Slieve Gullion Championship Race
The Northern Ireland Mountain Running Association (NIMRA) Championship for 2025 continued on Saturday 15 March with the 52nd edition of Slieve Gullion.
This Armagh AC promoted NIMRA Championship 'Short' category race also doubled up as a counter for IMRA's Ulster Championship.
Since this race began in 1973 there have been various routes. The current race starts on the North side of the mountain and sees athletes compete over 4 miles with 1,000 feet of elevation.
Four Ballymena Runners travelled the long journey to South Armagh to compete over this stunning short course race.
Well done to Jimmy Graham, James McLornan, Mark Alexander and William (Wills) Fleck.
Thank you to Armagh Athletic Club for another fabulous event!
Mark on Slieve Gullion
International Women’s Day and the Walled City 10 Miler; when ‘girl power’ was Maid-en’ Derry!
Squinting in the unseasonal March sunshine, I wondered if that was really Aine Hasson emerging from the Foyle Arena, alongside a plethora of slightly panicked looking runners, her hair soaking wet, or if my eyes were failing me more than usual.
“It’s a fire alarm,” someone helpfully shouted, quickly dispelling any such notion that perhaps, somehow, the Hassons, in the same state of post-run delirium that I was clearly in, had misplaced their City Hotel room key on yet another jaunt to Stroke City, and decided the leisure centre was as good a place as any to freshen up after Aine’s (amazing) 18 mile efforts.
Gingerly touching the emerging bruise on my chin that had started to take form after I took a tumble thanks to an encounter with a traffic cone at Mile Eight, I decided that there’d been enough drama for one day, and felt grateful that Raymond Ruck, our ever forward-thinking chauffeur for the day, had parked just a few yards away.
(He’ll be angry if I fail to point out that he can be a risk-taker too when it comes to driving matters, as I’m sure any other witnesses to his jumping of those two red lights 20 minutes later will testify).
It was time to head home, but not without a medal possibly the size of the Foyle Bridge itself, a T-shirt in exactly the right shade of ‘Ballymena Runners blue’, and the remainder of a ‘share size’ (is there even such a concept?) bag of Buttons that my Lent-abiding car companions had selfishly insisted I finish up.
But back to the main event itself, completed this year by an impressive 2,108 participants.
The Walled City 10 Miler is an eagerly anticipated event which I think officially kicks off racing season.
For some, it’s a distance that demands the bold to test out their 10 mile prowess in terms of securing a PB; for others, it presented the perfect opportunity to add on (quite) a few extra miles as part of their training block.
It’s also just one of the most enjoyable and first of the ‘big events’ of the calendar; there’s nowhere quite like Derry for a warm welcome and rousing support, and the beautiful and surprising sunshine of Saturday past added to the whole sense of occasion.
However, the Maiden City is equally known for its geographical position along the River Foyle, and so any newcomers to this race, who may have driven through the famous North West destination multiple times, please take heed of one reality; those hills and THAT bridge isn’t going to disappear just because you have to run it now.
But show me a runner who doesn’t secretly love to moan about those ‘mounds of opportunity’ and I’ll show you a liar, and part of the fun of this superb race is the anticipation of the climb up the Foyle Bridge, which comes just over halfway along the route, after you’ve taken in the contrasting terrain of Gransha Woods and Clooney Road.
This bridge is a beast, to put it bluntly, but I was running in the company of some tough ladies who were more than fit for it, and our sense of jollity upon overcoming it carried us a good few more miles along Bay Park and the Quay Docks, by which point the sun was really blazing down, the sight of its rays dancing off the River Foyle finally signalling that we were almost home, with just the Peace Bridge left to tackle (and hopefully not trip over).
Back at St Columba’s Park, the atmosphere was jubilant, as runners picked up their well-earned goodies bags, stretched in the spring air, and in the case of a couple of us, zig-zagged a few more point somethings of a mile to get the total rounded up to those necessary numbers that signalled to ye gods of marathon training that we were somehow, still (and literally, at this point), on track.
Ladies Captain Nikki Hassan had booked lunch for a group of us afterwards, and it was a case of cold drinks and burgers all round, replenishing those protein levels, and in the case of sugar addicts like myself, staving off the craving for another bag of something sweet on the Glenshane Pass just a little longer.
It was, quite simply, a fantastic day out, and not only that, it proved another successful one for our Club members, most of whom smashed their targets for the day, securing times and miles that proved, as ever, it’s not a ‘siege mentality’ that we Ballymena Runners possess – but a super star one.
Well done to all the Walled City Warriors!
RESULTS
Davy Jones 1:04:54
John Hasson 1:06:48
Colin Wright 1:12:01
Paul Connolly 1:15:06
Thomas Bradley 1:19:20
Elle Forest Reid 1:19:27
Raymond Ruck 1:21:52
Aine Hasson 1:23:37
Pablo McClurkin 1:23:46
Mandy Gregg 1:23:49
Lisa Ewart 1:25:12
Naomi Hutchinson 1:27:32
Sara Beggs 1:29:06
Timothy Bamber 1:29:49
Billy Bamber 1:29:55
Paddy Millar 1:30:25
Siobhan Blair 1:31:36
Pamela Davis 1:31:15
Alana Cameron 1:32:00
Tara Agnew 1:33:37
Sinead Scullion 1:34:19
Danny Mullan 1:34:39
Iverene Carlton 1:37:30
Teresa Mark 1:39:46
Kate McQuillan 1:41:33
Helen Cavan 1:42:03
Nikki Hassan 1:45:08
Patricia MacRory 1:47:00
Laura McMullan 1:51:39
Naomi Small 1:53:20
Kate Dempsey 1:56:07
Annemarie Millar 1:56:08
Megan Frew 1:57:03