Ballymoney’s Jason Wilson has managed to achieve the standard to run for Ireland Under 20s at the European Mountain Running Championships which are being held in the Pyrenees, France!  The trial race was run down on Lugnaquilla Mountain down in Wicklow (Ireland’s 2nd highest mountain), over a 3.2 mile course with 720m of climbing to be done on Sunday 17th June.  The race incorporated the All-Ireland Individual and Club championships respectively, being only an uphill race to try to replicate the French course.

Jason travelled on Saturday with his dad the long 4 hour journey down to the very heart of the Wicklow Mountains, and was joined by a number of other NI athletes trying to gain selection for Ireland as well.  These included Omagh Harrier juniors Ciaran Collins and Conor Moore who were in direct competition with Jason for selection.  60 souls fought for position on the tight start but within a quarter of a mile all runners were in single file, marching like an army of troops along the fairly rocky path.  At just under the 2 mile mark, the only race check point had Jason in 4th junior place and just holding on to selection!  But Jason is an experienced uphill runner, with his other 2 main rivals suffering the lung busting effects of too fast a start!  In the end, he managed to reach the summit in 40:18 to gain a very creditable 24th overall position and 2nd junior; exactly a minute ahead of the next junior runner.  Pegasus AC would like to specially congratulate Jason on his unique achievement and wish him all the best on his French test!

In other mountain running news, Peter Bell was joined by Jason in the 63rd running of the Slieve Donard mountain race held down at Newcastle last Friday evening.  87 keen competitors took to the challenge of reaching the summit of Slieve Donard (NI’s highest mountain) and running back down again into Newcastle town centre.  Sounds simple… if only!  It involved running 5.5 miles and climbing high into the clouds (2700ft above sea level).  On both their first attempts they both made admirable efforts to conquer the tough mountain and both achieved great results.  Jason came home in 1:11:12 and 24th overall (1st junior).  Peter managed to storm his way down the mountain to come home in 1:17:36 and 49th overall (4th Vet 50).

Moving on to road racing, the Lisburn Half marathon took place a week ago and had 4 Pegasus athletes to have a go at this tough distance.  Chris Denton came home in an excellent 25th and in a storming time of 1:21:39 out of 1050 in his first half marathon in well over a year!  Geoff Warke glided across the line to achieve 1st Vet 50 in a typical 20 something time in 1:24:45!  Big congratulations must be given on this great achievement for Geoff who is usually more at home over a triathlon.  Veronica Nellins took part in her first half marathon race and duly put in a swift performance to record 1:35:07 (11th female overall).  Sonia Knox, after her great victory in the ‘Race for Life’ held at the University of Ulster (Coleraine) a few days earlier achieved a hard fought result in her 1st try at this distance in getting a time of 1:38:23 (16th female open).