North Down had an highly respectable day at Raheny on Sunday with teams at Senior Men and Senior Women level. The girls finished an excellent fifth, five places higher than a year ago in a time of 22:48 min, Jessica Craig, Lauren Scott and Nicola Simpson beating their 2010 time by well over a minute. With two youngsters and a vet struggling with achilles problems, the mens team of Niall Robinson, Josh Lowry. Francis Marsh and Glen Willis looked a bit makeshift on paper, but their time of 40:35 min compared very well against last year’s sixth placed team which ran 39:55 min and was the club fastest time over the course. Certainly nobody could be accused of holding anything back.
[Not a valid template]Each lap of the course is slightly over a mile and the girls ran 1 lap, 2 laps, 1 lap. Jessica got them off to a great start in 5:35 min to end in 4th place just outside 3rd. The second leg of 2 laps brought out the competition’s strongest runners and Fionnuala Britton virtually sealed a first time victory in the event for Kilcoole AC, taking them from 11th to first in 10:21 min. Lauren with 11:10 was the fastest of the others, running 2 laps at the same pace as she ran the 1 lap a year ago. With the team now in 5th, Nicola, though not fully fit, made sure of maintaining that place with 6:03 min.
[Not a valid template][Not a valid template]Niall, already the club’s fastest over the 2 legs of the course, improved on last year’s time with 9:33 min, sharing 4th place. The rest of the team could not hold that in this class of competition but ran to the limit with Josh 4:47 min for 1 lap, Francis 15:49 for three and Glen 10:26 for two. The future looks bright.
After ploughing a lone furrow for Northern Ireland since 2004 in this event, it was good to see a strong presence from City of Derry Spartans, who competed in all events.
17/04/2011 Woodie’s DIY Road Relay Championships
Senior Men – Senior Women – Master Women – Master Men – Master Men 50+
Flotrack Videos
Women – Men (legs 1 & 2) – Men (leg 3) – Men (leg 4)