Eoin Phelan toughed it out in sweltering conditions at the Viking Waterford Marathon where our Lap of the Gap winner Tudor Moldovan from Clonliffe claimed another marathon win in a memorable season. Eoin didn’t paint a rosy picture but did well to get through:
“Finished with a bad time of 4hrs 41mins. the heat and humidity was awful and the gels were making me sick. glad to have just got through it.“
RESULT
1. Tudor Moldovan (Clonliffe Harriers) 2:30:55
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
215. Eoin Phelan 4:40:51
WOBBLY BRIDGE
Sarah Foster at Wobbly Bridge
On to the Club Championship and Trail League counter at Wobbly Bridge in Clara Vale – a new route brought to life by club man Barry O’Neill and finally allowing Clara Vale to be used for an IMRA race. This favourite training spot – used often by our club during the Winter League – has been out bounds due to lack of parking but now connected via the not-so eponymous ‘Wobbly Bridge’ (actually the ‘Samuel Hayes’ bridge) to Rathdrum and the great facilities of Hidden Valley, a race could finally be held.
Paul Duffy – currently our ‘leading man’ in the hills
155 runners celebrated this by taking on the ins and outs of the long course. Paul Duffy lead us home again and nine of our runners were out competing with Barry directing and Yvonne and Alan marshalling.
Derek Cullen continues his comeback season
Sarah Foster unfortunately fell foul of the ‘no jacket = DNF’ rule which was a pity as her time of 46:15 would have placed her 10th woman and 2nd FS.
Angus Tyner on his way to another M55 win
There was also misfortune for Diarmuid Kavanagh – sitting in 2nd ‘club man’ position just ahead of Aran, he went 400m wrong in the last kilometer losing about 2-3 minutes as he climbed up towards Ballygannon Wood. Aran and Angus took full advantage of this error and nipped in well ahead (Angus taking his near-customary 1st M55 placing).
Aoife Joyce (2nd woman) taking the Wobbly Bridge steps
Aoife Joyce continued her IMRA return season with her umpteenth podium finish (3rd woman overall) and 19th category win (winning the F45).
RESULT
1. Enda Cloake (Slaney Olympic) 0:29:24
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
15. Paul Duffy 0:34:16
17. Aran Lynham 0:35:07
21. Angus Tyner 0:37:12 (1st M55)
27. Diarmuid Kavanagh 0:38:02
35. Derek Cullen 0:39:18
45. Aoife Joyce 0:40:37 (2nd woman, 1st F45)
69. Colm Kenna 0:44:33
78 (DNF). Sarah Foster 0:46:15 (2nd FS)
88. Mark Willoughby 0:46:57
CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP – ROUND 6
Wobbly Bridge was the sixth of ten counters in the 2023 Club Championship and Paul Duffy’s win moves him up into 1st position – 4.2 points ahead of Rene. Diarmuid moves up to third and Sarah cements her lead in the women’s.
Our runners settled for a minimum of 3 hours plus running this weekend where Mark Willoughby and Graeme Warren took on the Slieve Bloom 25k and Lairig Gru 43k respectively.
We begin our report with commiserations to Graham Bush who had to do a late abort of his attempt at an extended Wicklow Round (adding Croghanmoira peak – which was part of the original round before it was shortened) after a ‘mere’ 100 km of misty running. Better luck next time Graham!
CONEY ISLAND ADVENTURE RUN
Eric Kelly of WW RC in Sligo
We first catch up on Eric Kelly who ran on Coney Island in Sligo for their nearly 10 mile adventure run over road, sand, trail and even through a bit of water!
RESULT
1. Matthew McMeekin (Sligo AC) 0:56:16
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
137. Eric Kelly 1:43:18
SLIEVE BLOOM 25K
Satuday Mark Willoughby began the running in sweltering conditions in Laois and was well cooked by the time he finished
RESULT
1. Ian FitzGerald () 2:00:31
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
86. Mark Willoughby 3:20:30
LAIRIG GRU
Focused face by Graeme Warren pre-race
As part of his final preparations for the Hornidal 75k in Norway, Graeme Warren took part in the 43 km traditional Lairig Gru mountain race in Scotland he came through in the first quarter of the field despite suffering two bad falls under way.
RESULT
1. Alexander Chepelin (Carnethy Hill Racing Club) 3:12:51
We had our usual large contingent at the ‘local mountain’ Brockagh where Paul Duffy led our men home in a very impressive 57:20 (the fastest time recorded by one of our runners on this new course introduced in 2022). Behind him was an impressive Aran Lynham (in his first hill race of the season) and next Kevin Ferguson who combined a strong climb with ever improving descending to get under the 62 minute mark.
Paul Duffy leads the charge
The field was described as ‘stacked’ and there was truth in that – when injured coach Rene Borg (who had to walk off at the 2 km mark with a calf strain) led the team home last year, it was with a time (59:20) that would only have been good enough for 23rd this year. Last year it yielded a 12th place. If any doubt remained, Karol Cronin settled it by winning in a new course record – 11 seconds ahead of Derek Crammond’s 2022 mark.*
* statistically 14% of the field this year broke 1 hour versus only 11% in 2022
Sarah Foster ensuring that for the first time in a long while, we had TWO female competitors in an IMRA race!
Our runners did well in the categories: Angus and Alan did their now (nearly) regular 1/2 in the M55 with only 13 seconds between them while Loraine Creane was third woman overall and 2nd F40. Sarah Foster was 7th woman and 2nd senior female (under 35) and Aran Lynham 3rd in the Senior men’s category.
M55 rivals Angus Tyner and Alan Kennedy
afterwards it was commented that the ‘most of the same faces that were running 2007-2010 appear to be still around. A quick comparison of the 2008 to 2023 race confirms it: in 2022, 15 out of the top-20 runners were under 35. in 2008 19% of the field was over 40. 15 years later, it is 83%!
Two master’s PBs, a club record and two podiums last week as our runners took on a warm Docklands 5k, the Zuiderparkrun (again!) and the downpour at Grocer’s 5k.
Donna running rather than singing in the rain….
DOCKLANDS 5K
Marcus Murphy continued last week’s action on Thursday at the Dublin Docklands running 18:58 (matching his M40 best mark from Streets of Wicklow in December) and running within 26 seconds of his all-time PB.
RESULT
1. Pierre Murchan (Dublin City Harriers) 0:14:32
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
89. Marcus Murphy 0:18:58 (matched M40 PB)
ZUIDERPARKRUN
Richard Costelloe put in the season best 5k for our club with his 17:55 third place finish in Zuiderparkrun – the fastest 5 km time run for our club since 2020 (also then by Richard).
RESULT
1. Georoid O’Shea () 0:17:20
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
3. Richard Costelloe 0:17:55 (3rd M45, 3rd overall)
GROCER’S 5K
Aoife, Colm and Donna meanwhile travelled to the fast and low-key Grocer’s 5k and 10k event in Sandyford and it was a productive outing with 2nd place in the women’s for Donna and Aoife Joyce lowering her F45 club record from earlier in the year.
Aoife put’s on a drowned expression on her way to the F45 club record
RESULT
1. Lea Fulcher (ALDI) 0:16:57
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
9. Donna Quinn 0:20:13 (1st F40, 2nd woman)
22. Aoife Joyce 0:21:52 (1st F45, F45 Club Record)
With the Wicklow Way Relay filling a bit space this weekend, it would have been easy to overlook a few results. So here it goes…
VER VERDON CANYON TRAIL
John Conway with a game face on at the Var Verdon start (left) – photo Seanie Clifford
John Conway finished an impressive 11th place finish in the competitive Var Verdon Trail Canyon trail race in the spectacular Verdon Regional Natural Park in France over 60 km with more than 3000m vertical. Wife Laura competed in the 24 km race only a few days after her exertions in the World Championship finishing 2nd woman and 7th overall.
RESULT
1. Juste Raimbault (Avon Athletisme Club) 7:14:50
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
11. John Conway 9:11:19
Kráherwald ParkRun
Jonathan Cody and his son took on the bumpy forest ParkRun near Stuttgart.
RESULT
1. Linus Candeleria () 0:20:09
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
27. Jonathan Cody 0:31:21
Paul leads the yellow charge at Djouce
DJOUCE – THE AYLING ABYSS
Five club members took on one of the toughest of the IMRA Wednesday night races yesterday including Paul Duffy (‘fresh’ from sitting out the relay) joining four of our relay runners wanting to see what they could do on 3.5 days recovery.
Alan Kennedy (2nd M55) fought a tight intra-club battle with Angus Tyner
Paul led the team home in 15th while Angus and Alan had a tight battle for the M55 title with Angus securing it by a mere 17 seconds in the end. They were followed by Kevin Ferguson and James Heggie who may rightly have felt handicapped by their outings on the long leg 2 and leg 7 Saturday!
Next: report from Stuttgart ParkRun and Var Verdon Trail Canyon.
Twenty current full and affiliate members (via WW RC) took part in this weekend’s 20th edition of the Wicklow Way Relay running either for Glendalough AC, the Laragh Legends or Wicklow Wolf RC. Robin Seymour was drafted in to run for Team Luna and showed that he would have slotted nicely into the official Glendalough AC team running the 4th fastest leg 4 of the day and the fastest ever by a current and past member of the club!
Rachel and Angus joined the club of runners with 10 or more legs run in the relay this year while twelve members made their debut!
Once the anxiety and pressure of running a leg is done – teams can relax
THE GOAL
Our base goal is always to try and defend our streak: never having finished outside the top-10 in six years of trying (this being year 7). Last year’s peak performance (4th) looked a hard repeat facilitated as it was by 3 top teams being disqualified. When it became clear we would miss our top-2 ranked men and our top-ranked female of the season, we settled on a healthy goal of just trying to maintain our top-10 status in what looked to be a highly competitive line-up of teams including local rivals Kilcoole and Parnell AC (the latter bolstered by Bernard Fortune of SBR and Lucy O’Malley of Inbhear Dee but missing Daire Finn who would run superbly for ‘Ain’t No way Relay’).
Robin Seymour – running for Team Luna on the day
To Club or not to club
Since 2022, we have pursued a policy of not having ‘non-club’ runners on the Glendalough AC team (tempting as it is) since the interest within the club itself is sufficiently high and selection was devilishly difficult this year with our runners beating each other near-randomly. Thus in the end our official team consisted of the 3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 11th, and 14th ranked men in the club and the 2nd and 3rd ranked woman.
While the days of relying on Amidou Dembele dropping a ‘low-60s’ time are over both Angus and Torben packed tightly on leg 1 set their teams off to a decent start with Alan Kennedy leading out his Wicklow Wolf team. The hunt for top-10 had begun….
RESULT
1. Paul Stephenson (Rathfarnham WSAF) 0:56:25
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
14. Angus Tyner 1:10:40 (1st M55) – Glendalough AC
Late addition to the Wicklow Wolf team Martin Cullen outran both our runners with an 85 minute time and pulled the wolf pack to their highest position of the day as he gained 5 spots into 21st.
Diarmuid Kavanagh at the start of leg 2
Diarmuid and Kev were neck on neck through most of the leg finishing 2 spots and only 16 seconds apart on the most action-packed leg of the day featuring 102 positional changes for the 36 teams!
As Diarmuid lost two spots and Kevin gained two, the Laragh Legends moved right behind us. The top-10 seemed to be slipping….
Rachel is nothing if not consistent and ran nine seconds faster than 2022 to finish 5th overall and move the team up one spot by putting nearly 3 minutes into Trailrunner’s Aoife McKernan. It was also fantastic to see Claire making a mini-comeback with a very promising time of 44:33 and even better to see one of our ‘beginners’ graduate to the big leagues – Siobhan Brennan running a strong 43:47 and finishing third F50.
Leg 3 featured only seven male runners this year including the two oldest competitors in the race (Leo Mahon in the over-75 and Francis Conroy in the over-80!)
Marcus hands over to Rene in Glendalough having gained 4 spots
Five runners extended their stay out on the trails of leg 4 including three of expected top finishers from the Raheny, Rathfarnham and Parnell AC. Parnell’s mistake was particularly important as it allowed Marcus to leap-frog them AND pass out a further 3 athletes to move the team up to 11th. Gavin Kennedy was only a further four spots behind but our eye-brows were raised highest by Robin Seymour – running for team Luna – setting a new club best for the current version of the leg.
Gerard O’Rourke looking spent as Simon Lynch takes off
RESULT
1. Barry Minnock (Tullamore Harriers (TT Racers)) 0:42:43
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
4. Robin Seymour 0:43:59 (1st M50) – club all-time best for leg – Team Luna
7. Marcus Murphy 0:46:38 (3rd M40) – Glendalough AC
Rene puts on a fake smile on the early km of the long climb
Rene, running his 8th relay, worked to keep Bernard Fortune (running on the Parnell team) behind him and succeeded until the 4 km point where Bernard carved out a 200m lead which he held to the top of the climb and then extended on the downhill so that Parnell gained a 48s lead by Glenmalure. The team stayed 11th when Rene made up 5 minutes on Polish Athletic’s Katarzyna Bobka and overtook her on the descent.
Simon Lynch cools down after the tropical forest sojourn in Drumgoff
Raheny moved further out of contention here with another extension but their runner still finished 12th. Simon Lynch secured a key goal for Wicklow Wolf: beating the mass start by 6 minutes!
RESULT
1. Conall Whelan (Ballyroan Abbeyleix AC (Mountain Swifts)) 0:54:24 (CR on new 2022+ course)
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
16. René Borg 1:09:11 – Glendalough AC
23. Eoin Kennedy 1:16:51 – Laragh Legends
31. Simon Lynch 1:32:51 – Wicklow Wolf
Graham Bush (yellow) and Eoin Kennedy (white) at Ironbridge
Graham Bush hands over to a determined Graeme Warren
Sli Cualann’s Martin Breen was a late call-up when Derek Cullen withdrew ith a back injury and ran well finishing only a few minutes behind Graham Bush and moved the Legends up a spot. After an almighty ding-dong battle with Raheny’s Graham Ahearne, Graham just came up short finishing 24s behind him but storming to the Ironbridge finish in a time only a bit slower than his 2022 effort.
It’s hard to look good on leg 7 when Tim O’Donoghue is running but Graeme Warren managed his leg debut well and moved the team into the top-10 for the first time. Behind him Anthony also improved his team’s position by one and set a new club record: first man to run leg 7 five times! Sugar-coating? He improved on his 2022 time.
Everyone gained an unexpected place when third-placed David Naylor went parallel to the route for a few km and was ruled non-competitive.
RESULT
1. Tim O’Donoghue (East Cork AC) 1:15:23
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
14. Graeme Warren 1:41:39 (3rd M50) – Glendalough AC
The final leg brings the most pressure and Donna Quinn nearly decided to ‘check out early’ going 100m up the wrong fork at the start of the leg before being courteously called back by a Clane AC runner. From then on she grit her teeth and kept the hard chasing Lucy O’Malley behind her to secure the covetted top-10 spot!
It appears there was only one second in it and while it was tight, it was not THAT tight: Donna had stopped at the traditional finish at the wall and was only called to the table in the car park at the last second! Aoife and Nora packed well in 18th and 19th.
RESULT
1. Ciara Hickey (Brothers Pearse AC) 0:38:14
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
9. Donna Quinn 0:45:24 (2nd F40) – Glendalough AC
18. Aoife Joyce 0:49:24 – Laragh Legends
19. Nora Butler 0:51:11 – Wicklow Wolf
SUMMARY
(Finish: 10th, 8 hours 45 minutes)
A seventh straight year in the top-10 was secured although as always many things could have swung it another way: what if Darren Mooney of Parnell had not got injured on leg 1, what if their runner on leg 4 had not taken an extension, what if Raheny hadn’t been beset by a deluge of navigational errors? What if, what if, what if. Such is the relay – a clean run with minimal mishaps and errors and you always have a chance.
Race Director (Jason Kehoe) and coach Rene (Results secretary on the day) posing with the trophies – we didn’t get one!
Teams did reasonably well on a hot day compared to predictions with the teams overall times off only by 0.9% to 9.2% with many debutantes making predictions that much harder. Teams did run slower than expected but overall statistics show that was true of most of the field.
HISTORY
All relay performances by current and former runners.
Results from Fraughen Rock Glen came through this week and confirmed that Graham Bush had nicked himself a top-10 place whilst winning the M55 category.
FRAUGHEN ROCK GLEN
RESULT
1. Bernard Fortune (SBR AC) 1:14:00
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
10. Graham Bushe 1:26:25 (1st M55)
HOWTH SUMMER
An unusually small field took to the start at Howth (99) runners – perhaps a good few had their eyes on saving their legs for the relay? Not so for Alan Kennedy, Angus Tyner and James Heggie who all ran and are doing the relay on Saturday. Paul Duffy is not available unfortunately and going by this performance he will be missed as he took 8th spot and was 2nd M40 in his second IMRA race of the season (after his 13th at Brockagh Burst).
Paul Duffy full tilt at Howth
Alan Kennedy – ready to captain the Wicklow Wolf RC – won the M55 category ahead of Angus Tyner who may have ben feeling the gruelling Tuesday evening pre-relay sharpener!
Two wins, two club records, and three PBs in the sunny weather around Ireland and in Holland – such is the summary of the June Bank Holiday efforts…
ZUIDERPARKRUN
Richard Costelloe took a one second victory in his local ‘Zuiderpark’ ParkRun in The Hague in 18:03 ahead of 179 other runners continuing his good form post-marathon.
RESULT
1. Richard Costelloe, Glendalough AC 0:18:03 (1st M45)
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
The Skinbar Driedorpenloop
The next day things really heated up in the Netherlands where Catherine Devitt set a new half-marathon PB of 1:25:49 (beating her old mark by 4 minutes) whilst finishing 2nd overall and winning the ladies race by a 16 minute margin (!). This also erased Rachel Wisdom’s 1:28 half-marathon from her Clonliffe Harriers days from our club ‘All-Time Best’ list.
Catherine Devitt in a sprint finish with a runner from one of the shorter distances
The Leinster Championships continued on the route that arguably holds the most testing up and downhill of the summer – Fraughen Rock Glen which was won for the 7th time in a row by SBR man Bernard Fortune. Graham Bush took his race tally to 3 races in 8 days (Drumgoff and the Wicklow Road preceding this) and ran well. Not having enough he ventured off for a 9 km cooldown!
We still await final results from this race
WOMEN’S MINI-MARATHON
Next Sarah Foster took her second PB in 5 days when lowering her 10 km time to 44:38 after her 20:36 5k on Wednesday at the County Championship.
Sarah Foster clenches her fists as she secures another PB in the heat!
RESULT
1. Nakita Burke (Letterkenny AC) 0:34:27
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
73. Sarah Foster 0:44:38 (PB)
CORK CITY MARATHON
Last but not least Aran Lynham had his first crack at the marathon distance on the sweltering streets of Cork and was going well for his 3:17 target until his quad gave up on him at around 28 km. But Aran gritted through and secured a sub-3:30 time in his first attempt: not a bad foundation for future marathon ventures. He also beat John Conway’s club marathon record for the Male under-35 category which he can now claim.
RESULT
1. Pawel Kosek (Poland) 2:28:24
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
302. Aran Lynham 3:29:38 (PB, MS PB, Club MS record)
Road and trail racing coincided on both sides of the N11 as one of the main club goals of every season came around with the third running of the 5km course at Jack White’s pub for the Wicklow Road Championship 2023. 15 minutes later the traditional – and popular – Devil’s Glen Trail League race began.
DEVIL’S GLEN
With so many runners in action at the road championship, it was great to see we still had ‘resources’ to be present in old Glanmore at the Devil’s Glen. Derek Cullen continues to show signs of a good comeback season finishing 36th and matching his second best effort for the course (from 2017). He was followed by Alan Kennedy (46th) and James Heggie also having a good run with 51:16 for 119th out of the 160ies finishers.
RESULT
1. Karol Cronin 0:31:33 (Sportsworld AC)
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
36. Derek Cullen 0:41:31
46. Alan Kennedy 0:42:56
119. James Heggie 0:51:16
WICKLOW ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP
Where do we even start with this report? We had a great crowd of 13 runners (not unlucky tonight) grouped into a strong M50 team (Graeme, Graham, Angus and Anthony), a six man M35-49 team and the trinity of Donna, Sarah and Aoife making up a senior women’s team.
Paul Duffy came through well in the 2nd half of the race for a new PB
Brian Lydon led the team out followed by Rene Borg (setting a suicidal pace). Graeme and Paul Duffy slowly worked their way up passing out Rene at the halfway point before Graeme went full tilt past Brian to take the individual M50 gold medal and leading the M50 team to team Silver. Brian wasn’t far behind – both men recorded PBs – the first two of seven personal bests (set by Graeme, Brian, Gavin, Graham, Sarah and Mark).
Graeme first home for the M50 gold!
Donna Quinn did not get a PB but in the 14 months since she first broke the 20 minute barrier, she has broken it five times. The real prize was winning the gold medal in the women’s F40 category – her fifth medal in this event and fourth gold medal (2x F35 titles and now 2x F40).
Donna Quinn strides home for the F40 gold medal
Gavin Kennedy broke his PB by 1:18 in what was a seminal run for him, Mark Willoughby dropped his best by 1:09, Graeme by 51s (breaking 19 for the first time), Brian Lydon by 35s, Paul Duffy by 31s (also breaking 19 for the first time), Sarah by nearly a minute and Graham Bush – having not run a 5 km we know of – put down a 19:10 marker despite having raced Drumgoff 3 days earlier. He missed out on a bronze medal by less than a second finishing 4th – a fate shared by Angus Tyner who also finished 4th in the M55 category.
Rene Borg just holds off Gavin Kennedy and Marcus Murphy at a period of the race when we had four runners coming in during a 5 second period (!)
Finally we could celebrate three new club records: Graeme’s M50 mark, Angus Tyner’s M55 and Aoife Joyce in the F45.
Apart from the M50 men’s Silver team medal, the M35-49 team won the Bronze medal by the tightest of margins, Kilcoole AC’s first two runners had arrived ahead of our guys but their third man coming in at 19:41 meant we secured the last medal by 7 seconds accumulated.
RESULT
1. Robin Mooney (Inbhear Dee AC) 0:16:43
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
40. Graeme Warren 0:18:23 (1st M50, PB, Individual Gold, Team Silver, M50 club record)
44. Brian Lydon 0:18:31 (PB, Team Bronze)
54. Paul Duffy 0:18:49 (PB, Team Bronze)
60. René Borg 0:19:05 (Team Bronze)
61. Gavin Kennedy 0:19:06 (PB)
62. Marcus Murphy 0:19:08
65. Graham Bushe 0:19:10 (PB, Team Silver)
70. Angus Tyner 0:19:24 (M55 club record)
84. Donna Quinn 0:19:49 (1st F40, Individual Gold)
We expect to have more than 15 runners in action in the double-header Wednesday night (Wicklow Road Champs / Devil’s Glen) on either side of the N11.
DRUMGOFF
John Conway chases down Parnell’s HIlary Jenkinson on a fire-road section at Drumgoff
Before we get there a quick result snuck in between our mega-report and those two: the Drumgoff Leinster Champs race where Graham Bush and John Conway finished within a minute of each other in 10th and 11th position respectively. Graham also secured the M55 win having a solid 5 minute gap to the next in his category.
RESULT
1. Edward O’Connor () 1:15:30
——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
10. Graham Bushe 1:30:56 (1st M50)
11. John Conway 1:31:46
SLIEVE LEAGUE 50K
We also missed one more result in our catch-up: Brian Lydon’s fine podium finish at the Sliabh Liege 50k race in Donegal in a very exclusive field of 10 runners! The race featured a certain amount of self-selection with shorter options available and the 50k including 4 gruelling laps with significant climb.
Glendalough AC 