Why does it always rain on me?  Maybe find out why over the jump!

Warmup
That’s more like the autumn weekends of old – hardly anyone racing and a less RSI inducing newsletter to produce from Roundup Towers! That doesn’t mean that no one was out trying their best – oh no, as you will soon find out!  I was in Burger King at the weekend where I accidentally farted – it was an absolute Whopper!  First, congratulations are in order:

New Club Coaches
We have a new batch of whistle-blowers who will be leading your club sessions over the coming weeks and months.  A huge thank you and congratulations to: Katherine H, Jim L, Frances Mc, Anne Marie R and Andy W who were all recently qualifiers LiRF-er’s!

Bobby Rea XC
For those who don’t know: Bobby Rea spent a lifetime in athletics, first with Albertville Harriers, then as a coach and administrator. He got involved with cross country as secretary of the Northern Ireland’s Cross Country Committee. He sadly passed away in November 2006 – so it is a fitting tribute that there’s a XC event named in his honour every year. We have one Dub racing this year:

Those were truly awful conditions on race day – so you’re a brave man for taking part Mike. Saturday would have put off some of even the most hardened XC runners. A great wee time posted as well around the three laps, 3k, mucky, freezing and wet – what a combination! Time for a well-earned shower after that!

parkrun
I think it is safe to say that we are now at that time of the year, when you wake up on a Saturday morning and seriously reconsider if you should be running or not. With rain of “biblical proportions” falling from the sky, only the most brave ventured out early on Saturday morning – so that’s why it is great to see that so many threw caution to the wind, put on the cold weather gear and made a break for their closest park:

Woah – we had 25 club members out running in those conditions on Saturday morning – a hearty fair play to you all! We had three first placers this week from Nimah (at Falls), Brendan (at Ormeau) and Noel (at Enniskillen). Also, a trio of second placers including Bernie (at Portrush), Claire (at Orangefield) and Alastair R (at Narin Beach). Only the one third place finisher this week was Nessa (at Stranmillis College). We had a series of new course personal bests set by Niamh (at Falls), Noel (at Enniskillen), Brendan (at Ormeau) and Julia (at Orangefield). Fittingly a trio of visitors to new courses rounds of this week, including Fra (at Falls), Nuala (at Dundalk) and Ronan O (at Ifield Mill Pond) getting his 20th alphabet letter. Despite how the name looks, Ifield isn’t in Wales it is in England:

Warmdown
We’re not being fooled into believe this is how it is going to be – there’s already an eye on next weekend’s events (and the weather forecast) in the hope that things might improve… well we can hope can’t we?!  Finally finally this week, a big shout out to all of the people asking what the opposite of in is.

Live long and prosper.

Disclaimer: Every effort was taken to ensure the results above are correct (I am going to blame the rain this week!) If you’d also like to make a complaint, then you’ll automatically volunteer yourself for writing duties