Weekly Report – 26th February-3rd March 2024

We Run Wild – Tour of the Island Marathon

Cameron Faulkner and Michael O’Donoghue were enjoying some coastal running at the weekend with the We Run Wild Islandmagee Marathon. Cameron came in with a quicker time but to be fair to Michael he did his traditional mid-Marathon stop at The Rinkha for some ice cream.

I saw some comments online questioning whether taking mid-race breaks to buy ice cream were an Orangegrove thing, and I would like to take this opportunity to distance the club from this activity as well as any other strange ceremonies Michael takes part in.

Cameron Faulkner – 5.13.54
Michael O’Donoghue – 5.51.15

Carlingford Half-Marathon

It was a fantastic (if completely freezing) day in Carlingford in aid of St Brigid’s Special School in Dundalk, with Andrew Carson, Sean Tanuvasa and Stephen Uprichard representing Orangegrove in the Half-Marathon.

The race itself begins in the picturesque village of Carlingford winding through the hills before arriving at the beautiful (and incredibly windy) coast of the Cooley peninsula. It was a personal best for myself in this race, but I think we all could have gone faster had the weather been a bit more generous/if we hadn’t had recent injury struggles/if we were more talented runners.

Andrew Carson – 1.20.54
Sean Tanuvasa – 1.23.15
Stephen Uprichard – 1.53.41

NI & Ulster Indoor Age Group Championships 2024, Dublin

Fantastic action and results at the NI Champsionships over the weekend in Dublin. Excellent to see so many of our juniors collecting medals at this event. Some for the first time and some defending their titles from previous years. Fantastic performances from everyone!

Emily Hobbs – 1st place in Girls U14 1k Race Walk

Kai Harris – 2nd place in Boys U15 60m

Esther Hameen Smith – 1st place in Girls U15 60m

Ewan Donald – 1st place in Boys U16 60m

Niko Lalos – 3rd place in Boys U16 200m

Grace Wallace – 3rd place in Girls U17 Long Jump and 1st place in Girls U17 Triple Jump

Ben Sykes – 1st place in Boys U17 200m and Boys U17 60m

Parkrun Report

02/03/2024

More parkrun tourism at the weekend as four of us were trying out new locations on Saturday; Alison Canning at Dunleath Playing Fields, Verity Cornford and Michael O’Donoghue at the inaugural Laytown Beach parkrun, and Alice Quinn running her first parkrun at Victoria Park – and as is the case with basically everyone it is her fastest parkrun so far. Hope you’re looking forward to many more identical laps of Victoria Park Alice.

Just like last weekend two of us came in as first place finishers this week, this time it was Danny Bradley at Valley Newtownabbey with a new Personal Best of 18.19 (finishing first by just 1 second!) and Gemma Blake. Gemma changing things up from her usual domination at Stormont by finishing first female at Orangefield. She’s running Stormont parkrun as part of a 15 mile long-run this weekend so if anyone fancies knocking her off her perch this is your opportunity.

Great running everyone, as always!

Results

Waterworks

Colin Simpson – 23.59

Belfast Victoria

Andrew Tees – 17.53
Andrew McIntyre – 18.37
Alice Quinn – 21.31
Tom Smith – 23.49
Alison McConnell – 27.21
Darren Moan – 31.45
Catherine McIntyre – 34.32

MUSA Cookstown

Mark Lennon – 23.19

Ormeau

David Montgomery – 19.15
Keith Weir – 22.04
Chris Heaney – 24.38

Bangor

George Gribben – 31.27

Valley, Newtownabbey

Danny Bradley – 18.19

Stormont

Reg Sanlon – 26.22
Gerald Harvey – 29.39
Kimberley Reynolds – 29.46
Jackie Grant – 31.18
Lisa Fleming – 32.45
Stephen Craig – 35.03

Orangefield

Gemma Blake – 20.37
David Gilliland – 24.56
Heather Flint – 26.07
Elaine Weston – 26.18
Kerris Hamilton – 28.00
Sharon Corken – 28.00
Selina Myles – 28.25

Dunleath Playing Fields

Alison Canning – 23.42

Laytown Beach

Verity Cornford – 29.07
Michael O’Donoghue – 29.53