Gowran men take top 3 places in taxback 10km

Gowran AC trio Tommy Evans,  Kevin Fenlon and Simon O’Dwyer took the top 3 spots in the taxback 10k road race today.  Organised by Kilkenny based company Taxback, and run in aid of the ISPCC, the event was held in warm sunshine and had a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.

The start of the race was a little chaotic and caught a few runners by surprise, but soon enough order was restored and Tommy showed his class by stretching into a comfortable lead within the first mile.  Behind Tommy, local trio of Kevin, Simon and Ed Maloney (KCH) ran closely together for the final 6k of the race, and coming round the final corner were neck and neck. As they kicked for home, Kevin proved the strongest, followed by Simon and Ed. DSD runner, Linda Byrne, had a good run to win the women’s race.

Disappointingly,  the race was well short of the advertised 10km; measuring under 6miles. The first and last kilometer were short by 100m and the 8th short by over 200m.  It’s a hard to see the purpose of chip timing when the course is so short. Whilst the route is  a well established one in the Kilkenny road racing scene, offering easy accessibility and good parking – its needs some amendments to make it a valid 10k route.

However, short course  aside, it was great to see runners come together to raise over  €5,000 for the ISPCC.

The recent County Championship 10k run that finished behind Woodies was accurately measured to the full 10km, but surprisingly the testing hill between 7 and 8 kilometers was not that popular!