Another successful week for the club’s athletes across trail, road and track with age group wins, podium spots but the highlight was success at the MPT where North Down won the ANI Team Trophy.
The Hill & Dale race series usually consists of 10 races throughout spring but when wildfires in the Mournes forced the organisers cancel the Slieve Martin race at the end of April, an opportunity arose to run Slieve Martin later on as a standalone charity event raising funds to purchase a defibrillator at the Oldtown Road car park benefitting all those who enjoy the Mournes.
On Thursday 5 North Down AC mountain runners, including regular Hill & Dale runners and those new to these races took to the steep trails above Rostrevor to the 485m summit of Slieve Martin, with the race distance being approximately 7.5k. Newcomer to the series, James Blease was 12th overall and 2nd junior male in 46:46 while Holly Blease was 1st junior female in 1:012:23, Claire Scott was 1st F50, close behind Holly in 1:01:35 with Helen Byers was 3 seconds behind in 1:01:38 taking 2nd F45, only 2.3 seconds behind her age group winner. June McMinn rounded off a successful evening of mountain running by also winning her age group in 1:05:06.
https://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=443487&did=610436
The Mallusk 5 Mile road race is a well established mid-August Friday night fixture. The single loop course starts and finishes close to the Mallusk playing fields and includes surprisingly challenging hills.
Ashley Dixon was the club’s first finisher taking 3rd place in 27:34. Ricky Jordan was 15th in 30:03 followed by David Massey 32:24 and 1st M60, Philip Mulligan 34:34. Sarah Gibson was 6th female and sat F55 in 34:44. Alan Massey 37:25, Una Kilmartin 38:18, Paula Simpson 48:08 and Ian McCreary 52:35 also tackled the hills on a humid evening for racing.
While many club members have been inspired by incredible performances at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, our own athletes were enjoying success closer to home at the Mary Peters Track on Saturday at the NI & Ulster 10000m & Relay Championships & ANI Team Trophy with superb individual, team and relay results. The biggest success for the club was North Down securing the men’s team trophy title after a close battle with Lagan Valley and Mid-Ulster.
James Gage ran the Broughshane 5 mile race on Monday evening, in very different conditions to his clubmates at Mallusk on Friday! Despite the driving rain, he ran a strong 44:27