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

 

News Update 24 August

Tue 24 August 2010 - Ian Taylor

Selection News

Teams for the Senior Home International (Scotland) and BR & Irish Home International (Wicklow) are now being selected.  The events are both on the weekend of 18th/19th September.  And if you are not selected, you could also console yourself by doing the Mourne Mountain Marathon the same weekend.

Teams will be added when available.

Future Events

Congratulations to Deon McNeilly, selected for the Irish World Masters Event next weekend in Poland.  The Vet45 team includes Deon and John Lenihan, with athletes in 5 age groups.

Also next weekend six local athletes are off to Chamonix for the Ultra Tour of Mont Blanc.  Fred Hammond is entered in the 100 mile, 9500m event, with a time limit of 46 hours.  Othes participating include Kevin Grogan, aiming to improve on his 2008 success, Wendy Dodds and Bill Maxwell.  In the shorter 69 mile, 7000m TDS Brian Linton is participating, with Fiona Maxwell another entrant.

In the easiest class - that being a very relative term, the CCC of length 61 miles with 5600m of climb and a 26 hour time limit are Barbara Brown, Hannah Shields, Martina Elliott and Donal O'Kane.  Fiona Maxwell was third female in this event in 2008 in 16:44.

The following weekend, 4th September, about 13 local athletes are off to Fort William for the classic Ben Nevis race including Des Woods, Dave Bell, Tish McCann, Willie Marks, Mike Barton, Sam Herron, Clive Bailey, Brian McBurney, Ricky Cowan etc

The same weekend an Irish team is away to the World Mountain Running Championships in Slovenia.  While the team list does not seem to have been published, Karen Alexander (Sperrin) was second in the trial in Wicklow in August and James Speight (Omagh) was first junior male at the same trial so both may be presumed to be on the team.

Recent Success

In the classic Sierre Zinal race in Switzerland Des Woods finished in 3:12:04, 51st male overall and 11th in class.  He must have been chasing Angela Mudge (second female) most of the way as she finished in 3:11:02 but perhaps she had the advantage of doing the race on at least five previous occasions.

In the WMRA Long Distance Championship over the 13 mile ascent race of Pike's Peak, Fiona Maxwell finished in 2:55:35, second team member for Scotland, 12th female overall and first FV45.  111 athletes did both the ascent race on the Saturday and the 26 mile up and down race the next day!

In the 49 mile Davos Mountain Marathon at the end of July, locals Willie Marks (9:16), Barry Tinnelly (9:48) and Rowan McMahon (9:48) enjoyed this well organised event, perhaps encouraged by last year's report of Peter Ferris (V50) taking 9:43:37 or of this author also completing it within the time allowance.

Closer to home, in the 24 hour track race, fell runers Fred Hammond completed almost 111 miles for third place, Jonathan McCloy did 92 and Iryna Kennedy covered 84.5 miles.  Earlier in May Fred had covered 104 much tougher Scottish trial miles in 28 hours.  Meanwhile to mention other activities, Taryn McCoy (BARF) was second female in the Groomsport half Ironman triathlon last weekend, covering a swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13 mile run in 5:24:11 while Armagh athlete Kris Muldoon was 21st in 4:58:51 out of about 174 participants.

 

And if you have done something interesting and are not mentioned above, please let us know - or get your friends to drop a hint!