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Anybody who thinks that St Mary's team is intercounty player heavy really does need to go and look at the team line out again.

St Mary's – M Reid; R Mooney, A McKay, K Mallon; C Byrne, C Mac Iomhar, C Meyler; C McCann, O O'Neill; C Corrigan, K McGeary, S McConville; K McKernan, M Fitzpatrick, C McShane.

Subs: C Quinn for McConville (45), Hannigan for Mallon (63).

I would class McKiernan, O Neill, Fitzpatrick, Meyler and McShane as regulars for their county. McCann is on the Tyrone panel as is Corrigan on the Fermanagh panel.
Any of the rest regulars for their county ?

Aaron Mckay made his county debut for Armagh a few weeks ago.

McGeary in Tyrone panel last year, scored a point in Ulster Final. Reckon he'll be pushing for a starting place this year. Tyrone boys were outstanding today.

4th March.

I'm planning on doing a marathon this summer, most likely Belfast. This'll be my third and I want to knock a bit off my PB (3:46 in Dublin a couple of years ago). I've never really got into hill running but took off the other day and ran up Cavehill in Belfast - Wikipedia says it's 370 metres up.

Is that type of hill running going to be beneficial for a marathon, or should I be looking more at hill repeats to build a bit of stamina and speed? Really enjoyed the cavehill run so I'd like to keep at that once a fortnight or so

Hill training on any kind is fantastic training, IMO you can't do enough of it. If you are doing Belfast I would recommend including hills into your long run ie. Cavehill as the main aim here is to make the one main hill in Belfast Marathon (Antrim Rd) as easy as possible. Hill repeats are fantastic at building leg strength and leg turnover, a hill repeat session ie. 10 x 2min with jog back recovery could be out into your plan every second/third week. So I do hill repeats every second/third week and try to keep my long runs hilly depending on what race I'm aiming for.

Good man, that all sounds good. I live on the Antrim Road so well used to running up it. Think I'll add hill repeats in every other week or so as well for the next couple of months too

Yeah, every other week is fine, you could alternate between hills and 800/1K/1 mile repeats every other week.. When 5/10k, even half training you can push the pace going up the hills but when training for a marathon I would recommend that you slow your ascend but also increase your descend speed so, if the session is 10x2mins I'd go, 2 mins up, 2.30 to get back to the start x 10....its more of a continuous run rather than blasting up and then slowly jogging back down which works better for shorter distances. Hope that makes sense?

I'm planning on doing a marathon this summer, most likely Belfast. This'll be my third and I want to knock a bit off my PB (3:46 in Dublin a couple of years ago). I've never really got into hill running but took off the other day and ran up Cavehill in Belfast - Wikipedia says it's 370 metres up.

Is that type of hill running going to be beneficial for a marathon, or should I be looking more at hill repeats to build a bit of stamina and speed? Really enjoyed the cavehill run so I'd like to keep at that once a fortnight or so

Hill training on any kind is fantastic training, IMO you can't do enough of it. If you are doing Belfast I would recommend including hills into your long run ie. Cavehill as the main aim here is to make the one main hill in Belfast Marathon (Antrim Rd) as easy as possible. Hill repeats are fantastic at building leg strength and leg turnover, a hill repeat session ie. 10 x 2min with jog back recovery could be out into your plan every second/third week. So I do hill repeats every second/third week and try to keep my long runs hilly depending on what race I'm aiming for.

There's a bit of hope and expectation with this years minors, they won the Ulster U17 equivalent last year. From what I hear the best two Ulster minor teams are Tyrone/Derry and they meet first game.

Any word on fixtures?

Down to start 9th of April aslong as Tyrone aren't in NL Final. Haven't heard anything regarding who is playing who yet.

Think the championship draw is 5th of March, can anyone confirm?

Championship Draw - 7th March
League Fixtures out - 13th March
League Starts - 9th April (if Tyrone in League Final its put back to Easter Saturday 15th April.

Use this website for judging paces, I've entered your 5K pb and these are the related paces to that. As you get more experienced you'll be able to judge paces etc, yourself. Do you have a garmin watch or something similar? Click on"Training paces" on the link below.

https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/results?hours=&minutes=21&seconds=03&distance=5000m&goalDistance=10km&ghours=&gminutes=&gseconds=

To be honest laoislad, going by your training you'll smash sub 20 with a few months structured training. Most people who run fast times structure their training something like this. Monday-Rest    Tuesday-Speed session    Wed-Easy Recovery Run (approx.35-45mins)    Thursday-Tempo    Friday-Easy Recovery or Rest    Saturday- Long Run (build up to 90 mins)    Sunday-Easy Recovery Run.

Weights can be helpful, especially leg work, but if you want to improve at running you have to run, more and smarter. I've no doubt your recent improvements are due to your long runs. I was in the same position to you about 5/6 years ago after Belfast marathon and the best bit of advice I got was to join a club, get in the middle of like minded people and learn from them. Best decision you'll make bar none!!!

Ballybofey another option, unreal its in Newry. Ulster Convention on in Burren on Saturday so it's being held locally so the 'suits' don't have to travel! Unbelievable!

Ballybofey would be handy enough in January alright....not!

All depends on what part of Tyrone/Derry you live. A hell of a lot handier to get to than Newry for a lot of people.

Ballybofey another option, unreal its in Newry. Ulster Convention on in Burren on Saturday so it's being held locally so the 'suits' don't have to travel! Unbelievable!

There are 6 starred games a year, so they are available for all other games.

Can only be a maximum 5 starred games in total..

Apologies Legoman, you're correct. Not sure why I had 6 in my head.

There are 6 starred games a year, so they are available for all other games.

Completely understand your point, I really do. I think more emphasis should be put on managers to give all kids game time. I'm not promoting a win at all costs championship but I think encouraging competitiveness is a good thing no matter how far down the development line you are.

First I've heard of it  but if true it's a step in the right direction. Competitiveness is natural to that age group, let them play and experience winning but more importantly losing. GoGames is a fantastic initiative but I think U12 is a bit too old to ask kids to play non competitively.

Don't waste money on anything but a garmin. Depending on what you want, they have everything covered, obviously the more expensive the more extras you get. Even the most basic garmin has everything 99% of runners need. Buy the watch, set up your Garmin Connect account and get uploading your runs onto that. Opens a whole new world to running.

Any word on Omagh management? Is it true that Logan and Dooher heading there?