On Saturday 24th September 2005 Pegasus AC Coleraine held their ever-popular forest race for the 5th time, with runners coming from all over the country to experience the famous Pegasus hospitality at springwell forest.

The day’s proceedings kicked off at 13.00 hrs with the 2nd running of the junior 1k race. This is a great opportunity for some of the younger running talent in the area to experience racing first hand and all the kids took off full of enthusiasm with S Hull coming home in first place. The host club had three stars of the future taking part with Jamie Gardener finishing in 2nd place, Connor McComb 5th place and Emiley Sherman 8th place and 3rd girl. All three ran a great race and with the right coaching and a bit of hard work will definitely flourish at athletics.

On to the main event of the day the Bells Conservatories forest race, with 103 finely tuned athletes lining up at the start line it was going to be a hotly contested event around the challenging and undulating trails of Springwell forest. With the threatened rain staying away and a cool breeze blowing through the forest conditions were great for the runners and at 14.00hrs the starters whistle sent them on their way.

By the time the athletes reached the first 1km marker a group of four runners had started to pull away from the rest of the pack, K Hurley, D Pimental, N Rooke and E King. All four jostled for the lead and battled hard around the course up until the 6km mark when E King started to fall off the pace, this left 3 people the fight for the honours and it wasn’t long before the testing pace took its toll and N Rooke also started to drop off to leave it a two horse race between D Pimental and K Hurley, both men ran neck and neck right up to the 9 ½ km mark when K Hurley made his move and attacked the final hill to pull away and win the race in 36.07 with D Pimental a close second. First lady to finish was K Alexander of Cookstown Harriers in a time of 45.46.

With most club members busy with other duties Pegasus still managed to field 5 athletes in the race, first of these to finish was the race sponsor Peter Bell coming home in a fine time of 43.46, he was followed by Colm McIlfatrick who finished strongly in 48.37. Next for the club and in his first race for Pegasus was Sean Hamilton in a great time of 56.17 and seven minutes faster than his time from last year. The first lady to finish for the club was Alison Campbell, training hard for the Dublin Marathon Alison cruised round to finish easily in a time of 1.02.19 and she was closely followed by Shirley Park, also running her first race for the club Shirley came home in 1.06.13 and looked keen for more as she breezed across the line.

Also running a strong race was potential member Linda Gray, although thinking she was finished at the half way point Linda recovered to come home in a fast time of 1.00.46 and is looking forward to her next race in a Pegasus vest.

A big thanks must go to Bells Conservatories of Portstewart whose generous sponsorship made every thing possible on the day, also thanks to the forestry service for allowing us to use the forest on the day and to Coleraine leisure centre for offering its services, thanks too must go to Sainsburys and McDonalds for their support.

All in all a great day was had by all with most athletes eagerly looking forward to next year’s event.