Flahavan’s Primary School XC League
Round 3 of the Flahavan’s League took place at Tollymore on Friday 23rd January with several of North Down AC’s junior athletes representing their primary schools. Daly Seaton won the first boys race in 5:25 and his brother Casey was second in 5:28. Nathan Shackleton was 18th in 6:19. All 3 ran for Gencraig PS taking Glencraig to 2nd place in the team competition.
In the second race three St Comgall’s PS pupils were racing with Harrison Mair 3rd in 5:38, Fox Neill 7th 5:54 and Thomas Close 12th in 6:06. They earned a second team place for their school.
Lucy Kane (Donaghade PS) was 17th in 7:06 pipping Sophie Wiltshire (Glencraig PS) 18th also in 7:06 to the line in the first girls’ race. and Isla Little (St Comgall’s was 18th also in 7:06 in race 2.
Josh Beckett (Crawfordsburn PS) completed the fun run in 3:46.
National Indoor League, Dublin
Rachel McCann ran a 0.17 second outright personal best winning the womens’ 400m at the Sports Campus National Indoor Arena on Saturday today, clocking 52.89
NI & Ulster Intermediate and Masters XC Championships
Typical cold, wet cross country weather greeted athletes on arrival at the NI & Ulster Intermediate and Masters XC Championships in Lurgan Park on Saturday afternoon. With Master’s category prizes up for grabs in age groups between 35 and 65 plus, close fought cross country racing ensued as male and female age groupers battled the muddy course over 8k and 4k respectively.
In the Intermediate Women Holly Blease was 5th in 17:47 followed by Maia Johnston 18:42, Rebekah Laffin 20:26 and Anya Phillips 20:33, with the first 2 finishers earning 2nd place for North Down AC.
The Masters’ Women were 6th overall with the F45s claiming 4th. Claire Tonry 17:43 was 11th followed by Claire Quigley 19:41, Helen Byers 19:52, Lisa Tomalin 19:59 Glynis Boyle 20:58, Claire Scott 21:00 and Roberta Dornan 21:11.
The over 65 men were 3rd team with Terry Eakin 20:11 1st M75, John Adgey 25:38 1st M80, Brian Smith 27:04 2nd M80 and Pat O’Driscoll 31:59 3rd M75.
In the Male Masters’ race Dale Murray 32:00, Jonathan Gibson 34:06 and David McKeague 34:11 were 3rd M35 team, Declan Magee 34:27, Alasdair Mair 35:01, Simon Boyle 35:38, Steven Donegan 36:38, Mark Weir 36:48, Jamie Tole 36:57, Colin Walker 39:34, Mitchell Brown 40:01 and Alan Massey 44:01 took 4th M45 team and North Down AC were 7th overall.
The best result of the day was in the Mens’ Intermediate team race where Jamie Coulter-Smyth 5th in 26:36, Luke McDowell 26:56, Kyle McLellann 27:19, Garry Morrow 27:26, James Graham 27:30 and Marc Neill 27:38 took 1st team place for North Down AC for the second year in a row. Competition rules prohibit the winning team from competing again the following year (unless they are under 21) so winning this competition in consecutive years with a completely different scoring team is a remarkable achievement for the club members involved! Aaron Beggs 29:57, Malte Kunze 30:02 and Josh McDowell 31:19 were narrowly behind the scoring 6.
https://athleticsni.org/Results
Raheny 5 Mile Road Race
The Raheny 5 Mile is one of the most popular events on the Irish running calendar, the first major road race of the year, attracting a wide variety of elite athletes and club runners from the north Dublin suburb and elsewhere across the island and GB to the flat, fast course.
With over 4000 runners completing the course the North Down athletes who made the journey to Dublin faced strong competition throughout. John Ewing was the first of the club’s finishers in 136th place in a well deserved PB of 28:20, executing a perfectly paced race to finish narrowly ahead of club mate Dean Varley who also achieved a new PB in 28:23. Tara McDonough was 7th female finisher in 28:46 followed by Andy Lowry 29:05, Rachel Gibson was 16th in 30:25 and Chris Downey ran a strong 34:16.
https://myrunresults.com/events/axa_raheny_5_mile/6026/results
