Northern Ireland Running

Not a good weekend then Martin I hope you run today gets it out of the system.

We had a good turnout at Roe Valley with 98 runners completing the 8K course. it was a bit muddy in places with all the rain and snow of the last couple of weeks taking it's toal. I hope you enjoyed it Paul.

i didn't make it out yesterday as I took a stomach bug on Saturday evening so I'm still waiting to make it into double figures.

Agree about the rubbish rugby weekend, Martin! My sporting weekend was saved by Coleraine's last minute winner at Ballymena in the Irish Cup!

Good if very wet run with Ricky yesterday - though instead of feeling fresh after not running since the previous Sunday, my legs felt pretty heavy in the last 3-4 miles. Still feeling the ab-strain but have decided this morning, I just need to man-up and get back to a proper training schedule for the Half-mara series!!

That's a very good turnout , Kenny. When my golf was cancelled Saturday morning and the football at Ballymena was looking unlikely to get the go-ahead, I was wishing I could have been at Roe Valley. You're not having much luck with niggles and illness, Kenny. Maybe we need to take a leaf out of Ricky's book with regards to superstitions - he actually sought out a telegraph pole at one stage yesterday in order to 'touch wood', having commented on his current injury-free experience!! 

Kenny your having a terrible run of things at the minute ,I hope things pick up for you soon.

Alwyn , atleast Coleraine saved your weekend, that was a good run out at a good pace despite the terrible weather , heading out for my long run later , freezing out there but atleast its not raining (looks for telegraph pole)

Yes Kenny, I really enjoyed the run, well worth the journey.  Thanks to you and your team for the day, organisation was superb.  I had been told about the hill but didn't realise that I would have to do it three times!  I'm just glad I brought an old pair of shoes for the mud. 

Kenny, as useual Springwell lay on another great event thankyou from Ballymena Runners and personally me  and my family who were up supprting.

Alwyn it could be worse - you could be a Liverpool supporter... pants well & truly pulled down by WBA at Anfield this evening.

Well done to all the hardy XC men @ Roe Valley.

Hope the LSR went well Martin - u hopefully got a dry one.

Did a slow 3ml recovery run on the treadmill this evening ... never done one of these before having always preferred to take a rest day after LSR so kind of an experiment for me. Will see how I feel in comparison tomorrow when back into the first speed session of the week.

Alwyn I would do pilates regularly and would swear by it. Not quite the same as yoga(some similar concepts) but very beneficial to running none the less. Both would be very good at making the body a bit more tolerant to the mileage we would do.

Might do a parkrun this saturday and see where the legs are at then stormont next week. Hearing stories that stormont might not be fit for it mind you. Anyone on the inside know of what the story is with the ground there?

We had a meeting yesterday regarding the cross country.  The grounds have not recovered from the torrential rain earlier last year and the course is in a pretty bad state and a decision had to be made as to whether to cancel it or go ahead by using trails and other runnable surfaces. 

As you will remember the International event had to be moved from Stormont  for the same reason.  We had been asked by Estates Management to cancel the event a couple of months ago but had hoped that the grounds would have dried out sufficiently by now to allow us to run the event on the normal course.  Unfortunately this is not the case, but rather than cancel we have opted to go ahead with an amended course.

The alternative course is being measured tomorrow and we are meeting with Estates Management on Friday morning so I can update you further following that, but in the meantime I'm happy to answer any questions.

Hill session last night. I felt I was running with someone elses legs but managed to complete the session.

Mags it will make an interesting change to the race. The ground is saturated at the moment. We could do with a months good dry windy weather to dry it out a bit.

Thanks Mags / Mark. Sounds interesting. I wonder how that impacts the cross country league. They can hardly count it if it's not a cross country...

9 mile easy enough last night. Foot starting to annoy me a bit but hopefully it's nothing.

TG - That was a major consideration, and we had to take advice from Athletics NI. I'll confirm later.

Confirmation that the Stormont cross country event will count towards the league due to the exceptional circumstances.  I'm still waiting for Athletics NI to update their website, but you can spread the word in the meantime.