Hill and Dale Race 6 will take place at Lukes on Thursday 23rd May 2019. The race will start at Meelmore Lodge. Full body cover must be brought to race. There will be kit checks at the start and finish of the race. Runners who fail the kit check at the finish will be disqualified.

Registration will open at 6:30pm and close at 7:15pm SHARP.

Online Registration closed on Tuesday 21st May at 9pm. Please note that you only need to register ONCE for Series.

Entries will NOT be accepted on the night if you did not register online.

Start Location: Meelmore Lodge, 52 Trassey Rd, Bryansford, Newcastle, BT33 0QB

Link to Start Location on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/21QAN3nWnqcNFPd39

Results, Prize Giving and Refreshments will be held in the Avoca Hotel Newcastle after the race.

Grid References
Start: 308303
CP1: 328292
CP2: 327304
Finish: 307307

Hill & Dale Safety Notice
The next three H&D all involve open mountain. For safety reasons water proof jackets, whistle and compass are required. Routes are not marked, navigation skills may be required. Cut-off times will also be strictly enforced as a reasonable level of fitness is required, as a guide runners should be capable of 10k on the flat in 50 minutes.
At Luke’s Race all runners must cross the Trassey River within 18 minutes (approx. 1 mile) or they will be turned back.
Failure to comply will result in disqualification.

Saturday the 18th of May saw race 4 of the Nimra championship take place, the Annalong Horseshoe fell race, with a new venue of Silent Valley. After 37 years of the original route starting at Dunney Water organisers, for reasons only known to them, decided to change the course. This was met with mixed feelings, talk of why include Slieve Donard, why call it the Annalong Horseshoe still, why start a mountain race with the first 2k on a tarmac road could be heard among the competitors.

At 11am the race got underway, starting at the plug hole beside Silent Valley reservoir, the route followed the service road to Ben Crom. From here the first climb was to the summit of Lamagan then Commedagh via the summit of Cove first. From Commedagh it was across to its neighbour Slieve Donard, down along the Mourne wall and then out to Chimney Rock. From here, there are a few options as to how to get to the North tor of Binnian for the final checkpoint. The ground is particularly rough in places and a bad route choice can get you into trouble quickly! Most runners seemed to go around Rocky on the North side keeping as much altitude as possible. Continue reading →

Bryansford GAC are hosting a 5k road race around Newcastle on Friday 5th July 2019. The race will begin at 7:30pm from the club. Registration will take place from 6pm – 7:15pm.

Entry Fee is £10 and everyone is welcome. There will be Trophies, Prizes and Spot Prizes.

You can register online by clicking the button below, or register on the day.

SENIOR Registration Form (16 or over)

JUNIOR Registration Form (Under 16)

Address: St Patrick’s Park, Castlewellan Road, Newcastle, Co. Down, BT33 0DB.

The race is being organised by club member Eamon McCrickard. If anyone is available to help with registration and finish line, please contact Eamon McCrickard (eamonmccrickard@icloud.com)

Almost 8 years to the day that I did my first IMRA race when still a fresh faced student in UCD. Same start location, same sublime blue skies and sunny evening, and some of the very same people toeing the start line – very little changes! In fact, a lot changes over the course of 8 years in your 20’s and after living in different countries/cities, focusing on different sports, becoming thicker skinned through experiencing real life work, and generally learning to become smarter with your time and realising the important things in life, I find myself back on the promenade of Bray Head a very different person.

The gun goes off and I see Sean Hehir (Dublin Marathon Overall Winner of 2013 and a 2h15 man) waste little time, immediately gapping the bunch as I watched as his lead grew. I had met Sean for the first time two days previously as we did a fast training session together out on the Wicklow Way as a Recce for this weekend’s Wicklow Way Relay and so had already known in advance he was going to be here tonight. My first reaction to meeting him on Monday was how unintimidating and friendly he was. Generally when in the company of elite athletes one can easily feel out of place but this certainly was not the case with Sean. Continue reading →

Slieve Donard Race Results 2019

Race Report by Big Yin

Photos by Paul Fegan

Other Photos

A special report on the Deep River Rock Belfast City Marathon by Bogusboy

Some of Team NAC at the start line – Fegan, McAuley, Gosling, Meehan and Rodgers – the calm before the storm.

For the second Sunday in a row members of Newcastle AC took to the streets to complete 26.2 hard and unforgiving miles; this time it was the Belfast City Marathon. With a new course designed to be more user friendly and less hilly and the Marathon taking place on Sunday for the first time in the 38 year history of the event, organisers were confident of a successful relaunch.

Controversy
Both decisions proved controversial for different reasons. Initially there was opposition to the event taking place on a Sunday and the departure from the traditional Monday Bank Holiday was heavily criticised in some circles. In the aftermath, most would now agree that this was a sensible decision, allowing competitors travelling to the event the luxury of not rushing home to perhaps attend work on Tuesday. The second controversy arose on the day as early on many, including the designated pacers realised that the course was measuring long. This is not the forum for a debate on what went wrong, but suffice to say the runners completed around 0.4 of a mile more than they were supposed to. To the uninitiated, this may seem a mere bagatelle, but to those who have trained for 18 weeks and are following a pre-determined pacing schedule, it means everything.  To their credit, the organisers responded and adjusted times though how precisely this can be done is a matter of conjecture. Promises have been made to learn from the mistakes made and ensure that nothing similar happens in 2020. Let’s hope that this is the case and that this event is not remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Notwithstanding the publicity received for all the wrong reasons, the event itself left much cause for celebration. The course was certainly an improvement on recent years despite retaining a few undulations and a number of sharp turns. Support along the way was generally good, though there were occasional lonely places where spectators were thin on the ground. From the vantage point of supporting on two wheels, we were able to get to a number of locations to see our favourites and were certainly impressed by the atmosphere at the relay change over point on the Falls Road, along Oxford Street at the Waterfront and the massive crowds on the Ormeau Road and along the Embankment. For those supporting on foot there were opportunities to see the runners at least 4 times which certainly offered a big lift to those taking on the challenge. Continue reading →