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Slieve Muck teams

Fri 21 May 2010 - Ian Taylor

The team results from Slieve Muck show Mourne Runners once again in the lead, with Newcastle second.  Ballymena are still managing to hang on to third place despite only have three runners compared to Mournes' 20 and Newcastle's 15 athletes.

The overall team positions after seven races are shown in the link below

Teams

Mourne Runners are now in an unbeatable position in first place.  Newcastle could theoretically be caught by Newry City if they won the remaining four races!!  BARF have been creeping up the rankings and are now in equal third place.  Ballymena Runners have now completed four races but if they can mobilise all their team (please come back Jonathan, after exams and trying extreme measures to lose weight), could move into third place.  Armagh also need another race to move much further up the rankings while Lunchtime Legends need another three races to count.

 Race Report

Where there’s Muck there’s Money

Hill and Dale Race Seven: Slieve Muck
By the Big Fella’s Fella

Slieve Muck is the seventh race in the Hill & Dale series sponsored by Up and Running, and as the headline suggests the money now must be going on Stevie Cunningham to claim his first Hill and Dale series title.

A glorious evening greeted the 159 runners who turned up to conquer Muck. What a beautiful mountain and such a pity there’s not enough time to take it all in during the race. It will have to be revisited for a more leisureable stroll over the summer. You would think the mountain opened its eye at the sight of so many people at its base. At 6.00pm it was cloud covered, nearing race time the cloud lifted and you could see the marshals standing at the ridge. By 8.30pm the cloud came back down and the mountain went back to sleep. I only wish I could sleep as this Thursday night running leaves you quite hyper and it’s almost impossible to switch off. Not having run this race in 10 years, Newcastle AC decided to change their calendar and reintroduce the great mountain and it was nice to see so many people who had ran in 2000 back in action in 2010.

Stevie had tried to convince a lot of his friends not to run by suggesting the course was too rough, so perhaps next year we might find a mountain at the Mary Peters track. He was not to be worried however as this race would suit him, straight up and down, a runable mountain. Joe McCann set off the runners from the sheep pen at Crocnafeola. His pre-race instructions lasted almost as long as the race itself and his singing could be heard high up the slopes. It was like a scene from The Sound of Music. On the way up there was a herd of hardy hairy Aberdeen angus cows looking on in amusement as a herd of hardy hairy mountain runners passed by bellowing louder than their bovine counterparts. I hope Hugh Suffern is impressed with the animal references, however, it must be said that there are a few follicly impaired runners. Hugo Rodgers is quite smooth on top and a few local cyclist legs lack some hair. It was queried whether those legs received their brown glow by cycling up the muddy mountain or by cycling round to Gordon’s chemist.

Back to the race and about half way up the climb you hit a really steep gully. At this point the runners were literally pulling the grass out with their hands. The plan was to take the runners up one gully and down the other. However Dennis Rankin went up the wrong one suggesting Dennis may be more flexible in the Mourne Two Day for runners who accidentally miss the markers. Mary Knight was all proud of herself that she managed to negotiate the gully before the lead runner returned.

 This is quite a tricky section of the race but it was well marshalled. Sean Donnelly has not raced since he beat his boss at Slieve Martin, but having been put under threat of his p45 if he showed up again, he decided to marshal instead. At this point Stevie and Eddie were shoulder to shoulder with the big fella (i.e the legend that is Deon McNeilly, who incidentally still holds the record for Muck at 29.40 sec) pushing hard along a slightly different line in third. The first four ladies were also quite close with Alwynne Shannon just heading Shileen O’Kane, Ann Sandford and Diane Wilson. Once over the gully however there is still a lot of running required along an undulating ridge to the summit of Muck. This can drain the legs on the way out and on the return journey. At the summit Stevie and Eddie turned almost together. It is a great credit to Stevie to run so well having set an incredible winning time over the 13 miles of the Annalong Horseshoe on the previous Saturday. Credit also to Shileen for winning the Annalong ladies race and perhaps that may have taken its toll as from this point Alwynne began building a winning lead on the return down the gully. Congratulations should also go to the group who tackled the European Masters in Barcelona and had a very successful trip yet still turned up at Muck, David Bell, Ann Sandford, Willie John Brown and Tish McCann.

In mountain running there are two elements, the first is to run up the mountain as fast as you can and then run down the mountain as fast as you can. If Gary Bailey can only shave a few more seconds on his climb he would be close to winning all these races. Having turned in seventh position he made a Kamikaze descent to finish in fifth, well done Gary. It appears that the secret to mountain racing is to become a plasterer as at the finish Stevie and Eddie completed a one, two for the trade. No, become a ‘plasterer’, that is, not to get plastered at the presentation, as a few people may have thought. Neil Carty completed the podium again with a fabulous descent.

In the ladies race Alwynne Shannon notched up race win number four from Shileen O’Kane in second place and Ann Sandford in third place. Alwynne broke Roma McConville’s 1995 record and as it was fitting Roma was first V50 just 2 minutes slower than her 1995 time. Other noticeable performances came from the first male junior Timothy Johnston. However this performance may be down to the fact that he was trying to escape his teacher Mike Barton because he hadn’t finished his homework. Talking about finishing Joe McCann claimed the bib number 1 at the initial registration from its rightful owner Eddie Hanna, who it must be noted lost his other number to a fall on his descent of Muck. With this bib number, we were expecting big things from Joe and that is why he receives a special mention in the race results as DNES, (did not even start). When asked in running terms what he did last week, he replied, nothing! When asked did he do anything this week, he retorted, no because he didn’t finish doing nothing last week.


Our chief timekeeper Frank Morgan ran 46:09 in 1999, which would have got him joint 22nd place in today’s money. An excellent performance to be along side a local physical education teacher. After the race another aspect of the Hill and Dale series is to visit the ‘local’ and giving us great support this week was Greenans of Kilcoo. Thanks goes to Sharon and Leona for the sausages, chips and for the serving of the sandwiches. Tash made an appearance probably feeling guilty after reading last weeks report about Mrs Doran allowing Frank to dry himself at her range. Maybe Mary Margaret will also make an appearance later in the series, as all three-lady publicans are life long friends.

In the local spot prizes are handed out of hats and tee-shirts to various people and also to virgins, that is people who have ran their first Hill and Dale race. We had a very ironic prize here, as the recipient just happened to be a gynaecologist so at least he can prove his claim to virtue.

Thanks again to all the people who helped at the race in any way, registration, car park attendants and especially the McEvoy family for the use of their field. Special mention to the water boys and that is not a reference to the band playing at Greenans. However apparently Charlie Rich made an appearance to sing Behind Closed Doors.

The Hill and Dale committee would appreciate the safe return of our traffic calming road sign. Some clubs may think it is cheap advertising to boost new recruits but our sign “Caution Slow Runners” is required for the next race.

Next weeks race No 8 is Meelmore and Meelbeg so again car share if possible, bring body cover if weather is bad. Thanks to Up and Running for the spot prizes and their continued support. Finally thanks to all the runners who turn up each week competing against themselves, friends or whoever, trying their hardest through the MUCK, sweat and the tears.

Newcastle AC are grateful to Marty McVeigh for his distribution of performance enhancing jelly babies at the gully. However, it has been suggested that he should be more generous to the other running clubs.