The long awaited return of the Castlewellan Christmas Cracker on the 28th December 2021 certainly lived up to all the expectations that this race always throws up.
Well done to Newcastle AC who put a lot of thought into the 2021 course with a mixture of terrain that certainly wasn`t for the faint hearted. The challenging course took in soft fields, mucky wet farmers lanes, slippy muddy near vertical climbs and stoney forest trails in and around the scenic Castlewellan Forest Park and lake.
On what was a bright chilly December afternoon the weather was perfect for running and added to the overall enjoyment of the day for the 20 members of Larne AC who travelled the long trip down to Castlewellan to take part in this iconic race which involves 2 runners running together in a team starting and finishing together.
616 teams finished the gruelling challenging course with William Thompson & Gerry Campbell putting in a great performance to finish first home for the Club in 91st place (3rd in their age group) in a superb time of 1hr 13min 11sec. Second home was Emmett Woods running with Dom Doris finishing 236th with a great run in a time of 1:28:52 closely followed in 244th place by the Father and Daughter team of Sinead-Marie McAllister & Sean McAllister in 1:29:36 then in 314rd place was Allan McCullough & Emma McKeen who put in a great shift to finish in 1:34:45. Paul Tilson on his road back to full fitness after a long recovery from injury ran with Geraldine Quigley to finish 359th position in 1:37:33. Also recovering from injury Thomas Craig & Jackie Wallace put in another great performance to finish 414th in a time of 1:42:36.
First of our festive dressed teams was Mark Todd & David Johnston who finished 438th in 1:45:32.
Kerri-Anne Craig & Rhonda Wallace were the first of our all girl teams to finish 541st in 1:59:28 followed by Shiree Brennan & Gail Montgomery in 583rd place in 2:10:46, then in 607th place was Diane Hawthorne & Laura Brennan in a time of 2:21:29 then in 614th place was Catherine Todd and Pearl Henry who certainly enjoyed the race in full festive dress having great crack in 2:25:45 .
Well done all in what was a great outing representing Larne AC so well.
