Only one runner in action this week but he upped the weekly mileage run by club runners by completing the 127 km Wicklow Way Race in 29th position. Of the 80 so runners who took the start line, 53 completed.
It was a notable day on the Wicklow Way with both the ladies and the men’s records being lowered to 16:06 and 12:11 respectively by Aoife Mundow and UK international Robbie Britton.
RESULTS
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29. Dave Lawless 18:17
Our team took up the team challenge of the Wicklow Way Relay for the fifth year running and it was another buzzing day.
Half the battle is getting to the start line!
The team very nearly didn’t make the starting line. First Torben Dahl called in with a poor IT band Tuesday evening (he had a miracle recovery), Angus Tyner did in his ankle on Wednesday night (he didn’t recover) and finally Amidou Dembele’s car broke down in Sligo on the way down from Donegal Friday evening. One rental car later Amidou was at least on his way to Dublin but injury and other commitments in the men’s team meant genuine concerns existed around whether Angus could be replaced.
That was until Richard Costelloe dusted himself off early in his Ballyhoura recovery and took over in the eleventh hour (thanks Rich!) and making his debut in the event. Derek Cullen and Anthony Breen also had their debuts on the ‘official team’ having previously only competed in the event along with the ‘Laragh Locals’. He ran strong despite sheepishly admitting his house-renovation project had left him short of training since qualifying!
The times they are a-changin’!
The final team thus bore only 4 repeat runners from 2018: Rachel Wisdom, Torben Dahl, Amidou Dembele and Yvonne Brennan with Marcus Murphy, Angus Tyner, and Blaise Kinsella (injured) and Johnny Conway (moved to London!) making way. By accident rather than design, the four returning runners ran the first four legs!
Barry O’Neill bore the captain’s mantle and sat down with club coach Rene Borg to bang out a time schedule based on people’s predictions. It was pretty good as it proved – the team predicted an 8 hour 31 minute finish and crossed the line in 8:29 – 45 seconds faster than the 2018 team.
Looking at the team line up, we knew ahead of team that getting into the top-10 would be hard enough with many closely matched teams behind the run-away top-2 (TT Racers and Rathfarnham – TT Racers going on to do an unprecedented ‘4 in a row’).
Flying as high as 4th early on, the team eventually settled in 8th place (2 spots up from 2018) meaning a fifth top-10 finish in five years. No one got lost, no one was late and no one had any notable trouble along the route so that is about as uneventful as a Wicklow Way Relay can get. Even our tracker didn’t give out.
Placings by leg:
Some history
Amidou Dembele ran Leg 1 for the eighth time – the joint-most attempts on leg 1 in the competitions history along with Nadya Dunne and Derek Charles. He has a bit to go to break the record for ‘most attempts at a leg’ which belongs to Tommy Galvin who has run leg 2 twelve times (!).
We keep track of every club runners history in the relay and it can be seen below with the 2019 times. Times before 2015 were run by these runner for their previous clubs/teams.
Barry O’Neill’s leg 8 time is the fastest time set by a male runner in our club and the third fastest overall and Torben Dahl’s 74:02 on leg 2 is a new club record. Rachel Wisdom’s leg 4 time was the fastest female time on the new (since 2018) extended leg 4 course.
Richard Costelloe showcased great form as he finished 21st in the Ballyhoura Trail Half-marathon finishing the 750m elevation course in 1:46:24.
results
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21. Richard Costelloe 1:46:24
Meanwhile earlier in the week at Downshill, our runners kept polishing off the form for the Wicklow Way Relay. Torben finished a good 5th followed by Barry O’Neill in 13th and Richard Costelloe in 25th. Colm Kenna was 93rd.
RESULTS
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5. Torben Dahl 46:42
13. Barry O’Neill 48:58
25. Richard Costelloe 50:43
93. Colm Kenna 64:52
The final chance to make a claim for our Wicklow Way Relay team was had in the Devil’s Glen where a new and faster course was inaugurated. Torben Dahl – already preselected – underlined his credentials finishing 10th as our first man across the line.
Barry O’Neill had another stomping run to finish 22nd and he was followed by Richard Costelloe in 34th and Colm Kenna in 98th. 136 runners competed. One round of the Trail League remains and Torben sits in 8th with Barry O’Neill joint-14th.
RESULTS
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10. Torben Dahl 33:35
22. Barry O’Neill 36:39
34. Richard Costelloe 38:00
98. Colm Kenna 46:05
A great turn-out from the club at the first of the IMRA Trail League series: seven GMACers turned out to race AND we still managed to have a good group out for the subsequent Thursday evening group training. The IMRA race drew a good field of 171 for the race which is probably the closest trail race to the N11!
Torben Dahl was first GMACer across the post. Second home, and thus doing his chance of making the Wicklow Way Relay team no harm, was Barry O’Neill in 30th
As three or more runners competed in this race from our club, it automatically became a counter in the club championships – the first of the season.
Derek Cullen was next and he had a close battle with Richard Costello who was only 6 seconds behind. Yvonne was our only female representative finishing 5th lady and second F40.
RESULTS
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Anthony Breen was running well on the trails last weekend. The Coole run 5k and 10k trail races were held again to raise funds for Ballymena GFC and Anthony competed in the 10 km race finishing 6th overall and first M40.
COOLE RUN 10K
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6. Anthony Breen 46:28
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Results are in from the Wicklow Hospice Festival of Running the previous weekend.
10 KM
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16. Yvonne Brennan 43:44 (2nd place lady)
HALF-MARATHON
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5. Anthony Breen 1:27:54
65. Richard Costelloe 1:43:33
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
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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
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OUGHAVAL
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More training than racing to report from this week – Aoife Joyce had a run-out at the Avondale ParkRun today for her first 5 km ‘race’ in nearly 5 years and had an enjoyable time coming around in 24:10 on the somewhat bumpy course.
RESULT
————GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS———
22. Aoife Joyce 24:10 (3rd lady)
