TITANIC QUARTER 10K

Like last year the weather for the Titanic 10K on Sunday morning was ideal for the just over 1000 men and women who set off at 10.15am on the flat (and boring) route through the winding and contrived route. For the first time the race was part of the Inter-Area Road Race Series which involves teams from North of England, South of England, Midlands, Scotland, Wales and the UK Armed Forces competing across a variety of road race events across the UK. The TQ10K is the first in the series for this year, which was a two-way match between NI & Ulster and the North of England. The total 0f 1032 finishers was therefore considerably below the 1500 predicted to take part.

STRONG TEAMS FROM NI and NORTH of ENGLAND

The NI and Ulster Men’s team comprised NI & Ulster Senior Cross Country Champion, Mark McKinstry (North Belfast Harriers), Christopher Madden (City of Lisburn AC), who had finished in 2^nd place in last year’s race, Conan McCaughey (North Belfast Harriers) and Scott Rankin (Foyle Valley AC), an extremely strong squad on paper at least.

The main opposition was expected to come from the North of England team of Ollie Lockley (Leeds City), Daniel Bebbington (Preston) and Dejene Gesimu (Liverpool Harriers).

And so it turned out, not only in the shape of the stated opposition, which almost contemptuously swept the locals aside, with  Lockley and Gesimu taking first and second places with Bebbington in 4^th , but also from James Bellward an English Junior who stormed through to take 3^rd place. Chris Madden showed his liking for this particular course as he finished the best of the NI & Ulster select, taking 5^th place just behind Bebbington but surprisingly ahead of McKinstry, a rare defeat by a local for the tough North Belfast man, who finished 6^th overall, while McCaughey and Rankin finished in 10^th and 13^th respectively. Perhaps the long hard season is catching up with the Jimmy’s Ten winner but there’s no shame in being beaten by better opponents on the day.  The first two broke the 30 minute barrier and the next 4 runners all finished inside 31 minutes, so that even on a bad day, comparatively speaking, there was nothing wrong with his time. The respective team scores were North of England 7 points for 1^st , 2^nd and 4^th places while NI & Ulster scored 21 points for 5^th, 6^th and 10^th places, a significant but not insurmountable gap.

THE LADIES RACE

The Ladies race was much more competitive, though the NI & Ulster team suffered from a couple of late withdrawals. The original line up was double Scottish Half Marathon Champion, Fionnuala Ross (Armagh AC), Irish International and European Cross Country medallist, Ann-Marie McGlynn (Letterkenny AC) and her Letterkenny team mate Nakita Burke and last year’s winner, Laura Graham (Mourne Runners) who recently won the Larne Half Marathon. But McGlynn ad Graham were unable to field so the burden rested on the shoulders of Ross and Burke and the ever reliable Rachel Gibson North Down, who came in as a last minute substitute.

Facing them were Carla Davies (Salford Harriers), Olivia Stones (Leigh AC) and Eleanor Bolton (Oxford Uni) from the North of England team and Danielle Hodgkinson who proved the best of the team. The placings for the NI & Ulster team were Ross 2nd  Burke 3^rd  and Gibson 7^th giving a total of 12, while the  North of England placings were Hodgkinson 1^st , Bolton 4^th and Davies 5^th for a total of 10. Stones placed 6^th so that the selection of Hodgkinson was clearly the deciding factor in the closely fought team contest. If only either Graham or McGlynn had been there things could have been very different? But as these events were all unfolding at the sharp end of the field others were making their marks too

EAST DOWN HAVE A GOOD DAY ON THE TITANIC

Gordy Graham led the EDAC pack in style coming in 27th in the high end field and his time of 34.16 was a new PB. He wasn’t the only EDAC athlete to claim a PB though as both Neil Curran and Gavin Hynds set down new standards for themselves (35.55 and 40.44) proving that whittling away at times with a consistent approach can pay off. Dee Murray was home in 38.04 in a strong well paced run, a very satisfying result considering he was just home from the ski slopes. Caroline MacNabb wasn’t overly thrilled with her time as she felt that her faster time at Jimmy’s on a tougher course was a more representative of her form. Paul Lloyd having striven to beat the 40 minute barrier is now almost complacent throwing out another 39.28 on Sunday.

MARATHON THE MAIN AIM

Janine Murray was using the race as marathon preparation and was pleased with her negative split of over 2 minutes in her 52.04, the more so because she was feeling somewhat under the weather Eimear Degan came in at 55.32. Gareth Amos has been training with the Experiment 26.2 Group so named as the root aim is to get a bunch of selected first time marathoners safely through a progressive program and arrive at the start line of the Belfast Marathon prepared to take on and hopefully finish the full route. On Sunday his race was preceded by steady miles as part of the set training in order to clock up the weekly long run tally and so he had done 14 miles before the official whistle blew and thus finished with 20 miles ticked off. His time therefore is indicative of a paced run rather than a 10K race.

WELL DONE SUZY and WELCOME TO THE (RUNNERS) CLUB

And last but not least Suzy Smith can no longer claim to be a beginner – she has completed a good few events now but her performance at Titanic proves that she is being overly modest and is officially a runner whether she likes it or not!  It will not be long before she goes sub 60 the way she is going. So all in all it was a happy bunch of club members at the finish line.

NIALL CONQUERS DONARD and COMMEDAGH TOWERS

Niall Gibney took part in NIMRA Championship: Race 2 –Donard and Commedagh Towers. From sea level in Donard Park, there is a free route choice to Thomas’s Quarry and on to the summit of Slieve Donard  almost 2,000ft in 2km. From this point, Slieve Commedagh is approximately 1.6km away followed by a slight climb to Shanslieve then downhill all the way to the finish almost 2,200ft of descent in 4km.  Niall finished in a time of 1.23.59, having at one stage improved his place from 34^th to 17^th before dropping back to his very creditable finishing position, a splendid 25^th out of 90 finishers.

KIRSTI PIPPED IN REMARKALE 800M INDOOR FINAL

Kirsti Foster was unlucky to miss out on a medal in the All Ireland Indoor Championships in Athlone on Saturday. Running in the Under 15 Girls 800 metres she qualified in second place setting a new PB of 2.24.43 in her heat. Then in the final she set another PB of 2.23.79, normally the sort of performance which would guarantee a medal of some colour.  But amazingly not only did the athlete that Kirsti had beaten into 3rd place in her heat improve her time to win the title, but she did so by an incredible 4.48 seconds! And she wasn’t the only one to produce mind boggling times over her Heat times. The athletes from heat 2 which was much slower overall and who finished 2^nd and 3^rd in that race improved their times by almost 4 seconds each in the final!! This meant that in spite of her improvement timewise, Kirsti was edged out in the final. However she can take great pride in having reached the final, setting that PB and only just missing out on that coveted medal.

WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK

As you read this you are possibly toying with the idea of taking part in the NI 5K Championships being hosted at QUB which also has a 3K alternative tonight (Wednesday) or tomorrow (Thursday) night

St Malachy’s 10K** and 5K** in Castlwellan in aid of Trocaire Lenten Campaign and the School’s ICT facilities. Online entries closed on Tuesday and there is limited on the night entry.

Organisers have asked that participants should please note:-

10K starts at 6.45pm – earlier than first advertised for safety to allow enough light.
strict cut-offs will be enforced at the start of the climb of Slievenaslat – this is 4km into the 10km.

this is a very challenging 10km and not to be compared to a typical road race. The courses have been designed to be challenging and in the hope  that runners will be very rewarding to complete.

**The 5km has 320ft of climbing.**
**The 10km has 1000ft of climbing.**

 

Joe Quinn & Alison Carroll

1 April 2019