The second event of the Irish Milers Club series took place at the Mary Peters track on Saturday 7th May. A full programme of track and field events involved many North Down athletes who had a successful day with pb’s and medals.
In the age group races Ellie Gordon was 1st in the U13 girls 1000M with 3:24:46 followed up by Hollie Massey in 8th, 3:34:06. In the boys race Lukas Kenny finished 2nd in a close fought affair, crossing the line in 3:21:94. We had another winner in the U15 girls 800M with Murphy Miller easily claiming 1st in a time of 2:20:66 and Megan Briggs 7th in 2:27:34. In the boys equivalent Jakob Swann took a close 2nd place when PB’ing in 2:09:45.
In the main events Andrew Mellon finished 4th in a high quality 400M in 47:83 while Aaron Sexton doubled up with the 100M and 200M. The two races were run within half an hour of each other and Aaron managed to come 3rd, 11:14, in the 100M B race and then win the 200M B race in 22:25. Aaron has ran the qualifying times for the European Youth Championships in both 100 and 200 but the standards set by Athletics Ireland are 0.2 secs quicker in the 100 and 0.25 in the 200. With Aarons’ current form and recent performances the higher benchmarks should be cleared very soon, particularly in the 200M.
The next race on the programme was the mens 3000M which was packed with top Irish runners. Craig McMeechan was included in the 26 strong field with a lot of the guys using the race to get their qualifying times for the World U20 championships in Poland, needing 8:15, and the European Youth championships in Georgia, needing 8:40. The race concluded with 3 Under 20 runners making the sub 8:15 time and Craig succeeding in the European standard finishing in 8:35:95. A great effort where he put absolutely everything into the race, the last 100M seeming as if they were all uphill. Well done Craig.
In the mixed 3000M race up next James Budde and Jessica Craig also left no ounce of effort out on the track. James mixed it with the leaders until midway where he got a stitch but still managed a very credible 4th place with 9:02:76. Jessica ran a determined race and succeeded in breaking 10 mins with a pb of 9:57:12.
Rachel Gibson ran in the B 800M race and won it easily with 2:13:09. Perhaps a run out in the A string would have helped Rachel run closer to the 2:10 mark.
In the field events Laura Saulter took a great 3rd place in the Triple Jump amongst jumpers from Ireland and England, her best jump 11:22. Michael Gaffney’s best throw in the Javelin was 50.4 which would have placed him 5th.
Results (Without field events):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53863822/Milers%20Club/2016/Results/belfast-inter.html