MMM Top Attendees
Who has entered the MMM the most times in our 40 year history?
A Rare Breed!
There are many qualities needed for a mountain marathon, fitness, navigation, ‘mountain craft’, teamwork, but perhaps most of all there’s sheer bloody minded determination. To celebrate the more determined, resolute, obsessive characteristics of the event we’ve tried to put together a list of its more determined, resolute and obsessive characters – those who have competed in the most events.
Compiling the list hasn’t been easy
Trying to collate 40 years worth of Mourne Mountain Marathon results remains a work in progress, and we’re still missing three of the early years (1980, 81 and 82). Some other years are missing information on retirees. Also the same person’s name can change from year to year, women get married, Davids become Daves, Paddy Butler and Ronan Cormacain morphed into ‘Lardy’ Butler and Dr Hugh Jass Cormacain! So no guarantees that the list is complete or accurate, and apologies to anyone we’ve missed out or done down. If you can fill in any of the missing results, or correct any errors we’d be grateful.
26 MMMs for Brian Layton
Currently top of the house is Brian Layton who has competed in all of the last 26 MMMs. Brian is a UK mountain marathon legend well into his second hundred of these 2-day events. He’s been a great supporter, bringing a car full of competitors over from England every year. A shout-out too for one of his friends David Sedgeley who completed a 19 year unbroken sequence of MMMs from 1998 to 2017.
Next come a group of three stalwarts who have each taken part in 23 MMMs. Fred Hammond compiled an almost complete sequence from 1986 to 2010, stopping presumably only because he found the Elite too short! Fred and his partner Ricky Cowan are pictured at the top of this blog after their last MMM in 2010. 41 MMMs between them, 18 for Ricky, 23 for Fred.
Noel Larkin has been quietly accruing his 23 total in the ‘C’ class with occasional forays into the ‘B’. It’s often been a family affair, partnered with his wife, son, or more usually his brother Jim who has himself taken part 19 times.
Also on 23, Clive Coffey has only missed one event since 1995. Initially competing along with his brother Keith, he had a couple of very competitive years teamed with his son Liam, winning the ‘C’ in 2012. More lately he has been cleaning up in the Mixed Vet class of the Elite with Helen Cassidy.
There are 3 more men, each on a total of 20, namely Peter Turkington, Paul Conway and Barry Spence.
The leading female by some way is Stephanie Pruzina who has completed the 2-day event 18 times. If you also include people she has given birth to, this number increases to an impressive 32!
Looking through these names you might conclude all the effort and determination also brings some satisfaction, perhaps even enjoyment! Here’s hoping the attached list prompts some happy memories of families, friendships, craic and banter.