TITANIC 10K
Last year’s winner, Glaslough’s Conor Duffy, had to settle for fourth place in Sunday’s Titanic Quarter 10K behind St Malachy’s Chicago-based Thomas Frazer, Clonliffe’s Gary Murray and City of Lisburn’s Chris Madden who took the podium places writes Joe Quinn.
Scott Rankin of Foyle Valley was the pre-race favourite but in the event he did not run, though in fairness he would have been hard pressed to live with the aforementioned trio. East Down had a sizeable entry with Barrie Atkinson (35.02) taking 24th place just ahead of Martin Willcox 29th in 35.24. Barrie is heading for London in 2 weeks time and with a recurrence of his leg injury would be well advised to rest up until the big day. Of course he’ll probably do what most of us do with good advice – ignore it, though having said that with 2 weeks to go until a marathon, training between now and then will make no difference whatsoever to his performance, except to aggravate the injury.
But who am I to talk – I have entered Belfast Marathon on 2 May and my total mileage last week was 4 – not four sessions, 4 miles!! Of course I was undergoing intense warm weather training (and a little carbo-loading) in Portugal then so the week was not a total write off.
Davy Foster (38.58) was next EDAC man home, even though he tried to hide under the banner of East Coast Runners and if Liam Keenan could be happy with his 39.08 then Liam Smyth must be ecstatic with his 39.59 after a lost Winter of training. More evidence Barrie that putting your feet up sometimes doesn’t do any harm!!
Kieran McMahon (44.55) and Gareth Amos (49.58) who slipped past me unnoticed completed the EDAC male squad.
THE LADIES
The race provided Newcastle’s Kerry O’Flaherty (34.20) with the opportunity to exact revenge on Letterkenny’s Ann-Marie McGlynn for her defeat in the Joe Seeley Cup which she duly accepted, outsprinting the Donegal woman to the line and provide a considerable boost to her confidence as she prepares to head to France for some warm weather training at altitude as she continues her build up to the Rio Olympics.
Niamh Kellett (41.08), Alison Gilliland (42.10) and Joanne Foster (42.48) were the top 3 EDAC Ladies with Lisa Burke and Janine Murrray 50.19 all making it into the first 500 finishers in a field of 1200 runners.
Lisa’s time (46.35) was 3 minutes and 20 seconds better than her 2015 time and earns her the performance of the week accolade.
Conditions were as usual in the Titanic quarter changeable and difficult, windy and cold at times yet humid and calm at others so well done everyone.
LIONS THREE LAKES 8 AND 15K CHARITY RACES
The next local race promoted by East Down AC takes place on Saturday 14th May from the Lakeside Inn on the shores of Ballydugan Lake, with a choice of 2 distances, 8 and 15K, the latter of which takes in the shimmering Magheraleggan and Loughinisland Lakes before returning to the Inn.
For those of you who have taken part before in either event you may well be questioning the distances – didn’t they used to be 7 and 14K? – and how do you make up the shortfall even if you run very wide on all the corners? Well Yes the distances were originally 7 and 14K but point to point they were under 7 and over 14K so in true Irish fashion we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul and the results will be fully garminised on the day! In any event it’s for Downpatrick Lions Club Charity the Downs Syndrome Association and so runners again will be helping a very worthy cause. Not only that but every runner will receive a free running vest and water bottle.
Online registration is now open at:
and entries will also be taken on the day. Margaret and Geoffrey Ferguson, hosts at the tranquil and picturesque Lakeside Inn assure a warm welcome for all.
FOOTNOTE
I wonder if any of you have noticed that there appears to be a serious shortage of rivers in Portugal. I noticed last Monday on my way to and from Lisbon, which could just as easily have been Lisburn, given the level of precipitation, that every river which the motorway crossed was named on a large sign.
The only problem was there were no rivers.. At first I thought it’s just my imagination but as my concentration grew and my wife confirmed, there was rarely so much as a decent sheugh never mind a river. Even where the sign posters might have considered a drainage ditch worthy of a name there was not the slightest ripple to be seen.
If you can imagine putting a sign up at the now mostly covered Plank Drain and calling it the River Plank then that would even be stretching comparison. So I shall contact the Rivers Agency with a view to exporting a few rivers, especially those which attract adverse criticism when they burst their banks, just to show solidarity with our European neighbours and to share our overabundance of water. Perhaps they could reciprocate with some of their signs?
You may be asking what all this has to do with running – rivers run, sometimes in flood and sometimes dry and we all welcome the water stations on the long distance races – but basically the answer is, nothing at all.
