🏆 Women's Meet and Train League - Lisa Gaughran retains her title 🏆

Report by Valerie Gorman

The XC season has been over a while, but the Women's Meet and Train League came to a close on Sunday 6th April with the final social run and prizegiving morning at Crusader's HQ in Irish town.

✨🤸🏻‍♂️The league was another roaring success with 14 Dublin clubs participating, and a whopping 263 women participating across the four races! 

✨🤸🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️We kicked off in early November with round 1 in Tymon, hosted by Sportsworld and Bros Pearse. DSD numbers were lower with so many recovering from their heroic marathon efforts, but Lisa and Sarah pulled out 2nd and 4th places respectively to get Team A off to a strong start. Post race treats scored high due to a lorryload of Lindt !

✨🤸🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️💨Race 2 was our fabulous event at DSD Sports Campus in January. It was very exciting to host a race at our wonderful facility and thanks once again to all who helped out and represented DSD on the course. It may have looked like a fix with a full DSD podium ( Lisa, Eilish, Ruth) but local knowledge is a strong advantage! We may be biased also but the post race nourishment was top quality. 

✨🤸🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️🌳It was a Northside venue for Race 3, hosted by Dublin Frontrunners over in Marino in February. Again, super club representation at this with good numbers and great results. DSD women took 4 of the top 10 spots, including a 1-2 from Lisa and Ruth. The spread afterwards scored a 10/10 from our women and included a DFR themed cake. Note for next year.

✨🤸🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️💨🌳👏Finally we took a trip to the National Sports Campus at Abbotstown in March where Blackrock and Waterstown played host at the brilliant cross country venue there. Not an easy route by any means, but a strong finish from Lisa earned her another 1st place and Ruth storming in for 2nd, and Jane making sure she got her 4th place clearly! A nice spread afterwards but DSD was definitely better.

🥇That brings us to the prizegiving this weekend, and no surprise that Lisa Gaughran defended her overall title, very well deserved! Ruth Wilson earned 2nd place overall, congrats! Team A were just pipped in the Diamond category but 2nd is a nice prize considering we had no team prizes last year. 

🏆Overall, DSD had 6 teams registered, and below are the names of the wonderful women who raced over the months of the league. The hunt for more names to join us will begin around September/October this year and we will welcome any women who want to give cross country a go. 

Lisa Gaughran

Ruth Wilson

Jane Leonard

Joan Ryan

Sarah Colton

Sallie Ennis

Ruth Brogan

Tracy Broughan

Kathrina Murphy

Lynda Tuohy

Karen Graham

Valerie Shaw

Lisa Ryan

Edel Fitzpatrick

Ruth Mills

Laura Thompson

Clare Flanagan

Emma Howard

Louise Shorten

Sinead Ward

Cynthia O'Neill

Fiona Bree

Sorcha Ni Riain

Carmel O'Sullivan

Eilish Roe

Edwina Walsh

Aoife Harrington

Deirdre Megan

phew - that’s some participation for one club !