Weekly Report – 25th September-1st October 2023
Jersey Marathon
After an ultra-marathon last week, this week Michael O’Donoghue made the trip to sunny Jersey for a marathon winding through the rural hills of the island. Michael said that it reminded him of Ibiza, which is not a place that I associate with running a marathon. There was great crowd support throughout, vouchers for beer and burgers, and Jason McAteer was there too – suppose that’s only really a positive for Liverpool fans of a certain age. Needless to say Michael also took the opportunity to do the parkrun while he was there.
Sounds like a good race, well done Michael!
Michael O’Donoghue – 4.25.58
Cardiff Half-Marathon
Elaine Weston was in Cardiff this weekend taking part in the Half-Marathon. Cardiff is one of the five Superhalfs events – a European series of half-marathon events and a record number of runners from overseas entered on the event’s 20th Anniversary race which had 27,000 people taking part. Well done Elaine!
Elaine Weston – 2.08.40
ESVS 5k
Earlier in the week team Elaine (Weston and Bates) were taking part in the European Vascular Surgeons Association 5k – do 5k races get obscurer than this? The aim of the race is to promote general health and vascular health in particular and their chosen charity this year was Chest Heart and Stroke with all the proceeds from entries being donated. The 5k started and finished near the SSE Arena taking in a route that includes HMS Caroline, The Great Light, the Titanic Slipway, Titanic Museum, Nomadic and the Marina.
Well done Elaines!
Bangor 10k
Three of our women (Carolyn Beattie, Verity Cornford and Jenny Powell) were representing the club at the NI & Ulster Championship Bangor 10k on Saturday. The race is an all-inclusive event, and has attracted the Olympian Paul Pollock and National Marathon Champion Laura Graham in the past.
It’s a flat and fast route (if you ignore the hill at 9km) starting from Castle Park making its way through Bangor town centre before heading out along the coast and countryside to Groomsport. The route loops through Groomsport meeting the coast for the final straight back to Bangor finishing in Ward Park.
Great running folks!
Carolyn Beattie – 49.25
Verity Cornford – 54.41
Jenny Powell – 56.21
Parkrun Report
30/09/23
Andrew McIntyre secured his usual 1st place finish in parkrun this week, two weeks in a row he’s achieved this – this time at Orangefield parkrun with a time of 17.58. Probably quite a weak field though seeing as Bangor 10k was on so real runners such as myself wouldn’t count that as a 1st place finish, but well done all the same Andy.
Elsewhere, Michael O’Donoghue and George Gribben were visiting new parkrun locations, Michael doing the Jersey parkrun while he was over there for the marathon and George visiting Orangefield That’s Michael’s 82nd location and George’s 9th.
It’s also good to see Ciaran Lowry back in some good running form after coming back from injury, his last three parkruns have all been under 20 minutes and this weekend he ran his best time at Ormeau parkrun since July 2016 with a time of 19.53.
Well done everyone!
Results
Belfast Victoria
Paul Woodman – 20.00
Sean Tanuvasa – 20.05
Andrew Carson – 20.06
Gemma Blake – 21.03
Tom Smith – 22.49
Andrew Tees – 27.31
Anna Rankin – 27.45
Ormeau
Ciaran Lowry – 19.53
Des Fahy – 21.58
David Montgomery – 22.25
Stephen Uprichard – 25.17
Stormont
Keith Weir – 19.30
Steven Gilliland – 21.52
Stephen Anderson – 22.19
Pauline Bayliss – 23.40
Kimberley Reynolds – 24.56
Reg Sanlon – 27.35
Alison Canning – 27.42
Gerald Harvey – 28.48
Trudy Brown – 36.38
Jersey
Michael O’Donoghue – 27.29
Colin Glen
Colin Simpson – 25.26
Orangefield
Andrew McIntyre – 17.58
Sharon Corken – 28.08
Kerris Hamilton – 28.08
George Gribben – 33.34
