Awards night for Springwell Running Club celebrates a great year of athletics

Cub members appeared at the Lisburn Half Marathon & 10k events, made an attempt of the Denis Rankin Round, and a large number of them also availed of a parkrun or two.

As well as all that, the club even managed to fit in a night out to celebrate the achievements of the previous twelve months and hand out a few awards.

Lisburn Half Marathon & 10k

It is a busy time of the year and the races just keep on coming. On Wednesday, June 21, it was the Lisburn Half Marathon and 10k with over 1,700 runners on the streets across both events.

In the 10k Springwell’s Adam Henderson finished in 403rd in a personal best time of 54:10 while in the Half Marathon six Springwell members took on the 13.1-mile challenge.

Another impressive performance from Rodney McPhee saw him finish in 36th with a time of 1:25:44 with David Shiels continuing his run of form with an 88th place finish in 1:33:48. Not far behind Shaun Carton crossed the line in 1:35:08 for 123rd with Pauline Mullan running a personal best for 224th in 1:43:34.

Deborah McPhee continued her collection of personal bests with a 1:50:56 for 327th and Roberta McKenzie completed the group with a 2:10:36 for 610th.

Helena Dornan was out on pacing duties and ran an impeccable 2:14:14 as she paced the 2:15 group around the course.

Club Awards

On Thursday (June 22) Club President Kenneth Bacon oversaw an evening of awards as Springwell Running Club celebrated some great running achievements and personal successes.

The newcomer awards went to Gael Butcher (Limavady), Shane McLaughlin (Garvagh), Katrina Adams (Ballymoney), and Holly Neill (Coleraine).

The “Tenderfoot Award” is presented to club member who is completely new to running and it has been the motivation to previous winners on their running journey and take on running challenges such as the marathon. This year’s deserved winner was Angeline Platt.

In the Athlete of the Year category Bernadette O’Kane and Christopher McNickle were both worthy winners. They both have won the local “Race to the Carn” as well as achieved numerous podium places and age category wins throughout the year.

A well supported raffle draw saw almost £500 raised for two chosen charities – the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Community Rescue Service.

The Denis Rankin Round

In its most basic description, the “Denis Rankin Round” is an Ultra Marathon approximately 56 miles long which requires those attempting it to visit the summits of 39 peaks in the Mourne Mountains, which entails an eye-watering 23,000 feet of climbing!

To be considered a success the round should be completed in under 24 hours.

On the morning of Saturday (June 24) two of Springwell Running Club’s experienced mountain runners, Shirhaan Hameed and newly crowned “Athlete of the Year”, Bernadette O’Kane, started their attempt of the round at 5am from Slieve Donard car park.

With the long spell of warm weather drying out the ground, the going was good and both runners made good progress throughout the day but, the weather in the Mournes can be unpredictable and as they were ascending summit number 36, Slieve Bearnagh, strong winds almost forced them to abandon their attempt, but a stiffening of their resolve and the fact that they were so near achieving their goal saw them climbing over the boulders in the dark to the summit and onwards to the finish.

A Springwell spokesman said: “We are delighted to report that they successfully completed the round in 23:38:55.”

Parkrun

To use an old bingo phrase “Clickety click 66” Springers were parkrunning on a super sunny Saturday at eleven different venues.

The personal bests this week were from Jonathan Huddlestone at Queens and Monica McClenaghan at Antrim.

A Springwell spokesman added: “Thanks to all the volunteers who make the parkrun happen. If you can volunteer, then please let the event directors know in plenty of time.”

Greenock - Elaine MONTGOMERY 34:00; Ecos - Kenneth BACON 43:10; Queen’s - Jonathan HUDDLESTON 24:46 PB.

Portrush - David O’NEILL 19:08, Maurice WALKER 20:22, Rhys WALKER 21:35, Shaun CARTON 23:02, Paul LAVERTY 23:53, Mervyn THOMPSON 25:50, Cathy ADAMS 26:11, Mervyn ADAMS 26:12, Patricia CRAIG 26:58, Pamela HOWE 27:15, Heather SPENCE 28:03, Maria QUINN 28:48, Andrew WILSON 28:58, Reid JACK 30:23, Aisling HYNES 30:45, Lorraine ABERNETHY 35:22, Iris WILSON 37:30, Deborah PURDY 48:51, Emer THOMPSON 56:03, Roisin WALKER 59:16.

Griffeen - Catherine BYERS 36:46; Antrim - Monica MCCLENAGHAN 31:13 PB; Limavady - Chris DENTON 17:16, John BUTCHER 19:21, Darren WALSH 19:31, Rodney MC PHEE 19:38, Kevin MCLEAN 21:21, David MCGAFFIN 21:24, Catherine PINKERTON 21:32, Pauline MULLAN 22:47, Fergus THOMPSON 22:57, Deborah MC PHEE 23:46, Gael BUTCHER 23:59, Leanne QUIGLEY 24:24, Johnathan JOHNSON 24:46, Janet PATRICK 25:23, Alan WHITE 27:13, Phyllis MCGRAW 27:46, Alison C DUNCAN 28:02, Adrian FINLAY 28:03, Andrew WILMOT 29:36, Alan STEEN 29:45, Gary MOORE 31:04, Nicola WHITE 32:58, John MCMICHAEL 33:07, Ingrid HAMILTON 33:07, Lara WALSH 33:38, Heather MCLAUGHLIN 34:32, Linda MC MICHAEL 51:01.

Donabate - Gary KENDALL 21:34, Kay HACK 31:03; Lower Drummans - Alan PLATT 24:36; Garvagh Forest - Majella MCATEER 24:57, Michael MULVENNA 26:54, Jim BREEN 27:15, James HUGHES 27:18, Colin CONNOLLY 29:46, Karen ARMSTRONG 38:10, Mariette MULVENNA 39:11.

Limepark Playing Fields - Jonathan MCNABB 21:03, Fiona PRUE 22:40, Patrick MAGEE 26:13, Liz MCLAUGHLIN 41:51