Five years ago three runners from Cork – Kerry Constant, Brian Healy and John Walshe – travelled over to the Lancashire town of Littleborough for a special 5km race to mark the 75th birthday of all-time running great Ron Hill.
On Tuesday last (September 25th), the actual day of Ron’s 80th birthday, the trio again assembled with around 400 like-minded participants to celebrate another milestone in this man’s remarkable career. The venue this time was Whitworth, a suburb of Rochdale where the 5km course consisted of two laps around the scenic Cowm Reservoir.
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| Pictured with Ron Hill (R) at his special 80th birthday race are Brian Healy, Kerry Constant and John Walshe |
John Walshe was privileged to have been at Ron’s 60th, 70th and 75th Birthday races and following his trip in 2008 the connection led to Hill coming over the following March to run the Ballycotton ‘10’, where he also gave a special seminar the night before.
Brian was making his second visit but for the much-travelled Kerry it was his sixth consecutive year. In actual fact, the Bishoptown man had run the Dublin Half-Marathon the previous Saturday, followed by the Belfast Half-Marathon on Sunday and was then traveling down to London for another half-marathon (and a parkrun) at the weekend!