Report by Douglas Barry

John Lenihan won the All Ireland Championship for the second year in a row, once again relegating Northern Ireland's Brian Ervine to second place. Lenihan was two minutes up on Ervine at the turn on the mist shrouded Galtymore summit. However, his recent busy work schedule and the hunger induced collapse on the arduous Circuit of Glencree race have interfered with his training.

On the descent off Galtybeg, he found himself running out of his comfort zone. As he climbed the final mountain on the return trip, he slowed and the Ballydrain runner closed the gap remorselessly. However, Lenihan reached the top first and picked the better route down off the steep mountain. Ervine drifted off the line and found himself in rough underfoot conditions which slowed him considerably.

To the observers below, the Riocht runner was clearly out of sorts as his normal rhythmic descending form seemed to have deserted him. However, he still jumped the final fence well in the lead from Brian. After the final road dash, John crossed the line in 80 minutes 33 seconds - over 2 minutes ahead of the Northern Irish international. The Kerryman - despite his problems - only missed his own record, set last year in worse conditions, by 8 seconds.

Dubliner Paul Mahon survived the tricky summit conditions to pass Cork's Pat Murphy for third place. Pat had the consolation of winning the vet 40 category by a clear margin from Vivian O'Gorman. In the vet 50 category, Limerick's Bernard Collins set a new record of 117 mins 45 secs and finished well clear of his closest rival Ercus Stewart (Glenasmole) who also dipped under the old record.

A great performance from BARF's Shilleen Donnelly saw her take the All Ireland title in her first year of mountain running. The Ulster woman had a brilliant climb up through the mist to reach the summit of Galtymore well ahead of her rivals. However, she went wrong on the tricky descent and found herself circling the peak in the mist, losing a considerable amount of time before she relocated. She missed Majella Diskin's record by 17 minutes but had a considerable margin on Nina Philips.