TCS London Mini Marathon – London – Saturday 26 April
Our club was delighted to have Cassie Curran and Thomas Coy selected by Ulster Schools Athletics to represent NI & Ulster at the London Mini Marathon on Saturday. Their selection was because of their individual fantastic efforts at the Ulster Schools XC final in Mallusk earlier this year.
Thomas and Cassie joined their team mates at Belfast International Airport on Friday afternoon to make the journey across to London. There were 6 teams in total with 6 runners in each team for Boys & Girls U14 / U15 / U17.
Friday evening was a great experience as they got to meet Irish running legend and Olympian Ciara Mageean who recently added the European Championships 1500m gold medal in 2024. Ciara had a discussion with the athletes on her own experiences when their age and no doubt made a great impression on all of the kids and shared some wisdom no doubt.
Saturday was an early start from 5:30am in order to get into central London on time and get prepared for the 2.6km race that takes in the last section of the official London Marathon course so what an experience that is in itself.
The races have a very strong field with athletes from right across the UK and due to the short distance, are run at a very fast pace. Thomas finished in 37th place out of 72 runners in the U15 Boys race in a time of 8:04 – he was the 2nd NI & Ulster athlete to cross the finish line!
Cassie finished in 46th place out of 71 runners in a time of 9:23 and like Thomas, she was also the 2nd NI & Ulster athlete to cross the line in the Girls U15 race!
Both Thomas and Cassie acquitted themselves brilliantly over in London and among the top two runners in each of their squads so congratulations on being fantastic ambassadors for our club and the province. A great experience that will live long in their memories and hopefully we’ll see many other Juniors from our club make the same trip in the years ahead.
Lagan Valley AC Fab Five – Mary Peters Track – Thursday 24 April
The second of the Fab Five events of 2025 took place on Thursday night across in South Belfast and yet again proved to be an excellent opportunity for many of our Juniors to gain valuable track experience in a range of distances.
We had a great range in age of Juniors participating in events from U10 to U18.
The full results can be found via this link:
LVAC Fab Five (2) 24th April 2025 Results – Google Drive
There were many events and great performances as you’ll see in the results but some of the highlights include:
- Fintan and Seadna both ran in the boys U10 600m race and did brilliantly, a big ask for such tiny legs to run 1.5 times around the Mary Peters Track, well done boys!
- Sophia Doris (2nd) and Jessica Murray (3rd) getting a podium for the girls U12 1,000m plus Aoife Lemon finishing a great 8th in a big fast race.
- Tanoj Reddy Yakkan finishing 3rd in the boys U14 200m, adding another medal to his collection of fantastic sprint races in recent times.
- Cillian McLoughlin getting on the podium and 3rd place in the u14 boys 800m with Tanoj, Sion, Cormac C and Pearse all putting in fantastic runs.
- Cassie and Leila running a superb U16 girls 800m race with Cassie getting 1st place and Leila missing 3rd place by the most marginal 0.07 of a second!
- Our new recruit from the USA, Seamus Wolf on his debut for the club, claiming a podium and 3rd place in the boys U16 800m
A great evening had by many of our juniors and the next takes place on 22nd May and we strongly recommend that as many of our Juniors take part in this, these events fill up fast so please be alert to message from the club in the coming weeks regarding registration and act quickly!
Parkruns – Saturday 26 April
Waterworks
Well done to the 12 Juniors who took on the 5km Parkrun at the Waterworks on Saturday morning. Some fantastic running with Cormac the first runner to finish with a Waterworks PB plus Holly was the first Female runner to cross the finish. Special shout outs to Dara and Nola for new PB’s and also to Seamus and Ellen-Rose who completed their first ever 5km Parkruns.
| Name | Position | Time |
| Cormac Leheny | 1 | 16:38 PB |
| Dara Cassidy | 7 | 19:02 PB |
| Leo McAuley | 9 | 19:36 |
| Holly Collins | 20 | 20:53 |
| Seamus Wolf | 22 | 21:07 |
| Lucas Mooney | 40 | 22:57 |
| Nola Rafferty | 44 | 23:11 PB |
| Niamh McMillan | 63 | 24:25 |
| Seadna O’Hare Lynch | 78 | 25:01 |
| Ruby Mae McLaughlin | 124 | 27:35 |
| Erin O’Regan | 146 | 28:50 |
| Ellen-Rose McLarnon | 272 | 45:32 |
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Waterworks Junior Parkrun – Sunday 27 April
Excellent running by all of our 17 Juniors who ran the Waterworks Junior 2km Parkun on Sunday morning. Well done to Sion for not only being first finisher but grabbing himself a new PB.
Speaking of PB’s, we had another fab four PB’s so congratulations to Lucy, Ronan, Penny and Lucy Dickson. Also looking at the results, we had some great team pacing among many of the juniors who clearly enjoy running together and encouraging each other.
| Name | Position | Time |
| Sion McAllister | 1 | 7:03 PB |
| Sophia Doris | 5 | 8:18 |
| Lucy Jones | 11 | 9:24 PB |
| Grace McKenna | 12 | 9:26 |
| Jessica Murray | 13 | 9:28 |
| Eva McLoughlin | 16 | 9:37 |
| Malcolm McKenzie | 17 | 9:38 |
| Luke Doris | 20 | 9:47 |
| Fola O’Kane | 24 | 10:00 |
| Ronan O’Neill | 27 | 10:08 PB |
| Penny Dickson | 28 | 10:22 PB |
| Sophie Kielty | 29 | 10:23 |
| Lucy Dickson | 30 | 10:25 PB |
| Eva McCarney | 32 | 10:30 |
| Owen White | 33 | 12:43 |
| Ellie McCarney | 49 | 13:05 |
| Finn McConnell | 57 | 14:40 |
Event Calendar
- Lagan Valley AC are hosting their next Fab Five event on Thursday 22nd May. These are great track events for our Juniors and well worth registering for, they sell out extremely quickly so keep an eye on our WhatsApp Group for registration details. For more details and how to register please go to the Lagan Valley Facebook page at:Facebook
Training
Training as normal this Tuesday and Thursday at Girls Model track from 6pm
Also can we remind parents to speak to their children and remind them that there are no toilet facilities at the Girls Model Track.
That’s all for this week folks, enjoy the forecast sunshine for the week ahead, perfect for running! (young and old)!