Author: glendaloughac

REPORT: Winter League final round (Brockagh Woods)

by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Race reports, Trail running, Uncategorized, Winter League

We got the excitement we had hoped for in the duel between Barry O’Neill and Bruce Phillips of who could ‘game the handicaps’ and run the best. Barry O’Neill knew that a 2 minute improvement of his previous best would secure him the league but this was easier set than done as he had run 44 minutes flat for the hilly 9.3 km course last time.

round12of12
Result of Round 12 of 12 (Brockagh Woods)

Bruce came in without improving his tally – meaning ‘only’ beating his time by 1:57 would now be enough for Barry – a time of 42:03. BUT … it was not to be – despite lowering the best time for the course to 42:55 and taking 65 seconds off his best. To add injury to insult, Aoife Joyce improved her handicap the most of any runner on the day – taking 2 minutes 3 seconds off her mark and this moved her up into 2nd place overall.

overall12of12
Overall results (12 of 12): In bold the top-4 results of each runner

In the end 16 seconds separated Aoife and Bruce in the overall standings with Barry O’Neill a further 52 seconds adrift. Barry did secure the honorary title ‘King of the Hill’ for being the best performer on the hilly routes (Clara Vale and Brockagh) while King of the Road went to Derek Cullen who performed best on the Green Gapways course. In the end we had 19 runners competing of which 11 managed to get the minimum 4 to score.

wl bruce 2.jpg
Winner Bruce Phillips

In terms of individual wins Rene Borg did best with 5 victories followed by Barry O’Neill with 3. Bruce, Donna, Arne, and Aoife took 1 race each. Two runners completed all twelve races in the series: victor Bruce Phillips and Rene Borg followed by Aoife and Colm with 10 races each.

wl barry.jpg
Barry O’Neill – 3rd despite his effort and new course record

Best improver in relation to handicap was Barry O’Neill – who improved it by 2 minutes 59 seconds ON AVERAGE in his races . No one was closer than Aoife Joyce who took 78 seconds off on average. Fastest average pace of the league was held by Rachel Wisdom with 4:26 min/km (but this was based on one race). Bruce Phillips ran by far the furthest – completing 97.4 km over his 12 races followed by René Borg with 69.2 km (this shows both who ran most races and who preferred the longer courses over the shorter).

All in all the short courses were more popular with 70 runs over them versus 36 people running long routes. Based on results, Brockagh Woods is the toughest course followed bye Green Gapways and Clara Vale

route statistics wl
Course statistics after the Winter League 2018/2019

NEWS: Winter League – final round

by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Uncategorized, Winter League

The twelfth and final round of the Glendalough AC Winter League takes place this Saturday (9th March) at Brockagh Woods – so if you fancy a last go at these two delightful hilly courses – come along for 9:30 am and join us for coffee after in the Glendalough Green around 10:30ish.

The final battle

In the final standings things are nearly decided but a late twist could still emerge:

  • 2nd  placed Aoife JOyce can only improve by 22 seconds (if she beats her handicap by 2 minutes) and she is 38 seconds adrift of Bruce Phillips. Aoife, however, is safe from Donna Quinn in the race to take the ‘lady’s crown’
  • 3rd placed Barry O’Neill meanwhile can move ahead of Bruce if he beats his time by 1:58 or more AND Bruce does not improve his tally further.
  • Bruce can improve his total time by 2 seconds – should he do so, Barry O’Neill needs to beat his time by 2 minutes but will then by guaranteed a victory by 1 second overall!

Further down Donna Quinn can move ahead of Barry O’Neill in third if she beats her handicap by two minutes AND Barry O’Neill fails to improve his tally. Rene Borg in 5th can move ahead of Donna by improving his handicap by 33 seconds and Barry if he improves but this also requires that Donna does not improve her tally.

From 6th place below there are no further surprises coming: everyone in these places is 5 or more minutes behind and can move up no higher than 6th.

So it’s down to Barry vs Bruce!

 

Handicaps for the final round

brockagh handicaps updated.png

WICKLOW HOSPICE RUNNING FESTIVAL

by glendaloughac, posted in Race reports, Road running, Trail running, Uncategorized

Results are in from the Wicklow Hospice Festival of Running the previous weekend.

10 KM

  1. MIck Byrne 35:28, Parnell AC

———-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

16. Yvonne Brennan 43:44 (2nd place lady)

 

HALF-MARATHON

  1. Darren Mooney 1:20:03

———-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

5. Anthony Breen 1:27:54

65. Richard Costelloe 1:43:33

 

Full results

REPORTS: Weekend sum-up!

by glendaloughac, posted in Mountain running, Race reports, Road running, Trail running

It’s been a busy last 10 days on the trails and hills, so we’ll start with today’s result where Arne Klohn and Derek Cullen took to the local slopes of Trooperstown Hill and ran well finishing 24th and 38th respectively out of 125 competitors.

TROOPERSTOWN HILL

  1. Killian Mooney, DSD 38:06

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Arne Klohn 47:35
  2. Derek Cullen 50:31

 

The previous day saw the running festival for Wicklow Hospice in Avondale where Anthony Breen ran a very strong half-marathon to finish 5th and first his category. Yvonne Brennan finished 2nd lady in the 10 km in 43:58. Richard Costelloe also competed. Full results will be available Monday.

 

Last weekend Torben Dahl was busy – Torben finished 3rd but unfortunately this was on a short course – a category created for the unfortunate runner who got lost courtesy of some crettins having removed part of the course marking! 24 hours later he got his ‘revanche’ at Oughaval Woods where there was no such troubles and he finished 4th out of 34 in the ‘full’ race.

MULLAGHMEEN – short course

  1. James Benson 45:34

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Torben Dahl 46:14

 

OUGHAVAL

  1. Michael McMahon, Raheny 28:30

———–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————–

  1. Torben Dahl 31:58

 

RESULTS: Handicap league Rd. 11 of 12

by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Winter League

We had the most competitive handicap race yet at Roundwood Reservoir today. 8 out of 10 runners improved their handicaps. With 4 runners improving their handicap by more than 2 minutes and thus getting the maximum score, there was a shake-up at the top with Bruce Phillips taking the lead – 38 seconds ahead of Aoife Joyce and 57 seconds ahead of Barry O’Neill.

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Overall results after 11 of 12 rounds

It is only the second time the courses have been run so the fastest times run were reduced for nearly all races. Arne Klohn ran the new best mark for the 5 km (22:36) and Yvonne set the new ladies 5 km best at 23:56. The 10 km best times were reduced to 46:06 overall by Derek Cullen and 48:35 for the ladies by Donna Quinn. Barry O’Neill ran 44:12 but took the 10 km route along the lower reservoir so while his time has been accepted into the rankings, it won’t stand as a course best.

wlround11
Results Round 11 of 12

SLÍ MHÚSCRAÍ SUCCESS AND MURRAY DOUBLES…

by glendaloughac, posted in Mountain running, Race reports

The SLÍ MHÚSCRAÍ races series is fast getting a fantastic reputation. Torben Dahl ran away with victory in the half-marathon event more than 3 minutes clear of the nearest challenger. This was the first outright individual victory for our club in 2019 – so now we’re on the board.  The race was notable in that the top-6 overall finishers were all over 40!

Duncan Barrett (pictured) meanwhile finished 15th in the Ultra in 8:53 narrowly behind ladies winner Eilis Connery who set a new women’s record on the course.

RESULTS

Sli Mhuscrai Half

  1. Torben Dahl 1:56

Full results

Sli Mhuscrai Ultra

  1. Gavin Byrne 7:17:45

——–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS——-

15. Duncan Barrett 8:53:20

full results

MORE RESULTS…

Meanwhile in Kerry, Barry Murray started his day by running 18:50 in the ParkRun he has founded on Inch Beach. Later in the day he took fourth place at Claragh Mountain (results not yet available) so perhaps Billy Bland was right when he said ‘rest and recovery, I have never heard such bloody nonsense in all my life’.

WINTER LEAGUE RD. 10 – Miner’s Road in the wind!

by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Uncategorized, Winter League

The plot thickened at the Miner’s Road where today’s 10th round of the Club Winter League was held. This course is known as a ‘wind tunnel’ even on quiet days so we set off with some expectation of high winds. Thankfully, it was milder than expected even if the outward journey was slowed down enough to make beating handicaps challenging.

Yet this was exactly what most did. Bruce Phillips took the day and the biggest handicap improvement – finishing 2 minutes 3 seconds ahead of handicap.

Aoife Joyce in second improved by 1 minute 41 seconds allowing. This meant both Aoife and Bruce leap-frogged Donna Quinn who dropped to 3rd. Third place went to club coach René Borg who bettered his handicap by 41 seconds. Colm Kenna also timed his run well bettering his handicap by 15 seconds to finish fourth.

The fastest actual time was set by fifth-placed Derek Cullen who ran 21:56, the only person nipping under 22 minutes on the day. Yvonne Brennan came 6th and was fastest woman on the day (2nd best time overall) coming home in 22:25 missing her handicap by 35 seconds.

WL Round 10 result
Results Round 10

It’s now incredibly tight going into the last two races – Bruce is only 5 seconds behind Aoife and Donna merely 53 seconds with one poor result to discard making it fairly easy for her to close the 53 second gap. Everyone else relies on breaking their handicap substantially in BOTH of the next two races – the only realistic contender outside the top-3 is Rene who is 2 minutes 35 seconds down. The runners who have not yet run the minimum 4 to score do no longer have a realistic chance of ‘crashing the party late’.

WL overall round 10 of 12
Overall results: Round 10 of 12

A good morning out was celebrated in the Glendalough Green re-opened after its January hiatus!

NEXT ROUND: Next Saturday morning in Roundwood for the Reservoir Rounds courses!

TRIMMERS IN ACTION

by glendaloughac, posted in Race reports, Road running, Uncategorized
Barry O’Neill and Donna Quinn carried the green and gold flag of Glendalough AC at the neo-classical Trim 10 miler yesterday and acquitted themselves well on a windy day in the midlands.
While there were no PBs both ran close to their bests with Donna 2.5 minutes from her early 2018 result and Barry just under 2 minutes – with both having lost most of the latter part of 2018 to injury this is not to be discounted!
RESULTS
1. Colin Griffin, Ballinamore AC 53:00
——-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS——-
164. Barry O’Neill 67:56
302. Donna Quinn 72:49

REPORT: Winter League round 9 – Green Gapways

by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Race reports, Road running, Uncategorized, Winter League

In an exciting race at Green Gapways, the league standings got massively over-turned. Barry O’Neill was the run-away leader setting the fastest 10 km time on the day and beating his handicap by nearly 6 minutes whilst recording his 2nd victory of this years league.

He was followed home on the day by Aoife Joyce in 2nd (3 minutes faster than handicap) who also climbed to 2nd in the overall table. Third was Bruce Phillips who had a strong run on the 10 km route and beat his handicap by 2 minutes 41 seconds, enough to move him up into 3rd overall.

round9results
Result of round 9 of 12

The ‘cutest’ run of the day was undoubtedly Donna Quinn who improved her handicap by 1 minute 59 seconds. This meant she got the best possible score whilst not improving her handicap so much it get’s massively hard to beat the second time. The run also took her top of the table now 62 seconds ahead of Aoife Joyce. Previous leader René Borg droppe to fourth.

overallresultround9
Overall standings with 9 out of 12 run an 4 to score

Fastest 5 km on the day was 23:14 which was set jointly by Yvonne Brennan and René Borg although it should be mentioned Yvonne decided to stop and wait for René with 100m to go! 6 out of 12 runners beat their handicap – apart from those previously mentioned there were good performances by Yvonne Brennan (84 seconds ahead of handicap) and Flora McKnight (2 minutes 24 seconds ahead of handicap).

The current standings mean that any runner who is 2 minutes or less behind the leader only needs one result where they improve their handicap by 2 minutes to jump back in front of the pack. Any runner within 4 minutes will need to post two such results in the final three rounds at the Miner’s Road, Roundwood Reservoir and Brockagh Woods.

 

NEWS: Winter League and AGM time change

by glendaloughac, posted in AGM, Club races / events

Please note that due to a funeral in Laragh, tomorrow’s AGM and Club Winter League race will be moved forward to 9 am and 10 am respectively. The run will start from 9 am (5 km and 10 km options) and club AGM from 10 am instead of 11 am as previously planned.

AGM Agenda

Agenda for tomorrow’s AGM.

The primary purpose of the AGM is to elect officers and review the work of the previous year as well as get member’s view on club policy.

1. Adoption of standing orders
2. Minutes of previous AGM
3. Chairperson’s address
4. Youth Officer’s Report
5. Election of officers and members of the Committee
6. Consideration of Financial Statements and Accounts (Treasurer’s report)
7. Secretary’s summary of 2018 activity
8. Notices of motions (not motions received)
9. Other business

Winter League – route switch

Also the course run for the Winter League has been changed from the planned Miner’s Road in Glendalough to the Green Gapways course starting from the Glendalough Green. The Miner’s Road run will be run on the 9th of February.