Barbara Cleary and Eskander Osman ran the fastest parkrun times in Ireland on Saturday 1st February

Ireland is not short of top masters athletes and it was another, Barbara Cleary, who was the fastest female at parkrun in Ireland this weekend. Cleary’s time of 17:58 saw her achieve an aged graded score of 89.97% and was enough to see her first back overall at Lees Road breaking the course record in the process. Cleary has a 10km PB of 34:07 from 2014 but most recently ran an impressive 27:34 at the 2020 Raheny 5.

Eskander Osman is a man to watch in 2020. The Annadale Strider ran 15:40 to top the mens times this weekend. Osman finished third at the Northern Ireland and Ulster Intermediate Cross-Country Championships at the end of January and was just outside his parkrun best of 15:36.

Under 17 Emmy Thornton is one of a number of talented young Willowfield athletes who regularly appear in the parkrun top 10 and her time of 19:03 at Belfast Victoria was enough to set herself a new parkrun PB. Thorton was a silver medallist in the 1500m at the Ulster Schools’ Championships in 2019.

Bury AC’s Byron Edwards has had a busy start to 2020 notching up parkruns most weekends in addition to running 74:47 at the Four Villages Half Marathon at the end of January. 16:19 at Belfast Victoria was a few seconds outside his parkrun PB but a strong performance for the prolific racer who set a PB of 2:40:18 at Tokyo Marathon last year.

Sarah Baryga ran 19:22 at Poolbeg to finish as the third fastest woman this week and has clocked up over 150 parkruns with a best of 18:31. Baryga ran 62:37 to finish 5th at Trim 10 mile race last weekend and ran a marathon PB of 2:55:22 at Dublin in October.

Poolbeg also saw the third fastest male runner this week where James Bartram clocked 16:40. 2019 was a strong year for the Thames Hare & Hounds athlete with PBs including 32:53 at Self Transcendence 10K in November and 15:57 at Hercules Wimbledon 5000m in August.

Men’s top 10

1) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Eskander Osman, 15:40, Annadale Striders
2) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Byron Edwards, 16:19, Bury AC
3) parkrun: Poolbeg
James Bartram, 16:40, Thames Hare & Hounds
4) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Jack Logan, 16:56
=5) parkrun: Westport
Ethan Lloyd, 17:04, Westport AC
=5) parkrun: Waterworks
Mark McAvoy, 17:04, North Belfast Harriers
7) parkrun: Antrim
James Connelly, 17:10, Garscube Harriers
8) parkrun: Antrim
Oliver Cook, 17:11, Pace Running Club
9) parkrun: Castletown
Edwin Koenck, 17:22, Le Cheile AC
10) parkrun: Mungret
Joe O’Briend, 17:40

Women’s top 10

1) parkrun: Lees Road
Barbara Cleary, 17:58
2) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Emmy Thorton, 19:03, Willowfield Harriers
3) parkrun: Poolbeg
Sarah Baryga, 19:22
4) parkrun: Castlewellan
Anna Gardiner, 19:24, East Down AC
5) parkrun: Mullingar
Maud-Annie Foley, 19:30
6) parkrun: Ballincollig
Lily Edwards, 19:50
7) parkrun: Naas
Aine Lyng, 19:56
8) parkrun: Bushy, Dublin
Sarah Fitzpatrick, 19:56
9) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Cliodhna Daly, 19:57, North East Runners
10) parkrun: Cootehill
Lisa Clerkin, 19:59

If you would like to run faster at parkrun, top tips to help runners of all abilities can be found here.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patron. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.