Timmy and Martsje are top of the Tower
Thursday night would see Andrew Wallace and his Ballydrain Harriers team bring the return of a classic race at Scrabo Tower. The new course would start at the bottom car park at Killynether wood and follow a two lap route before taking the final race to the Tower.
Almost 70 runners would put their toe to the start line and they would be split into 5 groups that would take off 1 min apart. This would mean you have to go hard just incase someone in another group might be close to your time. Its a cruel sport these days…..
The first group would see Timothy Johnson (Mourne Runners) and Tom Crudgington (Newcastle AC) go head to head with not much to split them on the first lap. By the second lap and run to the finish Timothy Johnson would finally put a bit of space between them and take the win in 26:33. With only 19 seconds later Tom would claim the second place and first U18. Johnny Scott (Mourne Runners) would complete the podium in a time of 28:58 after overhauling the host clubs top runner Jared Martin.
The ladies race might not have been as close up front as Martsje Hell (North Belfast Harriers) would blaze around the course in 33:45 to take the win but behind her the fight for the other places was another matter. Claire Tonry and Debbie McConnell produced a tremendous effort and they would end up being split by only 3 seconds.
Behind the winners there were plenty of battles going on with the Bell brothers pushing each other right to the line, David Hicks claiming the MV40 by only few seconds and the host club runners producing some excellent performances.
With all the fog that had been about early the course was brilliantly marked so the chance of going wrong was close to zero…..however rumours that the award for lost in the mountains was looking a few candidates so up stepped the young Gary Bailie. Not content with doing 2 laps he decided to add in a third one for good measure.
Many thanks to Ballydrain Harriers for an excellent run race and to Jayne Bell for the photos (more can be found here) with the next championship race being Slieve Donard. Results can be found here.
