Busy week for Springwell

Spar Craic 10k

The return of the very popular Spar Craic 10k to St Patrick’s Day saw 1746 runners take to the streets of Belfast for a top class race.

Excellent running conditions produced a very competitive race with the top three finishers all going below 32 minutes and the top ten all below 35 minutes.

With another great performance Chris Denton was the first Springwell RC member to finish in 22nd (3rd M45) with a time of 35:53. In her second race in five days Majella McAteer finished 359th in 47:56 with Deborah Archibald 1142 and in 1:00:01, Gemma Craig 1572nd in 1:10:11 and Caroline Owen 1702nd in 1:20:33.

Larne AC10 Mile Road Race

On Saturday, March 19, the running action was on the A2 between Larne and Ballygally at 580 runners took on a very fast out and back 10 mile event hosted by Larne AC.

With the fine spring weather still dominating the forecast it was another perfect day for running with the chance of fast times.

Seven Springwell RC members made the most of the opportunity for a run along the coast road through the famous Black Arch.

Springwell RC - 112th Peter Tees 1:09:04, 142nd Nick Maclean 1:11:55, 155th David Shiels 1:12:38, 320th Rose Lynas 1:25:20, 322nd Pauline Mullan 1:25:31, 439th Roisin Walker 1:35:48 (PB), 469th Andrew Wilmot 1:37:27.

Fallows Mountain Race

The second race of the 2022 NIMRA Championship, the Fallows Mountain Race took place on Saturday, March 19 in the Mourne Mountains. With ten miles of running and 2000 feet of elevation this challenging race is categorised as medium.

The race started in Kilbroney Forest Park, Rostrevor in near perfect conditions before steeply ascending into the open mountains with the first checkpoint at Slieve Martin. After the first open mountain section, the runners made their way to the boggy terrain surrounding Crenville requiring self-navigation to checkpoint number 2 before heading back to a short spell in the forest tracks.

Zigzagging up and out of the forest, the runners then navigated across the open mountains to the final checkpoint before a steep and technical decent to the finish.

Springwell RC - 69th Shirhaan Hameed 1:59:16, 71st Adele Tomb 2:01:21, 79th Carolyn Crawford 2:07:20, 83rd Conor Duffy 2:14:50.

Parkrun

This weekend saw 40 Springers out Parkrunning in great weather at eight different venues.

Another three big parkrun milestones were reached as husband and wife, Alan and Nicola White completed their 100 th runs at Limavady and George Brien reached his 250th at Portrush.

Ecos - Rodney McPhee 18:49, Claire Ramsey 24:28, Kenneth Bacon 38:47

Portrush - David O’Neill 19:58, Maurice Walker 21:13, Fiona Martin 24:32, Mervyn Thompson 24:43, Cathy Adams 24:48, Majella McAteer 25:10, Alanna Millar 26:55, Catherine Pinkerton 27:28, Gary Moore 27:28, George Brien 28:13, Liz Dowey 29:02, Andrew Wilson 30:48, Deborah Archibald 32:35, Gemma Craig 34:46, Lorraine Abernethy 36:09, Emer Thompson 44:35, Caoimhe Armstrong 48:52

Castlewellan - Gary Kendall 36:24

Kilkenny - Catherine Byers 32:28

Sligo - Elaine Montgomery 30:31

Limavady - Chris Denton 17:28, Adrian Finlay 23:05, Janet Patrick 25:59, Heather McLaughlin 29:05, Alison C Duncan 29:26, Alan Steen 29:29, Nicola White 30:02, Alan White 30:02, David McCool 32:04, Ingrid Hamilton 48:24

Garvagh Forest - Michael Mulvenna 23:35, Roy Buchanan 24:13, Michael McKeown 25:12, Alan Platt 28:28, Martina Wade 28:59

Derrynoid Forest - James Hughes 21:33, Jim Breen 26:44