Dessie’s Run takes place next week

By sending your Name, Gender, DOB, Age on race day, Club and t-shirt size to [email protected] you can pre-enter.

The pre-entry fee is £8 (10 euros) and on the day, £9 (11 euros) and pre-entry payment can be made on the night when picking up race pack.

There are t-shirts for the first 200 entries.

Club runners from across the North-West and beyond will line up alongside joggers and fun runners for the very popular annual event.

With the Waterside Half Marathon entry fee due to be bumped up after this Friday’s deadline, there is a one-off special deal on offer at the Dessie’s Run check-in on Tuesday week.

There will be a separate Waterside Half entry table available in the U3A building from 5.45pm that evening to accept Half Marathon entries at the standard £20 fee (£60 for Team Relay).

If you have not yet signed up for the September 14th event, do so now online at: www.derrycity.gov.uk/halfmarathon or at Lisnagelvin Leisure Centre.

Meanwhile at the N. Ireland & Ulster Multi Events Championships there was success for three teenage City of Derry Spartans athletes at a wet and blustery Mary Peters track over the weekend.

Long jump and hurdles specialist Naomi Morgan moved significantly out of her comfort zone to convincingly claim the U20 title with an impressive series in the eight event competition.

Emma McCay, better known as a high and triple jumper did well for the bronze medal in the same age group and Michael Surman battled his way to U20 decathlon bronze, as the elements battered the participants on both days.

Naomi even beat the senior athletes in her competition and may well look at a serious involvement in the multi-events discipline. Her speed, strength and technical ability will stand her in good stead in the demanding women’s heptathlon and her coaches, Jim and Danea Herron, have all the expertise to prepare her for the demands of multi-eventing.

Indeed, Danea guested in the weekend event, using masters standard equipment and did well as she looks ahead to the upcoming N.I. Masters T&F Championships at the end of the month and the British Masters Multi-Events Championships in mid-September.

She intends to go for the F55 triple jump record at the N.I.’s on Saturday, August 30th at the Mary Peter’s Track.

There was a small turnout of locals at the weekend for the team trophy and open graded meeting at the same venue with DCTC’s Aaron Carlyle 400m; Spartans Michael Melarkey, 3000m and Sean Sweeney, javelin, making their respective podiums.

On the road a massive entry turned out for last Thursday night’s ‘Jog in the Bog’ with the honours going to Connor Doherty, who repeated his 2013 victory and Maeve Maher McWilliams.

While there was absolutely no doubt that the big athletics story - both local and country wide - is Letterkenny man Mark English and his huge success at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich on Friday.

A brilliant 800 metres bronze medal was secured and backed up on Sunday when assisting the Irish 400 metres relay team in posting a new record despite not being in the medals.