News

On a wet and blustery Saturday afternoon 114 Athletes gathered at An Creagan for the fourth race in the Sperrin Harriers winter league and it was great to see about 60 harriers among them. As you looked at the starting line the favourite had to be the Lough Fea 10 mile winner Pius McIntyre Foyle Valley with Erin McDaid Armagh,Conor Moore Omagh Harriers & Michale Kerr Carman Runners all looking for a top position. Also in there with a shout was the Ballymena pair Mark Alexander & Kevin O'Boyle while Johnny Dempsey Sperrin Harriers was hoping to get in among them. As the Hooter sounded and the 114 went streaming down the 500 metre hill towards the first corner into a near gale force wind which was bitter cold and almost forced the runners of the trail for the next mile. Then it was great to start the long climb back to the start of the 2nd lap with the wind mostly on your back. As the athletes crossed the mat to record there first lap time and to start the 2nd lap it was Pius McIntyre that had opened up a 20sec lead from McDaid & Moore who were running shoulder to shoulder as they headed down the hill with Kerr,Boyle, Alexander, Daniel Quigley NWTC and Aaron Meharg who was having his first race in the red vest of Sperrin Harriers were chasing after them. Behind that there was a long string of athletes that included Sperrin athletes Marty McGirr,Aidan O'Hagan, Alan Shaw, Conor Henry, Keith Ruddell, John Howard, David O'Brien,Darren Church,Gareth Cardwell, Fergal Mulgrew, Alastair Ferguson. Also in that group was leading lady Anne Paul of the City of Derry club and Martin McLaughlin & Dominic McCartan of Omagh Harriers while in the middle of the field Sperrin athlete Tanya Black was 2nd lady with Jenifer Morton tri in 3rd and Joanne Bell Sperrin 4th. The battles continued throughout the 2nd lap with positions changing regularly. When the athletes turned right at the end of the 2nd lap and started the last 1k to the finish with the wind on there backs there was still plenty of running to be done with everything relying on your best time at each venue all athletes wanted their time to be better than their first An Creagan time recorded on 29/10/11 so there was no letting up on the pace. It was Pius McIntyre who was first to come down the straight to cross the finishing line in 27-52 next was Erin McDaid in 28-41,3rd Conor Moore 28-56 4th Michael Kerr 29-39, 5th Kevin O'Boyle 30-10, 6th Johnny Dempsey 30-17, 7th Mark Alexander 30-48, 8th Aaron Meharg 30-48,9th Daniel Quigley 30-57, 10th Marty McGirr 31-04, 11th Brendan Collins 31-07,12th Aidan O'Hagan 31-26, Anne Paul was the first lady to cross the line in a great time of 32-14 with Tanya Black 2nd 37-02, 3rd Jenifer Morton 38-31,4th Joanne Bell 39-34, 5th Urusla Mullan 39-50, 6th Hazel McCausland 40-08.
Rest of the Sperrin Harriers chip-Times are as followed: Gareth Cardwell 31-47, Darren Church 31-56, Alastair Ferguson 31-57;
Alan Shaw 31-58, David O'Brien 32-04, Fergal Mulgrew 32-26, Conor Henry 32-30, Francis Stewart 32-33, John Howard 32-33
Keith Ruddell 32-44, Glenn Donnelly 32-47, Alvin Taylor 32-59, Trevor Dallas 33-02, Ashley Hughes 33-18, Colly Gallagher 33-19
Adrian Devlin 33-27, Irwin Speirs 33-38, Gregory Cahoon 33-47, Rodney Young 34-05, Tommy Harraghy 34-12,
Gavin Wylie 34-18, Raymond Thom 34-33, Gary McGuckin 34-34, John McElroy 34-56, Fergal McElroy 35-23,
Gary Coleman 35-49, Kevin Devlin 36-07, Jeremy Dobson 36-13, Gerard McNally 36-16 Raymond Ferguson 36-19
Martin Donaghy 36-45, Jamie Johnson 36-59, Joe Curry 37-01, Dougie Finlay 37-21, Alan McAleese 38-15 Barry O'Neill 38-33
Russell Bell 38-59, Anthony O'Neill 39-20, Oliver Murphy 39-35, Darren Warnock 40-15, Margaret Conway, 40-34,
Peter McKenna 41-18, Barry Conway 41-47, Karen McElroy 42-07, Nicola Gillespie 42-39, Hannah Su 44-52,
Sharon McCartney 45-10, Kieran O'Hagan 45-39, Dean Corey 48-01, Deirdre Bradley 49-15, Nicola McIvor 51-13
Maureen Mallon 52-47. Well done to all the Sperrin Harriers on such a cool wet & windy day where good times were hard to get. We would like to thank our Sponsor Purvis Stone Products, The Greencastle ac crew for there Chip-Timing, An Creagan for the use of there lovely facilities and to everybody who helped in anyway on the day thank you again.
Don't forget only 2 weeks to go to the 5th round of our winter league on the 4th Feb which will be held on everyone's favourite course Drum Manor over a distance of 10k so don't take the muck of the trainers yet and get ready for Drum.
Training continues every Tue/Thur at 6-30pm at Loughry College & Rainey rugby club car park
and Wednesday evening's at 7-30 at the Meadowbank Arena