UPCOMING EVENTS
All roads lead to Tullamore once again this coming  weekend ,when we have two long days of competition for the U13-19’s. We have a good number of athletes taking part, though many still fail to turn out for any events. We wish the best of luck to all those who are competing and look forward to a great weekend’s competition and good results once again.

Tuesday 18th June is the Bray Invitational event, held here in Greystones. We have a very limited number of places available on this team, as Bray Runners AC need to control the numbers in order to get through the programme. Form is now on the website to express your interest in being selected, both for individual events and/or the medley relay. Unfortunately not everyone who applies will be able to compete. Coaches will select the team, from the names submitted, to represent the club across a broad range of age groups. The form will be taken down on Friday night and the team  will be posted over the weekend. THERE WILL BE NO TRAINING ON TUES. 18th JUNE, DUE TO THIS EVENT BEING ON THE TRACK.

The next round of the Fit4Life will be held in Roundwood on Wed 19th June and is a 2mile out and back event. Check-in at 7pm, race at 7.30pm and there is a charity BBQ afterwards.

The Leinster Combined Events for U14 upwards is on Sat. 29th June, as is the Tailteann Games and the National Junior/U23’s is on Sun 30th.

The National Pairs event is also on Sat 29th June and we wish Ellen McNally and Emma Quirk the very best of luck in the U11 Long Jump, which they qualified for in Tullamore.

The Wicklow 3k Junior (U16-U20), Senior/Masters 3K women’s & 5k men’s Championships will be held on the Greystones track on Wed 24th July @ 7pm.

PROPOSED TRIP TO EUROPEAN TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS
The European Team Championships are being held in Santry, Dublin this year on the 22nd/23rd June.  We see this as a great opportunity to bring interested club members along to see top class athletes from all over Europe in action, including Wicklow’s own Fionnuala Britton. There will be a strong Irish challenge and it should be a fantastic two days of competition. Free tickets are available to clubs and we are proposing to organise a free bus for Sun. 23rd.  All interested club members should sign up asap, on the form which is now on our website. We must confirm the number of tickets required by Friday, so closing date will be midday Friday. Tickets/bus seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis and athletes family members will be accommodated, if there is room on the bus. 5-6 coaches/helpers will be needed on the day. We expect to leave Greystones at 12 o’clock and return between 6 & 6.30pm.
 
TRAINING
Training for our younger athletes Tues 5-6pm and Tues/Fri 6-7pm will finish up for the summer on the last week in June.  Numbers have dropped off dramatically already, especially on Friday’s and with the holidays coming, it makes it impractical to try to continue.
Our 7-8.30pm groups will continue to train, as they still have a number of competitions during July and early August. These groups will take a break in Aug. once competitions end, and training will resume at the start of Sept.  After a two week break, athletes will need to start doing short runs every second day, in order to return ‘fit to train’.  

CONGRATULATIONS
The GAC/IMC event was a huge success for the second year in a row, with perfect weather once again. Top class performances from many of Irelands best athletes and plenty of very strong performances and lots of Personal Bests achieved by local athletes also. The Mens C 800 saw 5 local athletes in action, with Greystones athletes, Padraig Lennon coming in 3rd place in 2.02, Cillian Browne running a big PB of 2.06, and Jamie Lennon with a big PB of 2.08. Andrew Sutton of Bray Runners and Des Earls of Inbhear Dee also completed in the race, with Des making his surprise comeback after a long injury. Good to see him back. The Women's 800m saw Greystones girl, Ellie Hartnett (currently running for UCD) take a comfortable win, with Clare Earls of I Dee in 3rd place. Final races of the day were the 1500s, with Tim Grummell I Dee (but does most of his training with GAC) having a great race and putting in a strong finish to run a PB of 4.08, in the B race. Fionnuala Briton ran in this race also and she too got a new PB for the distance. This was followed by the race of the day, where some of Ireland's best fought out the 1500m A race, which was eventually won by John Coughlan. Bray’s Richard Owens also ran a PB of 3.56 in this event!
 
Two National schools Titles for Greystones AC athletes! Huge congratulations, to Padraig Lennon who took the Intermediate boys Steeplechase title in style and to Stephen Rice who took the Senior boys Javelin title. Congrats also to Claire Foley on her 4th place finish in the senior girls 100m, Eoin Taggart who finished 5th in the Senior boys Steeplechase and Amoris Borel who took 6th in the Intermediate girls 300m hurdles! Well done everyone!

Well done to Emma Quirk & Ellen McNally, who won bronze medals in the Leinster U11 Long jump pairs event.  The girls will compete in the All Irelands in Donegal on Sat 29th June. Good Luck girls!

Well done also to all the teams who competed in Celbridge and congrats to U9 boys Daniel Quirk, Ed Nicholson, Sean Smyth, Rory McNally on their bronze medals and to U15 girls Richael Browne, Sinead O’ Neill, Alison Dawson, Becky Murphy who are awaiting a re-count to establish which colour medals they won in their event.

Well done to all our club athletes who represented their schools at the Cumann Ná mBunscóil T&F event last week and congratulations to the many, many medal winners.

Well done also to the many club members who took part in the Women’s Mini Marathon and congrats on achieving your goals. We have several senior & masters athletes who regularly compete in Road, Trail and Park runs and we are delighted that they are out there flying the flag for GAC. Please send us your results as we would love to add them to our list.

REGISTRATION CARDS
Many of you have now collected your athletics registration cards, but there are still a big number remaining. Please ask for these at check-in, if you haven’t collected it yet. For the younger athletes we would suggest that parents come down and collect them, as they are likely to get lost otherwise and they cannot be replaced. These cards entitle you to a 10% reduction at Woodies. Cards for recent registrations may not have arrived yet.