Seven races this week!  Seven!?  Making me work for my wage this week – all over the jump!

Warmup
You turn your head for one weekend and wham! Half the club decide to do a race. Lots and lots to catch up on this week, but all the monkeys have been working hard here at Roundup Towers. You’ll need a pillow to sit on this week when reading the results. To relax over the weekend, I watched an action movie about an inferno at a French car factory – it starred Burnt Renaults. Steady up, here we go!

Mill Hill Mile
I’m sure most of us in the club have been to Castlewellan? Yes, you know that big hill just outside it – imagine running up that. Now imagine doing it in a race. Now imagine doing that in a race over just ONE MILE. We had the one Dubber take to the start line:

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
51	Paul McFlynn	08:03	---

Great running Paul – some difference from running that distance on the Mary Peter’s Track, eh?! With an incline of around half of our seven mile Sunday morning club route – that’ll give you all an idea of just how hard this one was! We all like to get a photo of our fears being conquered, and Paul ably provided just that for us:

Citi 5k
More random races that some blue tops appear in! This is the Citi Inspire 5k, an annual race organised by Citigroup (shocker that one, I know) for their employees plus teams from other local companies. The course is from the Citi office in Titanic Quarter to Victoria Park for one lap and back to TQ. So, who was racing?

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
5	Kyle Houston	00:17:59	New PB!
28	Conor McKernon	00:21:02	---
115	Ronan McCaughey	00:21:52	New PB!

That is how you do a charity race, with a trio of Dubs out running with their real jobs and producing some great performances. We have to point out that Ronan Mc managed to smash his 5k PB time at his event, along with Kyle who aso notched up a fifth place finish – magic! Yearly, this is a charity fundraiser, and this year it was for NSPCC – with over £10k raised to date. Ronan Mc deserves the feature photo for this one:

Killyleagh Half Marathon
Killyleagh (Google it, I didn’t know where it was either) has a castle and is set in stunning scenery. An early September date meant our Dubs found out that tt gets dark round there pretty early! With a route set along quiet country roads, looping back thru the village via the shoreline and the setting sun, beautiful – if a little hilly. Let’s see who was representing at this one:

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
7	Steven Todd	01:24:04	---
38	Paul McFlynn	01:48:01	---

Magic running from our knights in shining armour this Friday evening. A tough run on roads that weren’t closed, and after a hard week in the office – all added to the challenges of the race. This one has been going for a while, but doesn’t have the fame of some of its sister events. A recommended from the organisers for the slower runners to head a torch should have been heeded. Naturally, there’s always time for a photo:

Ghleanna 10k
When you’re back home and feeling the itch, that you need to go for a run. Luckily, there’s no end of local events on these days. In Maghera this race started at Watty Grahams then from there down into town, up the Glen Road – mix in a few small hills, then back to the club and loop around again to finish the 10k. There’s only one Pocket Rocket for this race:

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
Ukn	Bernadette O'Kane	00:42:52	---

Nice running Bernie – I’d to steal the time from Strava because I can’t find any official results for this one. By all accounts this was a fast race over a twisty route, which is never easy. Of course, Bernie knows what the craic is and even sent a post-race photo through for us to use:

Tallinn Marathon
If you ever needed a reason to visit Estonia, then surely the 100th anniversary of the first running of the Tallinn Marathon is one of the best reasons. This route is mostly near the coast with the first 20 miles or so were pretty flat, there was even a few miles trail through a forest, but the last 5 miles was mostly a gradual incline with the final 1km on cobbles. Who’d we have running then:

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
875	Katherine Harkness	03:49:00	---

Outstanding running Katherine – that is an impressive time. Nice to see you followed the blue, black and white coloured kit as requested by the organisers (those are the colours of the Estonian flag). Tallinn is a lovely city and there’s plenty to see and do, so now that you’ve gotten that one over – rest and enjoy the remainder of the holiday! Thanks for the finish line photo:

Great North Run
The most iconic half marathon in the world took place on Sunday morning in Newcastle, England. The picturesque, popular route into South Sheilds is reasonably flat with an unexpected hill just before 11 miles. This year though, if running in 60 thousand people wasn’t hard enough, the sun came out and temperatures soared. We had one

Pos	Name	Time	Notes
2,812	James Sheridan	01:44:51	---
5,084	Paul McNamee	01:52:08	---

Nice work James and Paul – all the hard work really paid off, and some great times depite some uncertain weeks in the build up to the big event!  It is extremely hard to get some clear air to run in that race, so it is even more impressive that James managed to run with your better half Kathryn. We happen to have some insider information that both of you made an extended weekend of it – so we know you’ll enjoy yourself and relax now that it is over! Thanks too for the obligatory photos:

parkrun
It feels like we never stopped saying this, but there was an omnipresent threat of rain across all the parkrun events this Saturday morning. When you’re missing out running yourself, it is great to see how many of your club members ran instead of you. In fact, we’ve compiled this into a nice neat little table for you all:

Name	Time	Notes
Victoria
Collette MCCOURT	00:20:31	2nd Place!
Roisin BYRNE	00:22:04
Michael KIRK-SMITH	00:23:07
Nessa AGNEW	00:23:09
Amanda ROBINSON	00:23:12	Newbie PB!
Jane PATTERSON	00:35:13
Queen's
Alastair KING	00:19:22	New PB!
Ronan MCCAUGHEY	00:23:03
Liam LAVERY	00:23:35	New PB!
Maire MCCAUGHEY	00:23:36	New PB!
Edward CALDWELL	00:24:00
Falls
Frances MC CAMBRIDGE	00:28:38
Wallce
Richard CONN	00:36:18
Oremau
Martin TEGGART	00:24:29
Paul CURLEY	00:26:41
Stormont
Bronagh SHIELDS	00:29:35
Orangefield
Mark SHIELDS	00:21:20	New PB!
Aaron NAGAR	00:26:06
Sligo
Kathy MAYHEW	00:24:42	2nd Place New PB!

Great work everyone – love it, so many Dubs out representing at their local (and not so local) parks. I have my hat, do you have yours?! We had two second placers this week from Collette at Victoria and Kathy at Sligo! We had some new course PBs set by Alastair (at Queen’s), Liam (at Queen’s), Marie Mc (at Queen’s), Mark S (at Orangefield) and Kathy (at Sligo). Just the one newbie PB from Amanda at the Victoria event. With thanks to Victoria parkrun we have some photos:

Warmdown
Seven races this week – some with an international flare, that was a tough one to keep on top of this week, but thanks to my little birdies I think we got there and covered all the races and got everyone’s names in lights. I have a top tip for you all, never shout “PUT IT DOWN!” if your dog picks something up at the vets.

Live long and prosper.

Disclaimer: Every effort was taken to ensure the results above are correct (I was busy this past weekend at secret club stuff!) If you’d like to make a complaint, then you’ll automatically volunteer yourself for writing duties next week! 🙂