This year’s Spooktacular may just be over but Race Director Dessie Elton says that plans are already underway for the tenth anniversary race in 2020.

This year’s race had a record entry of close to 1400 participants and Elton states that the bar will be raised even further as they look to mark the occasion in style.

“Next year is a big one for us with it being the tenth anniversary and we have already started planning for it. We will be aiming to have 1500 entries for it and we will have a special edition medal for the occasion.

“The Spooktacular has grown over the years to the biggest night time race of it’s kind in Ireland and the biggest participation event in Fermanagh and we’re already looking forward to the tenth running of it,” said Elton.

Last Friday night’s race again saw the elite runners mixing it with casual runners and those doing it in fancy dress.

First across the line was City of Derry Spartans runner Conor Bradley in a time of 15.08mins and he was followed home by two of his clubmates JP Williamson (15.19mins) and Declan Reed (15.20mins).

The first local runner to reach the finish line was Enniskillen Running Club’s Stephen Cassidy who came home in a time of 16.42mins to take seventh spot while just behind him was St Michael’s runner Oisin Cassidy who produced a fine run to claim first place in the Male U18 section in a time of 16.48mins.

In the Female Open section, local runner Edel Monaghan, representing Dublin City Harriers, took the honours in 18.24mins ahead of Natalie Hall (Armagh AC) and Heather Foley (Sligo AC).

“The racing was of a high quality. We had a graduated start where we split them up into different sections and that worked really well. The highlight of the night for us was having a local winner of the Female Open race, Edel Monaghan. She actually only decided late on that she would do it and had done 10 mile on Thursday night,” said Dessie.

“In terms of the entry, it was a record this year and the Couch to 5K groups really boosted the numbers taking part and it is a great way of getting into running which is what we want to see,” he added.

And the event as a whole ran smoothly. Last year, the race was delayed due to traffic problems but the lessons were learnt for this year, explains Elton.

“We had a few issues last year with traffic management and we had to put the race time back to ensure that people got to the start line.

“This year we had an 8pm start time rather than 7.30pm with the roads closing about 7.40pm and that seemed to work well and there was very little traffic disruption,” he said.

An event like this, of course, requires a lot of organisation and help as well as sponsorship and Dessie is grateful to everybody who helped out in any way.

“We would like to thank all our sponsors, big and small, as we can’t have nights like this without them while the volunteers who help out also play a massive role in making sure things run smoothly. This year we also had the Stroke Association doing blood pressure at registration and the Police Partnership Board were also there and that added to things.”