Weekly Report – 2nd October-8th October 2023

GR8 Dundrum

Well done to the 22 club members who took part in our latest Club Championship race, the GR8 Dundrum Run. This was a great turn out for the club, especially as a number of our members hadn’t done this race previously. Although the weather was perfect, this is a difficult course – an 8.4 mile route containing a mix of road, beach and boardwalk incorporating Murlough’s Nature Reserve, where the Mourne Mountains sweep down to the sea.

Congratulations to Edwina Ternan on winning her age category – well done! Big thanks also to Lynne Jamison who made the trip down to take pictures and support.

I also wanted to highlight Jonny Weston’s 1 second victory over Robin Montgomery, I can only imagine how satisfying that must have been.

Keith Weir – 52.48
Michael O’Donoghue – 58.03
Jonathan Weston – 59.49
Robin Montgomery – 59.50
Gemma Blake – 1.00.38
Steven Gilliland – 1.01.50
Edwina Ternan – 1.02.05
Stephen Anderson – 1.02.39
Colin Simpson – 1.04.02
Stuart Bartlett – 1.06.01
Tom Smith – 1.07.56
Carolyn Beattie – 1.08.00
Adrienne Savage – 1.08.49
Brian Todd – 1.11.30
Judith McCann – 1.15.16
Alison McConnell – 1.16.39
Jenny Cochrane – 1.16.54
Chantal Hemphill – 1.17.48
Elaine Weston – 1.18.41
Elaine Bates – 1.18.55
Emma Smith – 1.20.13
Sharon Howe – 1.20.39

Placings for the current top 5 of the club championship are included below:

Male Club Championship Table – Top 5

Female Club Championship Table – Top 5

Chicago Marathon

Alison Canning was representing OAC at the Chicago Marathon at the weekend. This is one of the six World Marathon Majors. The race is known for its flat and fast course starting and finishing in Grant Park and enjoys approximately 1.7 million spectators every year – a few more than the GR8 Dundrum Run. The race also produced a new world record on Saturday with Kelvin Kiptum running the race in 2.00.35.

Well done Alison – fantastic running! Hope you got to relax and enjoy Chicago after the race too.

Alison Canning – 4.01.14

We Run Wild Newcastle Way Marathon

Incredible commitment from Michael O’Donoghue this weekend. After finishing the GR8 Dundrum Run in 58 minutes and spending the rest of Saturday in the pub, he then ran the We Run Wild Newcastle Way Marathon on Sunday morning. A pretty standard weekend for him actually now that I think about it.

This was a new event from We Run Wild which combines a lot of the routes of established events in the Mournes around Castlewellan, Tollymore and Dundrum. It’s mostly trail but fortunately you don’t have to climb any mountains, and with the 1^st place runner doing it in just over 3 hours it must be runnable on some level.

Well done Michael!

Michael O’Donoghue – 5.49.35

Parkrun Report

07/10/23

Two OAC runners ticked off new parkrun locations this weekend; Alison Canning taking advantage of being in Chicago to do Cornerstone Lakes parkrun and Ian Wilson at Con Smith. That’s Alison’s 57^th parkrun location and Ian’s 41^st.

Andrew McIntyre was the quickest OAC parkrunner this week, with his time of 17.39 one second quicker than the nine-year-old boy Louis Robinett who set the parkrun record for his age in Dorset at the weekend. Bravo.

Results

Huddersfield

John Gribben – 35.11
George Gribben – 35.12

Belfast Victoria

Paul Woodman – 21.38
David Gilliland – 24.25
Anna Rankin – 27.50
Verity Cornford – 29.50

Wallace, Lisburn

Andrew Carson – 21.21

Enniskillen

Jean Stone – 34.14

Ormeau

David Montgomery – 21.16
Des Fahy – 21.44

Stormont

Andrew McIntyre – 17.39
Stephen Hamilton – 27.39
Reg Sanlon – 28.23
Gillian McGucken – 32.33

Orangefield

Kerris Hamilton – 27.50

Con Smith

Ian Wilson – 24.56

Knockbracken Reservoir

Gerald Harvey – 29.25

Cornerstone Lakes

Alison Canning – 31.29