Weekend Report – March 13th

Jimmy’s 10K

After the rigours of the Stormont XC, the fourth round of the club championship drew many of us to Downpatrick for Jimmy’s 10K, named after Jimmy Murray who was a teacher and founding member of East Down AC.

Read the full race report here.

Addiction NI 10K

A race I really like, low key, well organised and most importantly,flat. The course is run anti-clockwise round Ormeau Embankment and Ormeau Park. Antra Balcuna finished first female and 22nd out of 111 runners with a time of 44min 50sec. Antra has been injured recently and not in her best form since the Christmas Cracker last year, despite a spirited performance at the Lurgan XC, so very well done.

Glenariff Mountain Race (9.5K)

The race starts and finishes at St. Patrick’s Primary School, Waterfoot and involves 370m of ascent over part of the Ulster Way. The race was won by William McKee, Mourne Runners, in a time of 43min 8sec. Three members of the club bravely took part in this demanding event:

23rd/98 Paul Woodman 54min 9sec
75th/98 Eoghan Rainey 75min 3sec
83rd/98 Sharon Dickenson 83min 23sec

Thanks to Jayne Bell / NIMRA for the photos

Deeside Ultra Marathon, Aberdeen (53K)

I have never really liked Aberdeen, maybe it is due to memories of cold winters, spartan B&B’s and long helicopter trips offshore in all weathers. Michael O’Donoghue, on the other hand probably could not wait to get there, as he loves running and the longer the race the better. The route follows the Deeside from Duthie Park to Banchory and back.

The race was won by Joe Symonds (Shettleston Harriers) in 3hrs 21min 26sec. I am pleased to report that Michael survived the cut off point and posted a time of 5hrs 12min 10sec, 152nd/335.

Parkrun (Saturday 12th March)

In many ways the weekly parkrun is at the core of our running and the reason why some of us got into running and joined a club. Well done to all those who achieved a PB this weekend. For those who did not – just running 5K is an achievement in itself, indeed just making it to the start line for 9:30 on Saturday morning and beginning to run takes some courage.

This week the Jog Belfast East group, organised jointly by Orangegrove AC with Victoria Park and Connsbrook AC, did their graduation 5K run at Victoria Park after ten weeks of training, often in poor weather conditions. Well done to all of them and their dedicated trainers.

Also at Victoria Park, Colin Haddick completed two hundred and fifty parkruns and was presented afterwards with two black t-shirts and one red one to represent his total number of runs. I hope his very special parkrun t-shirt arrives soon. Parkrun always needs volunteers so contact Gerry Ward at: belfastvictoriahelpers@parkrun.com and help out when you can.

Club members who achieved a parkrun PB:

Victoria Park: Chris Downey (18:47); Jacob McKittrick (20:23)
Stormont: Lisa Rodham (22:54); Neal Killen (30:25)
Colin Glen: Paul Tyro (19:54); Lyndsey Tyro (21:16)
Comber: Reg Sanlon (25:07)
Bangor: Catherine Lavery (30:35)