12 year old girl from Belfast sets new 5k record for her age with a time of 16:27

Back in April of this year, I a post up about how 12-year old Emer McKee from Belfast had set a world record time for her age group with a time of 16 minutes 40 seconds.

At a 5k race in Lisburn last Sunday, Emer took 13 seconds off her record with a new time of 16m 27s!

The photo above shows Emer in the race with the 61-year old Tommy Hughes who finished in 16m 32s.

Irishman Tommy Hughes runs 2:30 Marathon to set a new M60 world record

On Sunday the 25th of October 2020, Tommy Hughes won the Lisburn Festival of Running marathon to finish in a time of 2 hours 30 minutes and 02 seconds. This works out as an average pace of 5m 44s per mile for the 26.2 mile distance. Just seven athletes were able to compete in the race due to current COVID-19 restrictions.

This time was a new world record for the M60 category (Male 60 years and over) and was over six minutes faster than the previous record of 2h 36m 30s set by Yoshihisa Hosaka of Japan in 2009.

Tommy who is from Bangor in Co.Down represented Ireland in the marathon at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and has a marathon best time of 2h 13m 59s.

He also set a new M60 for the Half-Marathon last September with a time of 71 min 09 sec. In 2019, he set a new M55 marathon world record when he ran 2h 27m 52s in Franfurt.

59 year old Tommy Hughes runs 2:30 marathon in Rotterdam

At the Rotterdam marathon over the weekend, 59 year old Derry man Tommy Hughes broke the Irish M55 record with a time of 2 hours 30 minutes and 15 seconds!

The previous M55 record was 2:37:42

Tommy is no stranger to fast times having represented Ireland at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

He has a personal best of 2:13.59.


He won the  Dublin Marathon in 1991 and also Belfast in 1988 and 1998.

On the international front, he managed to win the Melbourne Marathon in 1988.