Nineteen for the Larne Half Marathon

Road race club records continued to fall on Saturday at the Larne Half Marathon where Julie Balmer in 3rd place in 84:36 min to smash her own record. Best of the club men was Francis Marsh in 4th who was top veteran and took the M45 prize.  With Joe McAllister, Diarmaud Grant and a Portuguese runner taking the first three places 3 minutes ahead, Francis was happy enough to consolidate 4th.  The scoring four was made up by Nick Arkensparr, Les Wilkinson who had a pb and Terry Eakin who was 1st M60 and with 87:05 had a pb for North Down. As well as 10 male finishers from the club, there were 9 girls with Julie backed up by Jill Aicken who had a pb, Valerie McDonough who ran 103:13 in her first half marathon and Sarah Benton. Pbs went to Louise Togneri, Lisa Leonard and Janine Skelly, Louise running 10 minutes faster than a year ago.

The girls were unlucky not to claim the sole womens team prize (4 to count). With half marathon specialist Roberta Dornan opting not to start with an iffy back, it was the tightest of margins between Springwell and North Down. Three to count would have won it for North Down, aggregate score for the first four would have won it. Bt it was scored on overall places and Springwell took it by 1280 to 1285.