Northern Ireland Mountain Running Association
www.nimra.org.uk

 

News Update (revised again)

Mon 23 April 2007 - Ian Taylor

London Marathon

Congratulations to mountain runners Norma Rea, Dave Ewart and Don Travers on completing the London Marathon today in quite warm conditions.

Don 2:49:34
Dave 3:29:25
Norma 4:13:10

We hope they will try a rather shorter (1.7 miles) but more vertically challenging distance next Thursday on Binnian.

Other Northern Ireland runers included Joe McAllister (2:27:10), Dave Morwood (2:34:00), Richard Turkington (2:35:21) and Simon Seaton (2:48:32). Ex NI-International Noel McMonagle was round in 4:21:45. Ballymena Runners had most participants with 5 athletes, N Belfast 4, Pegasus 3.

Export from BARF, Joanne Thin of Carnethy finished just after Norma, in 4:15:32.

Everest 2007
Some members decided that London was a bit flat this year and decided to aim for something with a bit of altitude. Nigel Hart and Hannah Shields are both on Everest, from opposite sides.

Nigel Hart has the excuse that he is doing some research and is approaching from Nepal - see

http://www.xtreme-everest.co.uk/news_detail.php?article=471

Hannah is on the North Col route with a seven summits expedition - her news can be picked out from the overall site at

http://www.7summits-club.com/

Maumturks
Three members were at the Maumturks Challenge Walk last weekend - about 18 very tough miles with 2300 metres of ascent. In the best weather conditions for at least ten years fast times on very dry ground were in order. Trevor Wilson was second fastest, out of 106 entrants with a time of 7:12, Ian Taylor had a net time of 10 hours but added 40 minutes to this to go off route to pick up 3 extra 600 metre peaks and Paul Fegan had a more leisurely stroll round in 12 hours. It is very easy to see that in misty conditions times could be very much longer with serious navigation required and in many places no obvious route or path.

Celebrate 60
Many of you will haver seen Desi McHenry featured on the front of "Local Heros" - he turned 60 in January and to celebrate is doing an Ironman triathlon in June in Nice - 2.5 mile swim, 112 bike ride and 26 mile marathon. When he turned 50 Desi did 50 miles round the Mary Peters Track. Many of you will be moving into a new category this year - a few ladies are turning 40 or 50, quite a few men are moving into 50 or 60 age groups - how are you going to celebrate?

Connemara Ultra - 1 April
Amongst the 86 athletes who completed this 39.3 mile scenic ultra at the beginning of this month were Jonny Steede of Ballymena and Jim McCormick (NBH) finishing in 7th and 8th positions in 5:01:26.  Jonny must not have been trying too hard as he appeared at the first Hill & Dale four days later, finishing in 18th place.  The results also indicate that Martina Elliot took 6:14:49 and was fourth female in 31st overall position.  Peter Ferris of Coleraine took 6:13:15.

Readers may remember that last year Hannah Shields was 13th overall, and second lady in 5:42:16 while John McBride took 6:52:23 to finish 43rd.  Other completions were by Kevin Grogin (occasional NIMRA member) in 5:51:33, Heather Bamford (Lunchtime Legends) in 6:53:07 and Peter Ferris in 7:13:57 

Any one want to lower the record below 5 hours in 2008 ?