Larne Grammar’s rugby players cover over 770km during week-long running challenge

The gruelling challenge, which commenced at 8am on Wednesday, January 27 and ran until 6pm on Wednesday, February 3, saw senior players from across the province run as many metres as possible within the set time frame.

Schools were awarded with a point for every kilometre covered with bonus points up for grabs for the school with the fastest five kilometre and one-mile completion times.

The boys and the staff members made a promising start to the challenge covering 401.66km in the first four days.

At this stage it was apparent across the 13 competing schools that fatigue was becoming an issue; in light of this the boys and staff across all schools took a much-welcomed rest on January 31.

With only three days of the challenge remaining the boys used the rest to their advantage finishing Monday with their best performance of the week accumulating a total of 148.92 Km.

This particular feat was much aided by the outstanding individual performance of David Lin who ran 30km. Benjamin Hodge showed also completed one mile in 5:31- a strong run which saw him hold the lead until the end of the competition.

The boys and staff finished the next two days strongly with some very impressive runs coming from Callum Adair, Caelan Campbell, Jack Wallace, Tom Meban and Mr Cartmill who ran a very impressive 34.13km.

The final push from the group who managed a total of 227.5km in the last two days of competition helped them to achieve a final distance total of 778.07km.

Particular mention must go to David Lin who covered the furthest distance (78.40km) and 1st XV Captain Caelan Campbell who led impeccably throughout and covered an impressive 64.53km.

In December the Larne Times reported that pupils from the Lower Cairncastle Road school had supported the work of the Larne Foodbank in the run up to Christmas.

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