (nearly two minutes inside his previous lifetime best) and came home in 16:09 for a PB of 50 seconds dating back over seven years.
Next clubman home was Niall Goodman in 16:53, just three seconds outside the time he set at Eikon, he was slightly disappointed but the run consolidates the improvement he has made this year. The ever-improving Francis Tumelty is now in the M45 category and after just missing out on his 5K PB three weeks ago with a 17:24 clocking in Eikon, he smashed his 17:22 from the Bay Road 5k in 2015 with a 17:11 PB here at Down Royal.
Fifteen year old Tom Crudgington doesn’t much like running on the flat — instead he loves the hills and mountains. However, he’s learning that he needs to improve his running on the flat to take it into the mountains and here he set a PB by around a minute with his 17:23 time. Phil Murdock broke the 18-minute barrier for the first time clocking 17:57.
Mark Holland has shown steady improvement in training and is another who is getting faster as he gets older, now in the M50 category. With a previous best of around 19 and a half minutes, he smashed that with a brilliant 18:31 clocking, a fine product for all the work he has done.
Nichola Watson has had injury troubles, but over the past couple of months has been training consistently again. Wondering beforehand if she would be strong enough to dip under 20 minutes, she put any doubt to rest with a brilliantly paced race to record a lifetime best of 19:44.
Also returning to racing, this time less than six months after giving birth to baby Rónán, Ashlene Mussen surprised herself in recording a very strong 21:23.
Next up was the half-marathon and as ever a glutton for real punishment, Thomas O’Gorman toed the line on the back of his 1:16:28 PB at Eikon three weeks ago. With conditions a bit harder here, he had to settle for 1:17:40 and a 6th place.
The final race of the day was the 10k where Lisburn AC’s Chris Madden won in an excellent 30:17.
Three weeks ago, Aidy Brown was gutted to run 10 seconds outside 34 minutes and 1 seconds outside his best and he vowed to return today and put the record straight. He ran brilliantly to record a big PB of 33.56 and dip under the 34-minute barrier for the first time.
James King has been a revelation over the past year and after a wee hiatus during the first half of lockdown has put in a very consistent block of training. He was rewarded with a big PB on Saturday of 35.10 and also demonstrated he has learned the art of how to run a quick time – 17.42 for the first 5k and a swifter 17.28 for the second half.
At Eikon three weeks earlier, Frank Cunningham had run a PB of 36.29 and today came back and blew that out of the water to record 36.19 and a PB by 10 seconds. Also competing, were Paul and Áine Gosling with Paul aiming to help Áine break 40 minutes.
t turned out to be a very tough day at the office with the pair coming home in 41.13 & 41.14 respectively – really disappointing for Áine after all the excellent training, but tomorrow’s another day.
After a lean spell of racing that even led him to vow maybe to never run another 10k, Gerard McAuley or GMAC to his acquaintances demonstrated that he was getting back to good fitness with a well-judged 42.02, a 21.28 first half and a 20.34 second half.