Mick Harkin travelled west on Saturday July 24th last to County Roscommon, to run the Bogtrotters Half Marathon in Strokestown.  Now, Mick or Michael to his Mum is a well known Meath Mucker and rumour has it he travelled there to learn how to celebrate winning a genuine provincial football title.  Anyway, Mick was right at home in the Bogtrotters Race and ran a brilliant time of  96:54, finishing 13th overall.  Mick smashed over 4 minutes off of his PB.  This was a truly mammoth performance when one considers the difficulty of the course.  A reflection of this is the fact that national marathon champion Sergui Cionbeau of Clonliffe Harriers won the full marathon but failed to break the 3 hour mark by a full four minutes.

Meanwhile, last Sunday July 25th, up north Anthony Malone ran 81:26 in the Cookstown Half Marathon.  This was the second year that the County Tyrone town held this race over an undulating course.  On a humid summer's afternoon Anthony finished 10th and was 2 and 1/2 minutes quicker than last year.