Two East Down AC juniors travelled to Finn Valley Leisure centre in Donegal on Saturday for the NI & Ulster UNeven age Group Championship. In previous years the course consisted of three adjoining fields but the deluge of rain over the previous week necessitated a course change since the field furthest from the start was still knee deep in water. Instead the course snaked through two fields making it more technical since it involved lots of turns in the muddy ground and some sharp inclines & declines. On the day though the skies were clear and it was sunny and mild.
Alex Robinson ran first in the U15 boys 3000m race. The pace was blistering from the gun so Alex decided not to go with the front runners but to pace slower having learnt from his last race. This meant he was towards the back of the pack of over 60 runners when the race turned for the first time from the higher , drier field into the second, lower lying waterlogged field. At this point most spectators lose sight of the runners as they snake through the second field. It was with relief that when he was next seen re-entering the first field that he had made his way up the pack and was sitting comfortably in the top 20 even though most of the second field was ankle deep in water. He continued to move up the pack going into the second lap and at one stage was in the top 5 but catching up places sapped his energy. A short sharp ascent 20 meters from the finish tested all the runners. In the end he placed 11th in a time of 11 min 55 sec so automatically qualified for the All Irelands which will be held at the start of December. The final results showed how tight the pack was with those placed 7th to 12th were only two seconds apart.
Anna Gardiner was never really challenged in the combined U17 / U19 4000 m girls race. She led for almost the entire race, seeming to glide above the ground, and finished in 16 minutes, 25 seconds in front of second place. She was crowned NI & Ulster U19 champion and follows in the footsteps of her older sister Laura who held the same Ulster U19 title in the past.
