First event of the week for Scrabo Striders was the 5th Hill & Dale Series race, which took place at Leitrim Lodge and Rocky Mountain on Thursday evening.  Ismail Karauzum finished the challenging 4.5 mile course in 45:39 and was 4th in the M50 category.

Sarah Luce enjoys finding events a little further from home to run at.  On Saturday, she and her son Calum travelled to County Tyrone to compete in the Seskinore Forest 5k.  Running together, they both achieved course personal best times of 31:28 (Calum) and 31:32 (Sarah).

The Irish Runner National 5k Championships took place in Phoenix Park, Dublin on Saturday.  It was another successful day for the club, with Norman Mawhinney retaining his M65 5k Champion title with a superb time of 18:15.  Also running was Heather Baron, returning from injury and recording a great time of 23:44.

Born2Run Events hosted the Glenarm Castle Challenge on Saturday, with the options of Half Marathon, 10k and 5k running distances, as well as a 10k walk.  Scrabo’s 3 representatives all went for the biggest distance race, with new member Philip Adams running in 2:23:58, Georgia McGonigal celebrating a PB time of 2:32:09 and Martin Conroy completing in 2:40:18.

Gaithouse Events organised the Florida Manor Endurance Challenge for Saturday, giving competitors a time limit of either 3, 6 or 12 hours to run as many 4.9km (3 mile) laps as they could.  In the 12 hour event, clocking up a fantastic 17 laps (over 51 miles) and joint first ladies were Judith Boyd and Sonya Summersgill.  Not only was this a distance PB in a 12 hour event but they also recorded marathon, 30k and 50k PBs along the way!  Graeme Black and Paul Blair ran 17 and 13 (40 miles) laps respectively.

Most popular time limit for Striders at Florida was 6 hours.  9 laps (27 miles) were completed by Colin Campbell, Emma Clements and Maxine Dynes, while Darren Johnston finished with 7 laps (21 miles).  Louise Barnes, Olli Seeger and Craig Simpson achieved 6 laps (18 miles), and Sheena Crone, Naomi Fleming and Liam Rodger concluded with 4 laps (12 miles).

In the 3 hour event, Sharon Gamble, Chris Green and Lynn McGonigal ended with 3 laps (9 miles) and Allie Farley completed 1 lap.

Saturday morning saw 51 members take part in 14 different parkruns.  Gavin McDonnell ran at what has become his local in Uttoxeter for the past 9 months, Bramshall Road.  Gavin is also a regular volunteer, and recently took on the role of Run Director at this parkrun.  Plenty of parkrun tourism took place, with Chris Hollies running at Princes in Liverpool, Cheryl Macartney and Michael Burgess at Queen Elizabeth near Portsmouth, Jonathan Keenan at Citypark in Craigavon, Matt Bell at Omagh, Jonathan Winter at Antrim, and Karen Wilson and Chris Edwards at Larne.  PB times were achieved by George Johnston (Stormont 21:46) and Sara McMaster (31:53 Knockbracken Reservoir), while Liam Rodger (30:02 Waterworks), Luke Braniff (21:34 Stormont), Heath Farrington (27:07 Stormont) and Gareth Davies (19:20 Belfast Victoria) set course PBs.

Luke Braniff and Willow Farrington took 1st and 2nd place at Belfast YMCA junior parkrun on Sunday, both recording PBs of 7:08 and 7:22 respectively.  Also running was Rory Braniff, while Lyla McNamara ran at Bangor and Adam Haylett, Calum McCready, Harriet and Nathaniel Frazer at Comber.

Captain Lyndsey Blair chose Maxine Dynes as her first Boyd Rice Solicitors Member of the Month at the end of April.  Maxine had a fantastic month, completing EAMS marathon (4:35), Larne 10 mile (1:25:59 PB), “Not the London Marathon” (4:48:18), Comber parkrun (25:22 PB) and Belfast Marathon (4:19:26 Course PB and 2nd fastest marathon), taking her total number of marathons to 70!  Maxine is described as a lovely person and brilliant company, working hard at her training and has also got her young daughter Maddie involved in Striders.

Another keen marathon runner, Colin Campbell was chosen to be Captain Michael Burgess’ first Member of the Month.  Colin is currently on 83 marathons having recently completed Brighton (4:39:03), “Not the London Marathon” (4:44:54) and Belfast (4:57:57).  He also loves his ultra marathons, with notable achievements including Dublin to Belfast (107 miles) and over 100 miles at Victoria Park 24 hours.  Colin is friendly and encouraging towards his fellow Striders, and enjoys seeing people smash their distance PBs at endurance events such as Last Strider Standing.

It has been a busy month with the Captains and Vice Captains leading various challenges, aimed at helping Striders to have fun as they get to know each other better, improve their running, prevent injury with strength and conditioning and lead healthier lifestyles when not training!  As well as this, members are being encouraged to “give back”, by volunteering if they are not already or encouraging and supporting others, for example at a race.  Meanwhile, much hard work is being done behind the scenes to organise upcoming races, the Striders’ 8th Anniversary Race at Mount Stewart (members only), Ards Half Marathon and Run the Trails, also at Mount Stewart.  Even if you are new to running, you will be made very welcome at Scrabo Striders.  Search on Facebook or visit www.scrabostriders.com to learn more.

Michael Burgess