This was the first in this year’s British Champs series of races and was originally scheduled to take place two years ago but finally went ahead on Saturday in cold but glorious weather. The race is a really tough one and definitely one of the hardest hill races in the calendar, it starts and finishes at sea level in Newcastle and takes in all of the 700m summits in the Mournes making it a race of 30km and 2,700m ascent, ouch.
After various travel issues a total of eight Carnethys made the trip over, myself, Dessie Flanagan, Nicola Duncan, Brian Kennedy, Michelle Hetherington, Ali Masson, Alex Coakley and Eóin Lennon who was injured and unable to race and so acted as official club photographer, cheerleader and provider of haribos.
The race itself was won by Finlay Wild who set a new course record of 3:28, while the women’s race was a very close affair, the top 4 only separated by 6mins with Victoria Thompson of Helm Hill taking the win in 4:50. Amongst the Carnethies the best placed was Dessie who finished 20th in 4:24 and was “absolutely busted at the end” while Michelle took 2nd V50 and won a cash prize which was promptly handed over to the barman at O’Hares bar.
Saturday evening saw six of us back at our accommodation with 7 pizzas (someone ordered two…) a few beers and a lot of chat about how hard the race was and our excuses for having a bad day. Onto the next race…
Results – https://www.nimra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/BrCh-Mournes-Seven-Sevens-2022-FINAL-Results.pdf
Alan Renville