Cornyn's adaptable approach yields fast time

Dunboyne athlete Niall Cornyn had to adapt his training schedule last week after the cancellation of the National Senior Duathlon and the Meath Senior Cross Country Championship.

Having trained up to 20 hours a week since lockdown in March for the National Senior Duathlon this weekend the Dunboyne athlete recruited his father, Michael, another Dunboyne man George Snee and 1,500m specialist Andrew Coscoran (Star of the Sea) for a 5,000m (5k) time-trial at the Dunboyne club on Sunday in an attempt to break 15 minutes.

The plan was to run 70-second laps to get to 14m:35s with Coscoran and Snee running alternative 800m and Cornyn senior doing a 70-second 400m.

Keith Eglington shouted out time splits and Niall went through 3k in a fast 8m:40s and came home in a great time of 14m:34s for one of the fastest times by a Meath athlete in a number of years and an improvement on his PB of over 40 seconds.

That time would have achieved a fourth place finish at the National Senior 5k in Santry.