The Scrabo Race a week ago showed an increase in participants and so did the Crawfordsburn Trail Race with nearly 140 finishers. The concept of bundling three races into one series seems fully vindicated and the series will conclude at Redburn on Wednesday 30th August with series prizes afterwards at CIYMS.. In good still conditions Abbey’s Paul Pollock seemed well on the way to retaining the Crawfordsburn title and led until well on the coastal path but Diarmuid Grant of City of Derry took advantage of the chicane at the bridge to seize the lead. Though Paul was never more than a few strides behind, Diarmuid went on to win in 16.01 with Paul 2nd in 16.07, Neil Douglas 3rd and Paul Blaney 4th.with Andrew Agnew top U20. Kerry Harty of Newcastle was a clear winner of the womens race in 18.29, with Juniors Joanne Mills of East Down and Racel Pearson of City of Lisbon next in 19.56 and 20.33.
North Down had a healthy eighteen runners out with intriguing battles for bragging rights. John Carlisle led for most of the way with Simon Seaton a few places behind unaware of John’s presence until family pride was invoked. Simon caught John on the final hill and was 17th in 17.53 with John 18th in 17.57. Debbie Matchett was 9th female and 68th overall winning the F40 prize in 22.04. Just behind in 69th and 22.11 Kerry Iveston maintained her good position in the series and will be on home turf at Redburn.
With Bangor Sportsplex unavailable for our usual track promotion, Bank of Ireland agrred to transfer their support to the Trail Race in the form of a Junior race of about 800m. Winners of the boys and girls races were Mark Armstrong of North Down and Iona Macey-Lillie of Willowfield with Glen Willis and Christine Quee top 11 year olds.
