Portadown Running Club

📣 REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! 📣

Entries for the 2027 Portadown Festival of Running are officially open! 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

🗓️ Race Date: 14/03/27

▪️5k, 10k and Half Marathon
▪️Fast, flat routes
▪️Chip timing provided by Core Timing
▪️Unique medal and commemorative gift for all runners
▪️Over £3000 prize money
▪️Race bibs posted

⬇️ ENTER ⬇️

https://in.njuko.com/portadown-half-marathon-and-10km-and-5km-20271774296229055?currentPage=select-competition

🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️ Race Report 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Belfast 24 Hour

There was a huge PRC presence at Victoria Park this last weekend at the Belfast 24 Hour event, with 24 club members taking part across four different events:

🏃‍♀️ 5 runners in the 24 Hour race
🔄 4 Relay Teams
🏃‍♂️ 2 runners in the 50km
🏃 1 runner in the 100km

There were some outstanding performances around the one mile loop. A massive congratulations to Richard Hammond, who ran a superb race to take 1st place in the 100km event. 🥇 Hats off to Richard Templeton and Jonny Hamilton who also reached the 50k milestone for the first time 👏

Our four relay teams also put in incredible team performances, with every team covering more than 100 miles over the 24 hours, an impressive achievement and a brilliant display of teamwork. They even found the time to fry off a few sausages for dinner!

In the individual 24 Hour race, John Martin reached a fantastic milestone by completing his first 100km, finishing with 110km. Meanwhile, Mark Whiteside achieved his first sub-24 hour 100 mile finish, completing the distance in 22:11. 👏

Hillsborough Half Marathon

While the Victoria park squad were busy running around in circles, Adam McKeown and Naomi Allen opted instead to head to Hillsborough for the half marathon, both produced great performances on what is a challenging course, well done to you both! 👏

Blayney 10 Mile

Well done to our very own Coach Aidan, who came away with a new personal best over the 10mile distance at Blayney 10mile on Sunday! 💪

🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ Race Report 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Yes… we know we’re 2 weeks behind. We’d like to say we’ve been meticulously fact-checking the results, but the truth is there’s just been so much running going on! Better late than never… 😅

🌊 Sea2Sky

A fantastic turnout saw 32 runners head to Newcastle promenade to tackle the ever-popular Sea2Sky, taking on a fast but testing course with plenty of climbing to keep everyone honest. PRC was represented across the field with some brilliant runs. Notable performances saw Mark Whiteside, Colin Bruce, Adam McKeown, Norma Bruce and Ellen McGrattan all achieve top 5 finishes in their age categories! 👏

Well done everyone! 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

🌅 Greyabbey 6 Hour

Meanwhile, over at the Greyabbey 6 Hour, Jon Kerr put in a tremendous performance to finish 2nd overall, covering an incredible 51km in six hours 💪

Well done Jon! 👏🏃🏻‍♂️

🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️Parkrun Takeover! 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

PRC will be at Craigavon Lakes tomorrow morning to give the City Park team a well deserved week off from Parkrun duties!

As well as filling every volunteer role, we’ll also have a full team of pacers on hand to help anyone chasing a new PB or aiming for a specific finish time. ⏱️

Whether you’re aiming to beat your best time, taking it easy, walking the course, or joining your very first parkrun, we’d love to see you there! 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

parkrunday this Saturday will be much simpler for the core-team as Portadown Running Club are fulfilling all the volunteer roles and also providing pacers!

Thanks to PRC for their ongoing support for our event ☺️

🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️Race Report🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Our first stop on our week-late review is Lisburn for the Half Marathon and 10K event, 10 runners represented the club across the Half and 10km distances and faced tough conditions on what was a warm Wednesday evening. The heat proved little hindrance to Naomi Allen though who stormed her way to an impressive new PB! Well done folks! 👏

Thursday night brought the penultimate race of the Hill and Dale series, Hen and C**k. 8 PRC runners took on the short but steep course, with notable performances from Richard Hammond, Rachel Winter and Ania Bennett who all had top 10 placements in their age categories. Well done folks! ⛰️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️⛰️

Saturday saw our own Coach Jo back in action at Atlas Running’s Last One Standing event at Florence Court. Representing as part of Team Ireland in the national race, Jo took the heat and tough conditions in stride on her way to completing 18 laps of the course and clocking up an impressive 120km! 💪🏃‍♀️

While Jo was finishing up on Sunday morning, a team of PRC ladies were in Belfast for the Women’s 10Km. Julie Beattie ran a sterling performance as the 60 minute pacer and Noelene Marshall also nabbed herself a new PB. Well done ladies! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️Race Report: PRC Internal 10K 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

On Monday 15th June, (yes I’m running behind on updates, bear with me 😅) Craigavon Lakes would see the return of the PRC 10K, the second distance in our internal race series.

These races are a great chance for members to test their speed on a free timed event or enjoy a social run on an evening that always gets a great turnout.

With the sun shining and conditions near oergevt, but for the various swarms of flies!, the course delivered some rapid times as right runners stormed their way to new personal bests, no small feat in such conditions! 💪🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Congratulations to our podium placers 👏:

Men’s Podium
🏅 Richard Hammond - 42:15
🥈 Aidan Jones - 43:02
🥉 Richard Templeton - 43:37

Women’s Podium
🏅 Rachel Craig - 47:40
🥈 Amy Dunlop - 48:01
🥉 Paula Haire - 52:10

Special mention also to Mark Winter, Jonny Cunningham, Dawson Jones, Seamus Mallon, Sarah Haughian, Amy Dunlop, Stuart Patterson and Jon Kerr who all nabbed personal bests! 🔥🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

From first across the line to the final finish, it was a night full of effort and encouragement. To top it all off, a few lucky runners also walked away with some highly coveted spot prizes!

Well done to everyone who took part and to the club’s committees and volunteers for putting it all together, here’s to more club racing to come! 👏
🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️ Race Report 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

We begin last week’s adventures in the Mournes with Race 7 of the Hill and Dale Series at Millstone. This would be a race that rewarded patience as the crew displayed some strong climbing before a strong headwind greeted them on their descent. Performances to note include Mark Winter and Oonagh Mac Oscar crossing the line as first PRC male and female, with Oonagh also placing 6th in the F35 category. Well done folks! 👏🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Closer to sea level, mother daughter duo Joanne and Katie Weir were in Belfast for the CS Lewis 5 Mile Challenge. Both were rewarded for their efforts on the multi terrain course with a Lion bar and a chance to meet Aslan himself! Well done ladies 👏🦁🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

Saturday saw some of the PRC Crew, who made it all the way to Poland, take on the Babis Góra Ultramarathon. The event consisted of repeated ascents of the Babia Góra peak, the highest peak in the Beskid Żywiecki region, on a course which offered rugged tracks and technical mountain terrain. The club was well represented across many of the distances on over with John Martin and Richard Hammond completing the 4x challenge, Richard Templeton completing the 3x and Ania Bennett and Simon Hamilton competing the 2x course. Well done folks, that’s some serious elevation! 👏🏃🏻‍♂️🏃‍♀️⛰️

🏃‍♀️🏃Race Report🏃🏃‍♀️

We had a fabulous group of women down in Dublin for the BEST TIME EVER! at the Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon. This 10k, which has been run since 1983, saw over 28,000 women running this year. Our 13 ladies made a day of it, the party starting on the mini bus down to Dublin💃. An amazing day was had, especially for mother and daughter duo Joanne W and Katie W who both brought home new pbs🤩. Fabulous running by the ultimate girl squad 👑.

Two runners headed to Manchester for the AJ Bell Great Manchester Run, competing in the half marathon distance. This exciting route passed by some iconic city sites such as Man City AND Man United football grounds, and Coronation Street for those who like a different kind of drama🎭. Well done Simon M and Paul M, it looked like a great time away👍. A special shoutout to Paul M who also ran a brilliant new pb ⭐️!

Beth G headed over to the Newmarket half marathon in England. In the heart of Sulfolk this course brought Beth along a fast one-lap tarmac course through the rolling countryside and past some iconic horse racing landmarks 🐎. The odds were in favour of PRC’s Beth (and some great training was in her legs 💪) and she thus ran an awesome new half marathon pb ⭐️. Great racing Beth 👍!

This weekend we also had Rachel W taking on the Norn Iron 100 Mini. Now, do not let the word ‘mini’ distort the truth that this was in fact not a short race, as it totalled an epic 37 miles 🤓. Rachel started her run in Dungiven and ran all the way to Gortin, and what a class job of it she did. Rachel finished 3rd female, another podium finish for a podium performance 🥉. What a star ⭐!

Taking the more scenic route, Mark W took part in the full Norn Iron 100. Again, to tell the truth and give him his dues, this race was actually 106 miles (Mark can explain how those extra 6 miles take effect). The route was a point to point run from Ballintoy to Gortin, taking in 3,800m elevation 🫪. His stellar endurance, whilst unfathomable to some, is a testament to his dedicated and meticulous training over the last few months. Well done Mark 🤩!

Great work everyone 👍

🏃‍♀️Race Report - PRC Internal 5k Race🏃

On Wednesday night (27th) we hosted our internal club 5k race at Craigavon Lakes. We host this event every year as a way for our runners to enjoy a free timed event of which they can test their speed or run a social 5 with club friends. The hot weather is lovely when you’re sitting in the garden but our runners will tell you how hard it is to run in. Despite the heat 64 athletes came well hydrated and ready to run 🏁.

First over the line was Stephen M in a time of 19.11, followed one second later by Gareth K in 19.12 with Adam M securing 3rd male in a time of 19.19 ⭐️. Our first female home was Naomi A in a time of 21.53, followed by Rachel C with 22.08 then Ellen M in 22.23⭐️. Those on the podium weren’t the only one celebrating as we had 12 pbs! I’d like to present some kudos to the following for their fabulous pbs: Pauline M, Naomi A, Naomi W, Beth G, Chris McC, Aidan J, Katie W, Jayne V, Rachel C, Stuart P, Sarah Q and Kev T 🔥

A special thanks to the coaching committee for organising this event for our runners. Thanks also to the steering committee for providing the prizes and post race snacks and water. Finally a big thank you to the volunteers who helped by marshalling or by pacing their fellow club mates. 👏👏👏

What a great night everyone! 🤩