Pegasus Cross Country a success!

The A-Hutchinson Pegasus AC/UUC Cross Country Promotion saw well over 100 runners in action over arguably one of the best cross country courses in Northern Ireland over last weekend.  There were a number of age group races before the main senior/veteran races incorporating the Marcus McMains Memorial Trophy.

The U12 race saw a competitive field with Conal Kirk of Lagan Valley taking a last gasp win by 1 second from club team mate Ryan Sharkey with Springwell’s Brian Tweedie leading the local charge in 3rd position.  Niambh Tweedie of Springwell took a great win in the girl’s section from Sarah McBride (Ballymena Academy) and Lucy Gaiten (St. Peters).  Next up was the U14s with Calvin Kernohan and Ashley Cairns leading the way from the field with the former taking the win for Ballymena Academy leaving Robert Hamill to grab the bronze.  The girl’s race was won Emma Sharkey of Lagan Valley with Heather Carson the runner up and Coleraine High’s Deborah Gilliland in bronze medal position.  The U16 race had another Ballymena winner in the form of Jack Neeson followed by Lee Sharkey and local Philip Gilliland with Kirsty Lee the girl’s winner.  It was a City of Derry clean sweep in the U18 boy’s race with Eamon Colhoun, Michael Finnegan and Declan Burns taking the medals and Alistair Black the lead U21 competitor.  Megan Logue of Olympian was the U18 girl’s winner.

The main races of the day saw the senior/veteran women up first with Anne Paul (City of Derry AC), Alwynne Shannon (Newcastle AC) and Aileen Morrison (City of Derry AC) the 3 main contenders in the 5500m race route.  As always, Anne took out the lead with Aileen taking up 2nd position and Alwynne tucked in behind.  This is how it remained until less than 1km to go, when Aileen started to wind up her race, dramatically catching Anne very quickly to set up a sprint to the finish but Anne narrowly edged the win by fractions from her young pretender.  Linda Gillen and Cathy Barr put in tough battles to both get personal bests for the course.

The senior / veteran men’s race had the quality to be a marvellous and so it proved with Brian Campbell (international triathlete) and Dave Morwood piling the pressure on each other during the entire 8000m course, but a decisive surge by Campbell during the last climb up the dreaded hill saw the Willowfield runner make the necessary break to win by a comfortable margin of 11 seconds from his North Belfast rival with Declan Reid an excellent 3rd for Foyle Valley (beating multiple winner Deane Fisher in the process).  Pegasus club entries included Chris Denton in 28th overall in his first race back from his season’s best marathon in Poland with Harry Reilly 50 seconds down on Chris in 34th position.  Peter Bell (Veteran men’s race sponsor) put in a typically hardy performance to come home 2nd Veteran 50 runner.  Others running were Kyle Millar and Ralph Thom.  Both were back racing again and completed the gruelling route in respectable times.