Over 500 registered for tomorrow's rescheduled Derry XC at Thornhill

Every cloud has a silver lining and that has come in the form of entries surpassing 500 for this weekend’s rearranged Derry XC, now set to be held a Thornhill College.

Last month, host club City of Derry Spartans made the hard call to cancel the popular event with conditions at Gransha considered too treacherous with ice and frost making the track perilous for runners. The call came very late in the day, with visiting runners having to turn back on their way to Derry, but there was no other option for the organisers, who had to out the safety of the runners first.

“It wasn’t an easy decision at all,” Gerry Lynch agreed. “We were there from about 8:30am and the lads had done a bit of work on Friday afternoon and we were a bit concerned even at that stage, but we slept on it and once we arrived in the morning, you could see that there was a very heavy frost and there were areas of the course that were completely iced up.

“One or two of the guys went a run around the course and when they came back, they said no, you just can’t race on that because they spent most of the time trying to avoid falling on the ice. If you put 40-50 runners on that in a race and somebody goes down, then everybody goes down, so we had to make the call and then inform as many people as we could. Fortunately, most of the runners who were disappointed were more than happy to sign up again this Saturday.”

The Derry XC is a huge event in the running calendar for several clubs throughout Northern Ireland, but it will now go ahead this Saturday, a month exactly from the original date. While some cannot make the new date due to other commitments, it has opened the door for new entries with over 500 set to Take part in the five-race programme.

City of Derry Spartans will host the event and the club will present a 5-race program catering for Primary schools, Secondary schools, Teenagers, Seniors and Master athletes, between 11am and 1 30pm.

The P6/P7's run 1K, U13's tackle 1.5K and the combined U15/17's go over 3K, before the Open 6K , an Athletics NI Winter League scoring race, brings the programme to a conclusion with a 12 30pm start time.

“It’s a major race in the local racing agenda and it’s a particularly major cross-country event because it’s part of the annual Northern Ireland Athletics Winter League,” Lynch explained. “It attracts attention from clubs far and wide and we were really disappointed, but we quickly set about trying to get an alternative date and alternative venue.

“This Saturday is a relatively free date in the athletics calendar and while we have lost some people who would have run on December 7 but can’t this month, we have reopened entries and we’re sitting at just over 500 runners across the programme. We’re very, very happy with that and our fingers our crossed that the weather plays ball this time.”

Grateful

The open grounds at Thornhill College give City of Derry Spartans ample room to map out a similar race to that at Gransha, with the club working hard with members of the Thornhill staff to ensure that participants enjoy the best possible Derry XC this weekend. Lynch thanked Thornhill for making their grounds available to host the Derry XC for the very first time.

“The standard lap at Gransha is just under 2000m,” he explained. “Our distance for this particular event, with five races ranging from 600m for the P4s and P5s up to 6000m for the Seniors and master’s so a potential lap of 2000m is perfect.

“We’ve been talking to Mickey Barr, the grounds man at Thornhill and we’re looking to set up another 2000m lap for Saturday and that gives us options in relation to how many laps the races will take on. We’ll know more after we map the course by Thursday and then we’re looking forward to welcoming all the runners on Saturday morning.”

“We would like to extend a special thanks to the principal and staff of Thornhill College for their help in hosting this weekend’s event.”