Runher Stormont 10 October – updated
Mon 11 October 2010--admin
The scenic surroundings of Stormont estate were the setting for Sunday’s huge Runher 5k and 10k races. This well organised women-only event is now in it’s fourth year and regularly features some of the largest fields in the local racing calendar. It was no different this time with around a thousand female runners split fairly evenly between the two distances. The course was mainly on the road but featured a portion on the woodland trails within the park and of course included some killer hills.
City of Lisburn had a number of athletes competing in the 5k, with four athletes securing top 10 places. Heather McLarnon and Rachel Gibson are two of the province’s foremost road racing and middle distance athletes at club level currently and both had superb runs here with Heather in 2nd place and Rachel 3rd. Meanwhile junior athlete Francesca Brown who starred on the track for Lisburn in the Young Athletes League this summer had a great run for 5th.
Transplant athlete Orla Smyth is improving with every race lately. After a good run at the Bangor 10k recently she produced another excellent performance here for 9th place. Former footballer Orla received a new kidney just three years ago and with performances like this in her new sport is an inspiration to other transplant athletes. She also enjoyed considerable success at the recent UK Transplant Games in Bath, taking a clean sweep of gold medals on the track at all distances from 200m to 1500m, which unsuprisingly also won her the best overall female athlete award at the Games.
Long time N. Ireland long jump record holder Michelle Rea enjoys the occasional distance race these days and finished well up the field in 26th place, an improvement of 6 places on her last run at this event. Congratulations to all the ladies on their good runs.