Brendan Teer made a dramatic comeback to something like his old form when claiming 2nd place in the Lisburn 10K on Wednesday night. He has struggled to regain his fitness over the past year but this result can do nothing but good for his confidence as he found only one better in a field of over 1500 runners. His time of 33.04 is short of his best but the boost this result will give him will see that figure eclipsed before too long. Clubmate and occasional training partners Stephen Shannon and Liam Keenan gave fine support finishing 24th and 28th respectively while Neil McCartan was “disappointed” with 39 minutes as was Mark McDowell with his 40.23. Don't knock it lads!
Much happier was Stephen Cassidy, making his debut for the club and posting 50.20 followed closely by Oonagh Breteche in 51.45, and Anita Redmond on 61.16 all proof that concerted training pays off. Sheena Quinn and Catherine Woods were happy with 67.26 and 68.19 respectively.
Ryan Hagen took the club honours in the half marathon race, clocking 1.29, to show he is well on his way to regaining former levels too. Declan Teague, another of the disappointed with a 1.32 showing, has more reason to be happy than sad and Kristoffer Fegan should be pleased with 1.40. Norman Mawhinney clocked 1.43, just ahead of the vastly improving Cheryl Braniff who after a few weeks dedicated training is giving every indication of becoming a force to be reckoned with among the ladies. Paul Rogan 1.56, Colm Surginor 1.59, Denis McKay 2.06 and Maeve Ledlie 2.12 made up the remainder of the “disappointed” while Mags Straney had every reason to smile with her 2.02 debut time. James Magennis, aka someone else, was at least “happy enough” with 1.44 and if I had been there I'd have been happy with any of those times. You're being too hard on yourselves – leave that to me, I have years of experience at it.
On the same night further up the road the 3rd round of the Young Athletes League was taking place at Mary Peters Track. East Down had a disappointingly small turnout except in the Under 13 Girls category where Eimear Connor, Emily Forte, Anna Burns, Olivia Mooney, Nuala Reynolds, Iseult McGrory, Colleen McNeilly and Laura Gardiner all performed well while Ellen Erskine earned the title of Club Athlete of the round by being the entire Under 15 Girls team, participating in the 200 metres, Long Jump and 800 metres. Big brother Paddy was the only Club representative in the Under 15 Boys and ran a blinder in the 800 metres as a warm up for the Age Group Championships on Sunday. Thanks to all who took part.
Ellen showed no ill effects on Sunday when she clocked 5.38 for her 1500 metres race and Paddy recorded 5.09 in his age group over the same distance.
In the Hill and Dale series on Thursday night, Megan Wilson again first Junior female and must have wrapped up the series title. Not to be outdone she then accompanied dad Brian and the indefatigable (it means he can't read a compass) Brian Hamilton on Sunday to take part in the tough Flagstaff to Carlingford mountain race over about 10 miles of “find your own way home” terrain and finished 2nd Female overall in 2 hours 22 minutes with Dad clocking 2.29 and Brian because of his earlier description coming home in 2.50. Well done to the lot of you.
Next Wednesday 29th it's Loughinisland, a good warm up for the Portaferry 10 Miles on 19 July.
Joe Quinn
20 June 2011
