Ards Half Marathon Returns, Striding through Antrim

Posted: 7/2/2019

Scrabo Striders Running Club are delighted to announce that the Club will be arranging the Ards Half Marathon this year! Save the date, 28th June 2019 and get that hill training underway! More details to follow soon on the Events section at ww.scrabostriders.com.

Scrabo Striders Running Club are also pleased to announce the return of “Run the Runways” on Friday 10th May 6:30pm. This is an all abilities family event comprising a 1 kilometre Kids Fun Run and a 5km and 10km chip-timed race around the taxi ways and three runways of Newtownards Airfield.

The novel location and totally flat course is just made for getting a new personal best! A bespoke medal for all finishers and legendary post-race hospitality not to be missed! Registration is open now via the Athletics NI website.

On Saturday 19th January a bunch of runners from local club Scrabo Striders headed to the woods for the 7th race in the Belfast Telegraph’s Run Forest Run series, organized by Born 2 Run Events. The venue was the scenic Antrim Castle Gardens.

The race started in the grounds of the gardens, taking in the ruins of Shanes Castle (another Game of Thrones venue) where runners enjoyed some fantastic views of Lough Neagh and then returned through the immaculately kept gardens and wood at Castle Gardens.

Two distances were open to competitors, a 5K and a 10K course. In the 5K event Ian Edwards was the first Scrabo Strider to finish in a time of 27 minutes 57 seconds followed by Scot Knight in 29:59. Then came Christine Lougheed 33:20, Rex McCormick 35:24, Kim Cochrane 37:55, Alison Rodgers 42:52 and Mariead Curran in 43:49.

In the 10K race Peter McGonigal was the first Strider to cross the line in the fantastic time of 43:11, followed by Paul Sheldon in 44 minutes exactly then the Club’s first lady Kerri Anderson in 48:18. Lynn Sheldon crossed the line in 48:54 followed by Ken Rodgers in 51:59, Jonathan Keenan 52:36, Rhonda Magowan 53:31, Angie Crone in 57:09 with Steven McCormick a second later. Elaine McGonigal, Steven Craythorne and Susanne McVea finished in just over 1 hour 9 minutes. Well done all.

Parkruns remain as popular as ever. These 5km timed runs are free to enter and get a lot of people “up and running” on a Saturday morning. At Parkway in Comber Curtis McCaw took another 1st place in a blistering 18 minutes 47 seconds, followed in for Scrabo by Nigel Martin, Mark Halus and Peter Gray all in under 26 minutes.

Over at Ward Park Bangor, Amy Forsythe recorded a new personal best (PB) time of 42:15 while Tim McEwan took overall 6th place in 19:58. Kieran McNamara also nabbed a new PB of 21:09 over at Victoria Park in east Belfast. Well done to all Scrabo Strider park-runners and a big thanks to the volunteers who make these events possible.

Looking forward Saturday sees the NI Civil Service Cross Country take place at the Stormont Estate, where Scrabo will be strongly represented, particularly with our 25 strong Junior team! Later in the month why not join us for “Run the Trails”, a Night Edition 10K on Friday 22nd February around the grounds of Mount Stewart.

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