This week was packed with racing fixtures and culminated with one of the world’s foremost running spectacles. As ever NBH were right in the mix throughout.
Whitehead 5 mile, Whitehead, County Antrim
The action started early this week, when over two hundred runners took to the streets of Whitehead on Monday evening. While weekend runs may have still been fresh in their legs, the runners at the top certainly didn’t show it as they barrelled around the 3 lap Whitehead course.
The race was won by Andrew Annett from NBH (25:09) and Leanne Sands from Acorns AC (33:05).
Andrew had an exciting race at the front, with club mate John Black never too far behind. The pair showed impressive consistency in their lap times, with only a four second variation in lap time through each of their three laps. As Andrew clinched the top spot John followed for second place only five seconds behind. Vernon Shiels and Nat Glen also had great runs for 12th and 14th place respectively.
A great start to the week for NBH runners.
| Position | Name | Time |
| 1 | Andrew Annett | 25:09 |
| 2 | John Black | 25:14 |
| 12 | Vernon Shiels | 27:51 |
| 14 | Nat Glenn | 28:20 |
| 25 | John McGuigan | 30:26 |
| 50 | Paul Williams | 33:37 |
| 55 | John Steele | 34:02 |
| 180 | Emma Toner | 52:55 |
Hill and Dale Race Series, Race 2, Tollymore, Co Down
Thursday was the second instalment in the Newcastle AC Hill and Dale race series. After starting in Castlewellan last week, the series moved to Tollymore for a similarly challenging course among the conifer confines of the forest park. With 278 runners in total this race series looks to be as popular as ever.
The race was won by William McKee of Mourne Runners (29:22) and Shalene McMurray from Newcastle AC (36:10). NBH had two keen mountain runners at this event, with Andrew Annett maintaining his week’s great form to clinch 2nd place overall (30:03) and Robert Irvine securing 117th place (42:51).
Dublin 2 Belfast Ultra
On Friday at 11am 26 runners met at the famous St James Gate in Dublin, not to tour the museum, nor to enter a Dublin city centre race, but instead to run North the entire way up the road to Belfast.
The route took the runners from St Jame’s Gate to Swords, Balbriggan, Drogheda, Dunleer, Dundalk, over the border to Newry, Mayobridge, Corbet, Milltown, Dromore, Annahilt, Drumbo, Ballylesson, finishing at the Crown bar in Belfast, a grand total of 169 km/105 miles.
As if the challenges of numerous marathons were not enough, Frankey Mc Givern pushed herself even further to complete this remarkable feat with a total on the go time of 35hours 35 minutes. Frankey crowned off the accomplishment with a well deserved pint of Guinness, and was helped along the way by some of her club mates.
The Fallows Mountain Race, Kilbroney Forest Park, Rostrevor, Country Down:
Many of the province’s top mountain runners took to the hills of Kilbroney Forest Park on Saturday to tackle the second event in the NIMRA Championship. This medium distance event entailed 9 miles of running with 800 metres of climbing in and around Slieve Martin and Crenville.
The men’s race was won by William McKee of Mourne Runners (1:12:23) and the ladies’ race was won by Esther Dickson from Newry AC (1:28:03). NBH had three runners in the hunt here, all finishing strong and well up the field, with Martsje clinching a well deserved 4th place in the women’s race.
| Position | Name | Time |
| 6 | Shane Donnelly | 01:18:06 |
| 13 | Simon Reeve | 01:25:50 |
| 22 | Martsje Hell | 01:30:11 |
Run Armagh 10km, County Armagh
On Saturday there were two popular 10km races taking place less than 40 miles apart. While there were no NBH runners participating in the Ballynahinch 10km, three NBH runners joined the five hundred other runners that took to the roads around Armagh Planetarium and Armagh city for the Run Armagh 10km. This was a fixture in the Novosco 10km series.
The race was won by Stephen O’Gorman from Dromore Ac (34:13). NBH Louise Smith won the ladies’ race for the second year in a row in a time of 39:06.
Louise was joined by her NBH club mates Odhran and Padraigin who also raced the 10km.
| Pos | Name | Time | |
| 21 | Louise | Smith | 00:39:06 |
| 130 | Odhran | Stockman | 00:50:17 |
| 365 | Padraigin | Bingham | 01:15:42 |
Virgin Money London Marathon
On Sunday a huge number of local runners joined the 40,382 participants in the 2017 London Marathon, arguably one of the pinnacles of mass participation sporting events in the world. In a race where a new women’s world record time of 2:17:01 was set, thousands of others experienced the rollercoaster of emotions that is the marathon, with smiles, tears, medals and strains.
Kenyans Daniel Wanjiru and Mary Keitany sealed the wins in times of 2:05:56 and 2:17:01 respectively.
After months of hard efforts, wintry training sessions, scary ‘niggles’ and the encouragement of club mates and NBH marathon coaches, a total of 16 NBH runners were clapped and cheered around the course by an estimated 800,000 spectators.
See below for the spectacular performances of all the NBH runners on the day. Its worthwhile to mention also the achievements of Davy, Greg and Janice who all finished top 100 in their age category, as well as the NBH runners such as Martin Rea who were official marathon pacers and PBs such as Peter McClellands’ (9 minute PB). Further to that numerous NBH runners made valiant efforts in generating money for charity alongside their individual athletic achievements, well done all!
| Place
overall |
Place
category |
Name | Half | Finish |
| 1366 | 9 | » Clarke, David (GBR) | 01:25:54 | 02:56:20 |
| 2237 | 487 | » Mcconnell, John (GBR) | 01:28:50 | 03:03:07 |
| 2390 | 526 | » Rea, Martin (IRL) | 01:29:20 | 03:04:32 |
| 3003 | 1508 | » Willetts, Colin (NIR) | 01:30:26 | 03:09:42 |
| 3699 | 804 | » Kane, Rory (GBR) | 01:29:25 | 03:14:33 |
| 3826 | 1739 | » Walker, Stephen (GBR) | 01:37:02 | 03:15:09 |
| 4056 | 18 | » Mcclure, Greg (GBR) | 01:39:02 | 03:16:39 |
| 5205 | 2216 | » Mcclelland, Peter (GBR) | 01:42:08 | 03:24:16 |
| 5843 | 82 | » Plumb, Janice (GBR) | 01:38:55 | 03:27:52 |
| 6421 | 107 | » Lindsay, Penelope (GBR) | 01:40:41 | 03:30:34 |
| 6709 | 583 | » Woodhouse, David (GBR) | 01:45:37 | 03:32:16 |
| 7537 | 162 | » Weir, Helen F (GBR) | 01:47:25 | 03:36:37 |
| 9357 | 1172 | » Simpson, Colin (GBR) | 01:39:04 | 03:45:06 |
| 13273 | 278 | » Holmes, Ellen (GBR) | 01:56:56 | 03:59:40 |
| 22495 | 2395 | » Carlin, Paul (IRL) | 02:04:04 | 04:37:38 |
| 38734 | 2543 | » Ryan, Rosy (GBR) | 03:17:45 | 06:58:25 |
Parkrun, Saturday 22nd April 2017, @ various events through the province:
See below for some fantastic parkrun results, the past weeks Easter Eggs had no negative effect on the NBH parkrun times. PBs were recorded by 6 NBH runners this Saturday, 2 of which were by Father and Daughter Martin and Lauren Cox. Well done all.
Belfast Victoria
45th Mark SHIELDS 22:39
74th Donna MCLAUGHLIN 24:09 – New PB
95th Eadaoin DONALDSON 24:51
169th Philomena DONALDSON 28:56
Ecos
13th Paul WILLIAMS 20:51
Larne
1st Ethan GLENN 19:13 – New PB
6th Nat GLENN 21:26
11th John STEELE 23:49
Ormeau
6th Martin COX 19:01 – New PB
20th Lauren COX 20:28 – New PB
58th Eva KISSENPFENNIG 22:16
297th Lynsey FLEMING 32:21
Queens
40th John LAVERY 22:24
46th Ciaran HUNTER 22:51
Waterworks
7th Piaras MCSHANE 18:35
11th John MCGUIGAN 18:56
13th Joe NORNEY 19:00
14th Paul CURLEY 19:01
15th Laurence JOHNSTON 19:04
17th John Gerard MURPHY 19:39
19th Drew KNOX 19:57
25th Sam CARR 21:16 – New PB
30th Ita MCCAMBRIDGE 21:30
37th Kevin MCCANN 22:02
44th Tony REID 22:45
49th Daniel O’CALLAGHAN 23:19
57th Emma SHEEHY 23:51
60th Jack CARBERRY 23:56
74th Catriona MCCAMBRIDGE 24:48
97th John BURNS 26:29
98th Thomas MCKINSTRY 26:29
110th Eimear NUGENT 27:08
118th Roisin HUGHES 27:40
129th Claire BRADY 28:22
131st Jacqueline LAWLOR 28:48 – New PB
134th Lyle CARLETON 28:54
149th Gemma LOWE 30:14
151st Margaret STEPHENS 30:19
153rd Trisha MURRAY 30:21
161st Magdalena BISEWSKA 30:50
169th Catherine MCKILLEN 31:06
170th Bernadette DUFFY 31:39
172nd Bridget CORR 31:53
175th Michele FLOOD 31:59
176th Dermot MCGRATH 32:02
178th Bronagh CONLON 32:20
180th Jim CLINTON 32:27
191st Dirdre MURPHY 34:20
194th Sandy CARR 34:45
206th Padraigin BINGHAM 39:58
Falcarragh
51st Erin HARDING 29:08
Killarney
1st Cathaoir PURVIS 17:29
Photos from NBH Facebook page
