James O'Hare (20.20)showed he has moved up a stage in his running career by claiming the Senior title in the Ulster Cross Country Final at Mallusk on Wednesday when he
comprehensively beat the hot favourite Dan King (20.49) from Letterkenny.  This must rank as one of his most satisfying performances, not only for the win but the strength and
maturity displayed in doing so and must give him considerable confidence as he looks forward to the All Ireland competition. Of course James won't let this new found status go to his head and will keep his feet firmly planted on the ground, though in running circles that particular stance is usually called spectating. 

Well done to him and indeed to Patrick Sheridan who claimed Silver medal spot in the Minor Boys race and Elaine Burch and Aine McCann who were 5th in the Junior and Intermediate Girls races respectively. These placings  won them all a trip to London on Marathon Day – though they won't have to run 26.2 miles!  Together with Caroline O'Hare's partnership with Ciara Mageean and Sinead Redmond which secured the Senior Girl's Team title it was an excellent day for East Down.

On to Saturday and Patrick proved his midweek exertions had taken nothing out of him as he romped to a comprehensive victory in the Under 13 Boys race in the final cross country event of the season at Stormont, closely followed in 3rd place by Mark Mcgrady in his first outing over the grass this season, and Christian Keown a close and strong finishing 5th on his debut.
This event also marked several other significant debut performances from Junior club members with Declan Trainor a medal winner in10th place, leading home the team of Liam Gallagher, Ryan Milligan, Mark Teague and Marc Breteche, who had to run as fast to make the start line as he did in the race, in the Boys Primary School race – excellent efforts all round.  Well done also to Cedar Integrated Primary School trio of Callum Crawford Walker, Niall Bell and Brian Macklin who finished 1st, 5th and 9th respectively as they continue to dominate at this level. In the Primary School Girls race Laura Gardiner was a revelation as she tackled the challenging circuit with great determination to finish a noteworthy 19th with Lucy Prenter and Cora Keown giving good accounts of themselves.  And it was back amongst the medals again as another debutant Arthur Morgan took a convincing 2nd place in the Under 15 Boys race over 2 fast, gruelling laps.
Not to be outdone Helen Murray, in the absence of parental guidance while her parents savour the delights of Rome, a reward for reaching Silver standard after 25 years of trying, claimed the Bronze in the under 17 Girls race.

After that it was going to be difficult for the Senior's to live up to the standard set  though they did their utmost, led by the in-form Liam Keenan over a fast, firm though testing 3 laps of 5 miles, posting a time of 30.56, ahead of Mark Quinn (32.04) and Stephen Shannon (32.05) who were both returning after illness and injury. Joe Quinn (36.26) and Raymond Milligan (36.56) completed the East Down contingent's cross country outings for the season.

1 March 2009