Tipperary...Stuart Mangan Appeal 10k race report - Sun 26th Apr 2009

Somewhere in the region of 400 runners turned out for this charity run in Rockwell College on Sunday, the 26th of April. The following race report was written by John Dunphy of Midleton AC.

Rockwell College Co.Tipp was the destination this weekend for my travels around Munster. After last weekend's trip to Kenmare to do the Jack And Jill run up the hills 10k event for charity, I decided to go and see what this event in Rockwell was all about. It was obvious from 12.30pm onwards that something big was going to happen here today when car after car started to arrive and in no time, a very big car park was almost full to capacity. At the start of the race, I took a look behind me and the crowd was huge. Not sure of the number's but certainly well in the hundred's. The race kicked off at a such a pace we were passing the 3k mark in just under 10 Min's this was down to the amount of young students from the college that went off like they had rocket's attached to them from the start! The only elite athlete that I recognized was Sean Sidwell from West Waterford Ac and as I expected after chatting with Sean, the West Waterford athlete went on to win the race in just over 35 Min's. The whole race was run in the college grounds and there was quiet a few pulls on this course. I'm told they have 1000 acres of land there and what was unusual about this race was that you could see what every one else was doing just like the beach race in Youghal last week. The funniest part was when I was running towards the 9k mark, other runners were running to the 7k mark. They were kept on the right hand side of the path and we at the front on the left hand side of the path. So you were racing past all these people with 1k to go and they had 3k to go.......strange! The afters was packed out. The hall was huge and there was very little room. Before the prizes were given out, we watched ourselves run the race on a huge screen while we waited for the final results. What a feast we had........ tea, coffee, sandwiches, bottle's of chocolate milk and banana milk. About 8 different type's of cakes .....oh yummy!! Loads to go round for all. They played a video of Stuart which lasted around 10 minutes and it was sad to see a young man in his prime with the injuries he suffered due to a rugby accident. At the end, he received a huge round of applause and he was so determined to get on with life. It was incredible to see how brave he is considering what he is going through. This event will be of great benefit to him now and into the future. Only 1 prize per athlete...senior male winner, masters winner, U18 winner and U15 winner for both male and female. They also had fine prizes for a raffle draw.

Good luck to the college with this event in the future. Please god next year, they will have my support again. Recession or no recession, people are fantastic to come out in such huge number's and pay 20 euro towards this appeal.......well done to all of them..........John DunphyMidleton Ac