A COLD and blustery April evening heralded the first-midweek road race of the season, but this didn’t deter another huge turnout for the PwC 5km held under the auspices of the Cork BHAA on the two-lap Marina circuit.

This was the second year of the race which is officially called the PwC Anthony Reidy Memorial 5km.

Anthony Reidy was an Assurance partner in PwC’s Cork office and sadly passed away in July 2021.

Many of Anthony’s colleagues turned out to walk the 5km in his memory, thus swelling the number of finishers to over 600.

Up front, there was a repeat victory for James McCarthy, although his time of 15:35 was 23 seconds slower than he recorded last year in much more favourable conditions.

Dictating the pace from the start, McCarthy had six seconds in hand at the line over Barry Donovan who just pipped Anthony Mannix by one second.

“It was very windy tonight, it was a bit slower than last year, but I’m happy enough with that,” said McCarthy.

“I’m running alright, last week I wasn’t feeling too great so tonight was a bit of a surprise.

“I’ve no plans for the season, I was injured last year and missed most of the summer so whatever is on I’ll do it.

“I will do track, although with the MTU out of operation there won’t be much track, but I’ll do whatever is on.

“There is no pressure anymore going into a race, I’ll run what I can run and whatever happens happens.”

Although treating the race as more of a tempo run, Lizzie Lee was well inside Martina Kiely’s winning time of 17:12 from last year and, more impressively, so was Fiona Santry in second.

Lee clocked 16:56 with Santry’s 17:09 giving her almost a half-minute to spare over Hannah Steeds, winner of the Courceys five-mile the previous Sunday.

“I knew the wind was going to brutal, my plan was never to be on my own out there and so I ran with a group of the men,” said Lee.

“I ran 16:19 last week in Kilkenny but I knew that was not on the cards tonight with the conditions, so I was happy with my run.”

RESULTS

Men: 1 J McCarthy (Rooskagh Coffee) 15:35; 2 B Donovan (PM Group) 15:41; 3 A Mannix (Dell Technologies) 15:42; 4 J Meade (Dept of Educ, M40) 15:45; 5 E Curran (Merck) 15:47; 6 D Coakley (Gilead Sciences) 15:53.

Team: (Grade A) 1 Dept of Education 25; 2 Rooskagh Coffee 28; 3 UCC 64. (Grade B) 1 Apple 190; 2 Musgrave 259; 3 UCC 305. (Grade C) 1 Depuy Synthes 454; 2 Cork Co Co 469; 3 Merck 476.

Women: 1 L Lee (Apple, F40) 16:56; 2 F Santry (Rooskagh Coffee, F35) 17:09; 3 H Steeds (Eli Lilly) 17:37; 4 M Kenny (Dept of Educ, F40) 17:44; 5 R O’Shea (temp-reg) 18:37; 6 N Forde (HSE, F40) 18:41.

Team: (Grade A): 1 Dept of Education 110; 2 HSE 141. (Grade B) 1 Musgrave 541; 2 Dept of Education 554. (Grade C) 1 Stryker 461; 2 UCC 640.