Galway City Harriers are hosting a reception for Christine Kennedy on Wednesday 28th of December at 3pm. The venue is the Westwood Hotel, Dangan, and the plan is for everyone to meet for a run in Dangan before hand at 2pm, with a reception and refreshments in the hotel at 3pm. Everyone is welcome. Christine is in Galway on the 28th, and the Harriers would like to take the opportunity to honour Christine and her continuing achievements on both the track and the road. Earlier this month, at the Jesse Owens Awards in St. Louis, Missouri, Christine was awarded the USA Track & Field Masters Athlete of 2011.

Although now a US citizen, and living in Los Gatos, California, Christine started her running life in her native Galway in the early 1980s. She won many races and honours in the Galway City Harriers singlet, including back to back Dublin marathon wins and was a Galway Sports Star award winner on two occasions. She is still known to proudly don the GCH colours when racing at home in Ireland. This year, she had spectacular success as a master winning the 5k, 10k and 15k USA Masters championships, and the 5,000m track as well as the marathon at the World Masters Championships last August.

Many of the elder statesmen and women, of the Harriers will have shared training runs and trips to races with Christine through the 1980s and 1990s, and indeed we've raided the archives of another Galway sports star Nono McHugh for our attached photo, which was taken at the All-Ireland Inter-Clubs Cross-Country in Killenaule in 1989. For a new generation of Harriers, Christine is an inspiration as a young mother who took up running later than most of her competitors and went on to huge success, and continues that success 30 years later. A more recent photo of Chrisine running in the U.S. is below.

All friends of the club and of Christine are encouraged to drop in to the Westwood on Wednesday, and indeed for the run beforehand. It will be back to the old days in Dangan for the latter as the Pavillion facilities won't be open, so not too long of a run is planned.

To catch up on some of Christine's activities we've linked some of our previous articles:
http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/senior-news/welcoming-back-christine-k...
(see PJ Coyle's synopsis of Christine’s running career as a comment to this article)
http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/senior-news/sisters-are-national-marat...
http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/senior-news/gch-irish-marathon-champio...
http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/senior-news/two-world-masters-titles-c...
http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/senior-news/christine-kennedy-named-us...