Members of local running club Scrabo Striders have been travelling far and wide competing in running events this week.

By far the furthest was Laura Cooke who completed a Parkrun in the city of Melbourne, Australia in just under 30 minutes. Peter McGonigal completed the Barcelona Marathon in an impressive 3 hours 43 minutes on Sunday (his birthday), while Paul and Christine Kirkwood finished the Paris Half Marathon in 2 hours 12 minutes and 2 hours 51 minutes respectively.

A bit closer to home Robin Adams and Amanda Piesse took part in the Cambridge Boundary Marathon. Well done all those combining travelling and running.

On Saturday 9^th Norman Mawhinney was the sole Strider competing in the British Masters Cross Country Championships in Stormont Estate. Norman took 6^th place in his category and 52^nd position overall in a time of 35 minutes 43 seconds. Thanks for representing Scrabo Striders.

Also on Saturday the NI Mountain Running Association 2019 Glenariff Mountain Race took place. This is a six mile course that rises 1100 feet in elevation that only the truly hardy take on. Scrabo Strider Jared Martin took overall 7^th place in a time of 48 minutes 44 seconds, an amazing performance, followed my Kieran McNamara in 01:06:11 and Nigel Martin eleven seconds later. Each finisher received a bag of spuds from the event sponsors and we did ask for a picture, but I’m told the weather was simply too brutal to be hanging around for photographs!

At the weekly 5km Saturday morning Parkruns Curtis McCaw again took first place at Comber, in a time of 18 minutes 27 seconds. This young man continues to excel. Also at Comber Paul and Lynn Sheldon were the first Striders to finish and course personal bests (CPB) were recorded by Allie Farley and Alison Rodgers.

At Stormont Paul Morrow grabbed a personal best (PB) of 24:46 while at Orangefield Mark Halus set 22:15 as his new PB. At Ward Park in Bangor Peter Briggs got a CPB of 23:34 while Olli Seeger ran Victoria Park for the first time and set a PB of 22:05 in doing so. Well done to all our Saturday morning squad.

Looking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day and over a hundred Scrabo Striders will be turning Downpatrick purple at the annual Jimmy’s 10K road race organised by East Down Athletic Club. The week after is the Larne Half Marathon at which the club will have strong representation.