A lovely sunny Sunday afternoon welcomed the North Down athletes to the North Belfast Harriers organised 10k road race. This was the latest event in the Novosco 10k series and the last event in the North Down Grand Prix.
With the entry capped at 1250 runners and with some of Northern Irelands’ top athletes in attendance our runners gave a very good account of themselves. Craig McMeechan threw himself into the leading group early on but was eventually overhauled by the more experienced athletes behind. Craig nevertheless pb’d with 32:33 and a 6th place finish while Dennis Scott was happy with his progression post injury to record 34:18 placing him 14th. Our next athlete home was Jamie McMeechan 36:35 claiming 48th position and then continuing with our two minute intervals between finishers, Chris Speers returned in 38:18, 67th. Nick Irvine arrived home in 39:35, just outside the top 100 with 105 and David Massey finished five seconds behind with 39:40.
Our first female athlete home was Julie Balmer, recording 43:01 followed by Fiona McQuillan, 43:18 and Valerie McDonough, 44:18.
Colin Walker – 39:56 
David McMeechan – 40:07
Terry Eakin – 40:30
Keith Gilmore – 41:41
Frank Rea – 43:00
Andrew Barrett – 43:03 
Mitchell Brown – 43:23
Philip Mulligan – 43:46
Alan Massey – 45:02
Louise Watson – 46:15
Helen Byers – 47:21
Nia McNally – 48:42
David McClements – 49:13 
Ivan Mellon – 49:31
Michael Stevenson – 49:34
Trevor Patterson – 50:26
Gary McQuillan – 50:44
Paul Galloway – 51:09
Lisa McMeechan – 51:31 
Cliff McCausland – 53:07
Valerie Blayney – 55:14
David Balmer – 56:33
Gavin McDonnell – 57:04
John McGarvey – 57:07 
Nicola Ingram – 57:21
Tracey Hodgson – 58:35
Alex Mellon – 59:02
Glenn Frazer – 59:10
Andrea Green – 1:06:04 
With a total of 38 North Down athletes finishing on Sunday this was a very healthy return from the club. Only a few more tarmac races left before the attention turns to the cross country season, hopefully we can get good numbers out for these winter races also.
Prior to the main 10K race there was a childrens 1 mile race where kids associated with the club took part. Hollie Massey was 10th with Harris Massey and Grace Galloway also running well.