Seemingly there wasn’t much happening in the running scene last weekend so Scrabo Strider legend Norman Mawhinney took himself off to Morocco for some sunshine, oh and to run the Marrakesh Marathon as well! Norman completed the 26.2 miles in 3 hours 17 minutes along with more than 8000 marathonians taking part in one of the most prestigious Marathons in the world.
With few fixtures in the calendar lots of Scrabo Striders members took to their local or not so local Parkrun on Saturday morning. Peter and Elaine McGonigal travelled to run Rostrevor for the first time, as did Liam Rodger and Allie Farley at Wallace Park Lisburn, Tim McEwan at Inch Beach, County Kerry and Patricia Adams claiming the furthest away Parkrun at Greenpoint, South Africa making it two Striders on the continent of Africa this weekend, from north to south.
Back home Kieran McNamara recorded a new personal best time of 23:09 at Belfast Victoria Parkrun, as did Dean McGhee in 24:40 at Ward Park, Bangor and Amanda Martin over at Stormont in a time of 25:14. Well done all.
This week the club announced the return of two of its popular open races for 2020. On 8th May Run the Runways returns to Ards Airfield offering a primary school age Kids 1km race, a 5km race and a two lap 10km. On June 26th the very popular Ards Half Marathon returns and race director Hannah Robinson has also confirmed that the Ards Half Walk will be taking place this year! Get those dates in your diaries.
Hill and trail training with James Lappin continues to be popular ahead of the next Cross Country race, the Irwin Speirs Memorial Cup “Mighty Oaks” which will no doubt have great support from Striders this Saturday.
Scrabo Striders train on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night 7:15 pm at Londonderry Park and all are welcome. Training is for all ability levels and is non-competitive. You will be sure to hook up with a group that runs at your pace and make some new friends too. You can find out more at www.scrabostriders.com or just come along and introduce yourself.
