Last Sunday BARF athlete Alan Ritchie took on the Northern Velocity Dogs Leap trail half marathon consisting of three loops on trails . Alan stormed round in 1.19.53 for third place on the podium. Well done . Arf ! Arf !

Thursday evening runs for January. All welcome , suits all levels of fitness. Time to start thinking of getting fitter for the summer season.

All starting at 7.15pm . Trail shoes and head torch required.

9th Boat Club car-park.

16th Redburn Forest car-park, main one beside nursing home.

23rd Cavehill. Main carpark just before the Castle Gates

30th Ozone car-park- Road shoes.

All around five to six miles.

Hope to see as many there as can make it, numbers have been low of late , reminder the hard part is getting out the door.😄 New runners always welcome !

Christmas time is usually a time for a lot of runners to ease off a bit and take it easy but not for Barf athlete Philip Ward . Top of his Santa list was for more marathons and Santa truly delivered .Black eye Friday in December saw him take on the East Antrim Marathon Series Black Eve Marathon which he completed in 4.19 .

On December 30 th he again headed for the East Antrim Marathon series for back to back marathons and completed day1 in 4.18 and day 2 at Monkstown Wood in 4.39 which was a hilly loop with some ice to contend with .

Philip then decided to start 2020 where he had left off in December by heading for Run Armagh and their Beat the January Blues Marathon yesterday morning and completed it in 4.31 . Great running all round ! Well done Arf ! Arf !

On New Years Day the annual Race over the Glens took place at Glenariff Forest Park and saw over 400 runners toe the line for this tough but scenic 9k trail race. Two of our athletes were in action with Alan Ritchie coming home in 21st overall in 40.06 and Geoff Smyth in 59th in 43.34 . Well done to both . Arf ! Arf !

This years Cracker took place on Saturday 28th December with the weather looking fine for this time of year . Over 700 pairs lined up this year to take on what would be a tough but enjoyable course in and around Castlewellan and the stunning forest park trails .

There were a number of runners representing BARF on the day . Paddy Mallon and his partner for the day Jamie Thin came home in 1.14.53 followed by Jim Brown and Dominic Mc Greevy in 1.16.51 then Rónán Davison-Kernan and Paul Conway 1.17.01. Geoff Smyth and Natalie Bowbanks went for the fancy dress option as pizza and beer combo and got round in 1.28.14 . Well done to everyone Arf ! Arf !

Geoff and running partner Natalie in disguise at the cracker . Pic by G McClure

As you would have seen before our club runs the Boxing Day Turkey Trot so a big thanks to all our members and friends who helped out on the day .

Rónán Davison-Kernan was first home for our club also on the day with a strong run in 1.05.42 followed by Trevor Wilson in 1.17.33 who also added to his parkrun tally over the festive period . Peter Mc Clenaghan finished in 1.25.54 and Andy Bridge in 1.27.43 .

Mark Hopkins and family at the Christmas Parkrun

Mark Hopkins and family also decided sitting eating turkey for days wasn’t a wise thing to do and they got themselves out for a few festive Park Run sessions .

Denise O’Hagan was also in action at the Brocagh Bay 10 k on Boxing Day going round the tough course in under 60 mins .

Great to see everyone out and about , well done folks . Arf ! Arf !