EAMS, New Year’s Double, Tollymore, parkrun and more over the jump for the first of the new year!

Warmup
That’s it – new running, new year, new roundups – same old jokes! Welcome to the year where we can see very clearly, and we have even more running to report on this week as holidays come to an end, but more on that very soon.  Would you believe it someone has accused me of being a plagiarist – their words, not mine.  Now then, sat back and have a read:

EAMS B2B, Day 2 – 31st December
It’s nice to look back over the year on 31st December – but for a handful of hearty Dubs, it was all about looking forward and towards a finish line! With a 6-odd mile loop to Monkstown, down through the forest, out on to the Shore Road, past Jordanstown then up Station Road to Greenisland. Twice around for the half-ers and four time around for the full marathon folks. Let’s take a look at who decided on a race to end the year with:

That’s how to sign off a year of running in style! A fantastic double marathon from John C – a mammoth effort in posting two highly respectable times. In the half marathon event, Marie stole a lovely final podium spot leading the blue tops home – all posting great times on a challenging and thought-provoking course. While John was running the marathon, the halfer’s posed for a photo and made a break for the car:

EAMS B2B 6 Hour Challenge – 1st January
The third and final day of the EAMS sixth anniversary celebration concluded with a six-hour challenge.  This one had a flatter route along Belfast Lough out to Gideons Green, looping round to the bandstand at Loughshore Park.  One lap got you 10k, two a half, four a marathon – anything more an ultra!  As many laps as you want to do within the six-hour limit.  We had a solo Dub taking part:

Cracking running Dale – starting the new year as you mean to continue and in fine style too. Even coming to the aid of his brother who hurt his knee – that’s our Dale!  Great to see so many of the club taking part in some of the three days of events too – it isn’t often that anyone in the club does these events!

New Year’s Day parkrun
Some people like to go for a New Year’s swim in the sea. Other’s chose to go for a walk or a hike. Runner’s chose to get up a stupid O’Clock as it is the one day a year where we have the opportunity to run two parkruns in a single day! With a small number of events declaring for 09:30am and 11:00am starts on January 1st, there was lots of planning going on about how to squeeze in a double run. We had 15 blue tops doing the double this year, and more choosing to ‘only’ do a single event:

Nice work everyone, including the 15 blue tops of did the double of two events – completing the New Year’s Day Double at 9:30am and 11am. First up let’s celebrate Rob’s brand new all-time 5k PB of 00:18:23 which he set at Victoria on New Year’s Day morning. We had a stack of new personal bests set at Stormont by Jim, Catherine, Roisin and Julia. While over at Victoria Stacey, Dermot and Lynn all set personal bests. Later on Brendan, Stacey and Lynn set new best times at Orangefield. Over at Ormeau we had new personal bests from James S and Julia setting new best times for there.  Despite a reduced number of events Stepehn Mc (Stormont) and Andy Mc (Victoria) all ran those events for the first time! Well done everyone for getting out running – enough from us for now, here’s some photos:

Run Forest Run, Race 5: Tollymore
Tollymore Forest Park played host to the first race in the series of the new year. With the first mile easing in with a downward trend, before gradually building in steps to the fourth and fifth miles, before a final downhill mile to the finish! Tight, twisty at time and over 500ft of elevation change – who would be up for a race like this?!

What a day for a run in the forest! Ideal conditions, a little warmer than usual and good conditions underfoot. Eight Dubbers taking on the trails and roots – Brendan nicked a cool third place, while Katherine set an impressive new course personal best beating her previous time by more than five minutes! Brilliant running from all our Dubs, see it is true what they say – you really do run faster in blue, and those results absolutely prove that! Want a great bunch of Dubs – don’t you agree?

parkrun
With our special double day out of the way, it was time to welcome in the first normal parkrun day of the new year and new decade! So, it was only fitting that twenty of us decided to start the weekend with a 5k fix. In pretty good conditions, and alongside all the resolution people, we all set a course for our nearest and greatest parks and took to the line:

Special mention to Dermot this week who ran his 100th parkrun – more on him in a moment. We had new course PBs set by Roisin (at Queen’s) and Rob (at Orangefield). Also, doing some tourism on the first weekend of 2020 was Geraldine (at Queen’s), Steven T (at Comber), Steven Mc (at Orangefield), Mike (at Holy Cross College), Claire (at River Valley) and Nuala (at Malahide). Phew – top work Dubs!

Useless parkrun Stat Klaxon
Hot on the heels of our last celebrants passing the 100 milestone, we had Dermot joining the black t-shirt group this week. Here’s some of his best stats:

Warmdown
…and we’re done! C’est fin for the first edition of the new year and a timely reminder that this is YOUR roundup, so send us in all the gossip, results and photos and we’ll get it printed here each Tuesday! Miss it, miss out!  If you want to sign up for our yodelling run, then please form an orderly, orderly, orderly queue.

Live long and prosper.

Disclaimer: Every effort was taken to ensure the results above are correct (why not make a resolution to help out here more?!) If you’d also like to make a complaint, then you’ll automatically volunteer yourself for writing duties