Families, athletes of all ages, local and world class, walkers and joggers have been coming together for 40 years plus for the annual St Stephens Day 5k at Finn Valley Centre Stranorlar.
It’s a community event in the wider sense those home for the holiday period meet up . A run/walk, a community social occassion and as such has attracted as many as 800 to come out after the Christmas festivities for a breath of fresh air and take the opportunity to meet up .
Yes its a race at one level when you consider Olympic champions Mo Farah and Vivian Cheryuiot, Kenya hold the records but it’s a peoples event and therein lies the success and longevity of this .
Each year Finn Valley have been privileged to have a prestige personality to fire the start gun and set them on their way at 2pm .
Jason Quigley ,Philip Deignan ,Frank Mc Glynn, Sinead Jennings ,Catriona Jennings from the world of sport.
Others have included local lady Cora Harvey while Mayor of Donegal (a competitor on this occasion), former MEP Pat the Cope Gallager and local personality Mickey the Post to name but a few.
Getting the crowd off Dec 26th is local sporting heroine Larissa Muldoon from Cappry .
Larissa scrum half member of the Grand Slam winning squad and on that historic group that reached World cup rugby semis a graduate of Cardiff University where she now teaches .
Event organisers are delighted to announce that Larissa will be present while her Mum is participating .
So it’s Stephens Day at 2pm its as the banner indicates a fun family event and while entry is open until 1-30pm on the day. Organisers would invite as many as possible to pre-enter finnvalley1@gmail.com