Stride to the Tower
Stride to Scrabo Tower, if you can see it!
On Saturday 10th March we held a unique race for members, a 1.2 mile, 450 foot (150 metre) trail ascent from the Old Belfast Road to Scrabo Tower, dubbed the Race to the Tower. The glorious blue skies of the day before made way for wind, horizontal rain and a Tower that was barely visible most of the time. Add to this puddles, mud, rough terrain and steep inclines the 34 hardy entrants deserve at round of applause if not a medal.
Norman Mawhinney took first place in 11 minutes 1 second, second place went to Ricky Jordan in 11:41 and third Colin Harper one second later. Next came Graeme McGowan, Connor McNamara, Johnny Wray, Manny Farrelly, Chris Green and Paul Sheldon. The first lady finisher was Shannon Clegg, completing the short but challenging ascent in 12 minutes 50 seconds, followed by Mark Leathem, then Shannon’s husband Justin, just in behind his wife 52 seconds later. Their rivalry continues.
In under 16 minutes next came Garry Cavill, Stephen Gargan, Lynn Sheldon, Jenny Gargan, Michael Brown, Abrar Hossain, Mark Halus, Mervyn Kinney and Steve McCormick. Rachel Patterson finished in 16:07 followed closely by Caroline Dwyer, Paula Steen, Mick Honeyman, Amanda Piesse, Ashley Gilliland, Amanda Martin, Karen Donaghy, Eileen Pollock and Kathryn Chesney finishing in under 17 minutes. Next to complete the course were Lorraine Adams, Kathy Henderson and Tracey Scott. Well done all and a well-deserved cuppa in Scrabo Golf Clubhouse afterwards.
Scrabo Striders Committee would like to than the race organisers, particularly Kieran McNamara as well as the marshals and supporters who braved the atrocious conditions to make the event a great success.
In other news, Scrabo Strider Karen Hewitt completed her 100th Parkrun at Comber Parkway on Saturday clocking up enough distance to run from Belfast to Cork and back, congratulations Karen! The first Strider to finish at Comber was Gary Clarke with a new personal best (PB) time of 24 minutes 27 seconds, then came Caroline Dwyer and Paul Kirkwood running the Parkway course for the first time, followed by Eileen Pollock, Mick Honeyman, Amanda Martin, Mark Halus, first-timer Haley Donnan and Nicola McNamara with a new PB of 29:10.
Then came Sharon Graham, Catherine Lavery, Christine Kirkwood, Karen Hewitt, Rex McCormick with a new PB of 38:58 and Barbara Morrow. Well done all. If some of those names are becoming familiar it is because many club members completed the Race to the Tower directly after Park Run!
At other Parkruns Tina Boal and Liz and David Turton ran Victoria Park, Paul and Lynn Sheldon and Mark Leathem ran Stormont, while Ricky Jordan and Wendy Thompson represented the club at the Bangor Parkrun, where Ricky achieved a new PB of 20 minutes 28 seconds. At the 26 Extreme Carlingford Half Marathon Andy Palmer achieved a time of 1 hour 44 minutes while Jan Murphy ran the 10K race on 1 hour 7 minutes.