East Antrim Harriers AC

This is our Men’s Team from this year’s Belfast City Marathon receiving their award for finishing 2nd place overall in the Relay Event at the recent Prize-giving Dinner. Well done to Chris Collins, Richard Craig, Ross Mercer, Rick Hill (pictured L-R) & Colin James (not pictured).

Thanks to our friends in County Antrim Harriers for organising an excellent set of races this morning in Ballyclare as part of the Mayfair Festival. Several of our runners took part with prizes collected and narrow misses to the podium in both races. In the 10k event, Colin James finished 4th overall and claimed the Over 45 category with a brilliant time of 35.39. James Kitchin also picked up a Category win as first Over 50 with an 8th place finish in 37.40. Andy Moore recorded a PB to finish in 45.05 for 46th position overall. In the 5k event, Ross Mercer continued his strong season by finishing 4th in a new PB of 16.23. Well done to all our runners!

It was a busy & varied weekend for our club members with various racing outside NI, big announcements & even a social training run on the North Coast. Richard Craig travelled to Manchester to race in the Manchester 10k and was rewarded with an excellent time of 34.02 in a stacked elite field.   Davy Turtle was in Marbella for a Half Ironman event and performed well to finish in 5 hours and 23 minutes. Elsewhere, Reuben Moore was delighted to be accepted for Paul Pollock’s Dream Run Dublin Project & had his first group outing at Victoria Parkrun. We look forward to watching his progress.

  Well done to John Neill who tonight won the club’s McKillen Shield. This is an in-club cross country handicap race over an 8-mile distance run in Ballyclare’s Sixmilewater Park. John came through from the back of the field to cross the line first and take home the historic shield. Well done to all!

  Another podium for Nick Weston tonight and well done to Pete Fraser & Steven Beggs for their runs also.

It was Race 1 of Woodburn Forest Series tonight with Nick Weston and Davy Turtle both running strongly to finish in the top 5. This is a series our runners have performed well at in recent years and that continued tonight over the 3 mile distance. Nick backed up his impressive marathon performance by making it onto the podium in 3rd place while Davy also continued his return to racing form by placing 5th in. Well done lads!

Proper Kudos to Mark McElhinney as he completed his 4th big city marathon in less than 3 weeks. This time Mark travelled to Barcelona and notched up a time of 3.37 to continue his consistent performances. This is added to his recent marathons in Boston, Vienna & Belfast - impressive city-hopping as well as running! Time for a rest now big lad!

What a day and what a set of performances from our runners in both the Marathon & Relay Events, with a mix of sub 3’s, personal bests and even a podium position! Nick Weston was our first runner over the line, finishing 23rd overall in a time of 2.44.04. John Neill recorded yet another personal best of 2.54.02 while Reuben Moore did likewise in 3.18.01. Pete Fraser was next over the line with another good marathon not long after Manchester, this time running 3.21.44, while newcomer Tim Burns impressed in his first outing in the club vest with a time of 3.27.56. Andy Moore was delighted to cross the line in 4.02.33, helped along the way by Mark McElhinney who finished his 3rd marathon in less than a fortnight after completing Boston & Vienna Marathons! Then our relay team finished in the Top 3 Overall in a swift 2.31, narrowly missing out on 2nd by a handful of seconds. Congratulations to Rick Hill, Colin James, Richard Craig, Chris Collins & Ross Mercer who ensured our club