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Fourteen of our runners descended on the 2^nd IMRA Leinster League race which doubled up as our fourth counter out of twelve in the annual Club Championship. Paul Duffy – as so often before – was our first man home in his favourite spot (13^th – the position he has finished in in 10% of his IMRA races!). A few minutes behind was Richard Allan who continues to impress in his maiden season also finishing 3^rd M50.

The course had been shortened from 8.3 km to 6.7 km due to NPWS concern around erosion of the top trail meaning a slightly faster than normal route cutting out nearly 2 km of the slowest terrain and with a new section around the forest and a kicker to Brusher’s Gap hut. The route also started further up Gaffney’s Lane than normal meaning an almighty jostle to get into position with little time for the field to spread before the many sections of single-track that make passing hard on this route.

Gavin Kennedy was 23 seconds behind with Kevin Ferguson another 34 seconds down and then 21 seconds passed before Alan Kennedy returned as the 2^nd M55 on the day. Our first woman (and the third woman overall) was Catherine Devitt who also won the F40 category. Catherine briefly struggled on the descent losing two positions and sitting in 5th place in the women’s race before she rallied strongly on the little climb to Brusher’s Gap Hut where she retook her spot and put 20 and 23 seconds into Aideen Burke and Niamh Brophy on this final kilometer.

Aoife Joyce arrived just under 2 minutes later in 6^th woman overall and 2^nd F45 (1^st being winner Sarah Flanagan). Eoin Phelan was next and a few minutes later Rebecca Whineray as 3^rd F45. Richard Kieran and Gerard O’Rourke rounded out our contingent.

RESULT

1. Enda Cloake (Slaney Olympic) 0:31:49

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

13. Paul Duffy 0:37:37

31. Richard Allan 0:41:35 (3rd M50) – WW RC

33. Gavin Kennedy 0:41:59

34. Chris willoughby 0:42:13 – WW RC

36. Kevin Ferguson 0:42:33

40. Alan Kennedy 0:42:54 (2nd M55) – WW RC

52. Catherine Devitt 0:44:00 (1st F40)

66. Aoife Joyce 0:45:55 (2nd F45)

81. Eoin Phelan 0:47:36 – WW RC

87. Neil Fusco 0:48:14 – WW RC

103. Rebecca Whineray 0:49:16 (3rd F45) – WW RC

112. Richard Kieran 0:51:05

128. Andy Walker 0:52:35 – WW RC

138. Gerard O’Rourke 0:54:14 – WW RC

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 4

Paul Duffy got the maximum score in the race for the Club Championship with several getting ‘on the board’ for the first time this season. He was far ahead enough to put a big points gap into several of the chasers….

The result consolidates Paul in first with Kevin Ferguson moving up into 2nd place and Aoife third. Only three runners have completed three races at this pint.

In the women’s ranking, Aoife Joyce now leads Catherine and Claire as the only finisher with 3 races so far. It was unfortuante loraine Creane missed out on the entry as she was well placed to move up into the top-3 otherwise.

Nine Glendalough AC/Wicklow Wolfers descended on Belmont for the first Leinster League race of the season along with 258 other starters in one of the bigger fields in recent times on a Wednesday night.

There were two IMRA debutantes on the night (David Murphy and Richard Allan) the former being our first man home on the night ahead of veteran Angus Tyner who was 2nd M55 and Loraine Creane who was the 2nd F40 and sixth woman. There was also a club racing debut for Stephen Dowling.

RESULT

1. Daire Finn () 0:37:46

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

34. Richard Allan 0:47:17

47. Angus Tyner 0:48:57 (2nd M55)

66. Loraine Creane 0:51:56 (2nd F40)

77. Niall MacCarthy 0:53:25

86. Eoin Phelan 0:54:28

95. Colm Kenna 0:55:07

146. David Murphy 1:00:20

151. Nora Butler 1:00:54

182. Stephen Dowling 1:06:56

Last weekend our runners competed in the Maurice Mullins Ultra, Gaol-Break 10k and Half, and the National 10k in Dunboyne.

MAURICE MULLINS ULTRA

We are still somewhat uncertain of final results for the Maurice Mullins as a lot of early starters are still listed 30 minutes too far up in the results. What we know for sure is that Richard Kieran was our first man home followed by Alan Kennedy (pictured), Eoin Phelan and James Heggie.

DUNBOYNE 10 KM / NATIONAL 10 KM

Philip O’Brien travelled with fellow Wicklow Wolfers Dan Rakitic and Lee Borland (running for Bray Runners) and all record good sub-40 minute times.

RESULT

1. Sean tobin (Clonmel AC) 0:29:17

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

335. Philip O’Brien 0:39:36 (PB)

WICKLOW GAOL-BREAK 10 KM AND HALF

Graeme Warren and Aran Lynham both improved their own age category club records in the half-marathon and 10 km respectively.

GAOL-BREAK 10K

RESULT

1. Eoin Cregg (Running Coach Ireland) 0:37:20

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

8. Aran Lynham 0:39:48

55. fergal Olohan 0:47:28

79. Claire Thompson 0:49:46

92. Mark Willoughby 0:50:21

GAOL-BREAK HALF

RESULT

1. Marc Augustin (Le Cheile AC) 1:14:19

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

24. Graeme Warren 1:25:21 (1st M50, PB)

41. Catherine Devitt 1:28:28 (2nd F40)

104. Kevin Ferguson 1:35:18

219. Sam Fleming 0:56:04

223. Grace Curham 1:41:02

317. Aoife Joyce 1:45:00

As a member of Glendalough AC you can avail of the following benefits:

Membership and insurance benefits

• Membership of Athletics Ireland
• Membership of Sli Cualann AC (on request)
• Covered by AAI insurance when training with the club when one of our AAI certified coaches is present
• No AAI insurance fee charged on your entries to AAI permit road races

Training and social events

• Fully coached sessions Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
• Structured Workouts in TrainingPeaks downloadable to most running watches
• Annual Winter Prediction League and Club Championship with awards
• Annual Awards Scheme and Party

Discounts and offers

• Discounted sign-up for Wicklow Wolf RC (free for running guides, €40 / year add-on for members wanting the welcome pack and/or not involved as guides)
• 15% discount of coaching and training plans from Running Coach Ireland
• Discounted price for TrainingPeaks Premium account (contact Running Coach Ireland for this – €34.45 per quarter: support@runningcoachireland.zendesk.com)
• Free entries available to Lap of the Gap Marathon Marathon, Glen to Glen Half-marathon, Glendalough Trail Race and EcoTrail Wicklow (but read conditions*)
• Free entry to cross-country and track Wicklow Championship events (Road and Off-Road are sometimes subsidised)

* These free tickets are because the events are either our fund-raisers and/or our club members help out to earn money and free tickets. It’s generally expected to help out at one of these events first before availing of the free ticket offer although we make exceptions to this.

Our Club Annual Awards and Christmas Party were celebrated in Byrne and Woods in Roundwood this Saturday (2nd). As per tradition, candidates had been nominated across a number of category by the club coach for the membership to vote on.

At the end of the dinner (and the Club Quiz), the winners were announced:

CLUB AWARD WINNERS 2023

• Club Person of the Year: Donna Quinn
• Best Newcomer: Siobhan Brennan
• Most Improved: Marcus Murphy
• Road / Track Performer of the Year: Blaise Kinsella (men) and Donna Quinn (women)
• Off-Road Performer of the Year: John Conway (men) and Catherine Devitt (women)
• Team of the Year: Gavin Kennedy, Paul Duffy, Richard Costelloe (Men’s M35 gold winning team in the Wicklow Off-Road)

The Club Champion will not be decided until next week at the Wicklow Senior XC where the title will go to either Paul Duffy or René Borg. The ‘Most Prolific’ prize will be awarded on the first training after New Year.

CLUB QUIZ

The traditional Club Pub Quiz asking 16 fiendishly difficult questions about club events, racing and statistics was won by Donna Quinn, William Belton and Marcus Murphy with 12 right answers (with a tie-breaker question necessary to separate them from Alan Kennedy).

ONTO 2024!

Well done again to all club members in a year of growth that saw record members, record number of races, record number of PBs and so much more. We hope for more of the same in our 10th anniversary in 2024.

Orange marking, orange branding and orange weather warning was the theme of this year’s Glendalough Trail Run in aid of Fighting Blindness.

Club coach Rene Borg had taken over as Race Director ably assisted by several locals including club members Derek Cullen at the upland water station and Yvonne Brennan keeping an eye on affairs in the Upper Lake while Graeme Warren got in his very long run in preparation for Tollymore by first running the long cousre as ‘course checker’ and then sweeping behind the last racers later!

GLENDALOUGH TRAIL 8.5 K AND 15K

The two fields were reduced to 50% of the entry – a very high figure likely driven in huge part by the heavy rain and orange weather warning the night before. The course was still wet but very runnable by the time a glorious Saturday morning dawned on the valley.

RESULT

1. Fran Morales (Corriendo el Fondo) 1:04:47

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

2. Diarmuid Kavanagh 1:10:25 (2nd MS)

28. Nora Butler 1:30:01

Diarmuid Kavanagh and Nora Butler were first in action with Diarmuid finishing 2nd behind runaway winner Fran Morales of Costa Rica (who broke six local Strava records as he rampaged around the course). Nora Butler also ran well finishing 28th overall and 5th woman.

Siobhan Brennan ran in the smaller 8.5 km race where she was not only first woman but also 2nd overall!

RESULT

1. Darragh Hulgraine () 0:49:17

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

2. Siobhan Brennan 0:50:14 (1st F50)

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

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

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

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

43. Graeme Warren 4:18:24

Twenty-three of our members (or affiliate-members via Wicklow Wolf RC) competed in the 20th Edition of the Wicklow Way Relay.

Top-10: always the objective

Ambitious plans were put underway early in the year but once it became clear that our four highest ranked runners this season could not attend, objectives were hastily readjusted to just preserving a treasured club achievement: having finished in the top-10 in all seven editions we have competed in. It appeared more difficult than ever with a competitive field. I even seemed intent on sabotaging this process myself by entering a company team alongside my co-coach in Running Coach Ireland – Eoin Flynn (and they promptly finished 7th).

In the relay you will always gain (and sometimes lose) spots due to time penalties, lost runners, disqualifications or injury and this year was on different. You have the best chance of success by avoiding large problems and then being in a position to pounce if an – on paper – slightly stronger team has a mishap. From a Wicklow perspective, it was interesting to see if we could get one up on either of Kilcoole or Parnell AC – our local rivals: a sort of extremely informal ‘Wicklow Trail Relay Championships’.

Kilcoole returned for their second outing (having been 4th in 2019) whereas it was a first for Parnell as a full club team (having aided our team on two occasions with 2 runners).

As is the norm many ‘club teams’ had a few ‘day transfers’ and Parnell were bolstered by Lucy O’Malley (Inbhear Dee) and Bernard Fortune (SBR) while some of their own heavy-hitters were busy at the National 5 mile or running for other teams (the horror!) such as Daire Finn who promptly set the second fastest leg 7 time of the day with a 78-minute effort.

Strong Wicklow athletes were scattered across the teams such as Mountain Swifts (with the Bell brothers from Kilcoole joining Ronan King from Inbhear Dee), or Roundwood’s Noelie Kavanagh who ran the 3rd fastest leg 2 for ‘Wicklow’s Finest’ and the Clash Bangers and Bally Clangers made up primarly of Wicklow club runners.

A lot of our own members and affiliate members also ran for the ‘Laragh Legends’ and ‘Wicklow Wolf RC’ and ‘Team Luna’. The medals, however, were a battle between Dublin and Cork outfits.

Leg 4 – a litany of errors

(runner: Marcus Murphy 46:38, prediction: 46:10. Laragh Legends: Gavin ken)

Many of the main contenders ran into issues on leg 4: Parnell’s Liam Kenny, Raheny’s Patrick Conroy and Rathfarnham’s John McAuley all took wrong turns and lost substantial amounts of time. Stealth Stones took the largest of all deviations – adding about 4 km out and back to the route resulting in Johnny Sheehy running 79:32 for the leg!

Richard Costelloe and Catherine Devitt continued their recent run on good results in Den Haag in the Netherlands taking possession of four club records for their household!

ZUIDERPARK PARKRUN

Catherine began the weekend by winning the local Zuiderpark ParkRun outright whilst running 18:59 – only 18 seconds off her personal best from 2012 and a new overall ladies 5 km record (breaking Rachel Wisdom’s 2016 club best by 4 seconds) and also F40 record (breaking Donna Quinn’s recent 19:04 mark).

RESULT

1. Catherine Devitt (Glendalough AC) 0:18:59 (F40 PB, Ladies Club Record, F40 Club Record)

——-

1. Catherine Devitt 0:18:59

ZOETEMEER 10 KM

Not to be outdone on the home-front, Richard tripled up on achievements on Sunday: setting a new 10 km PB of 37:08 (taking 30 seconds off his 2020 mark), establishing a new overall and M45 club record (and the fourth fastest time on our ‘all-time’ list), and finishing 2nd in the M45 category.

RESULT

1. Henk Bregman () 0:32:40

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

8. Richard Costelloe 0:37:08 (PB, M45 PB, Club Record, M45 Club Record)

After the relentless racing of the last few weeks, our runners ‘quietened’ down a bit over the weekend competing in only two races before Brian Lydon turned out after a short break to compete as our lonely sentinel at the Ayling Abyss.

DARGLE FOUR PEAKS

Graham Bushe led the blazing yellows home for the second time in 5 days at the unorthodox Dargle Four Peaks race (featuring a free route choice!) with over-reliable orienteer Angus Tyner 2nd club man, long-distance specialist Duncan Barret 3rd and Barry O’Neill 4th.

RESULT

RESULT

1. Ruairi Long (UCD AC) 1:34:44 (CR)

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

7. Graham Bushe 2:01:42 (2nd M50)

19. Angus Tyner 2:28:26

26. Duncan Barrett 2:39:44

31. Barry O’Neill 2:46:19

BORN TO RUN 10 MILE (TRALEE)

In Tralee, Aran Lynham couldn’t quite replicate recent storming road performances – going out too aggressively in the heat, he faded a bit after 5 km of the Born to Run 10 mile and had to dig deep to complete and set his first mark over the 10 mile distance. It was still enough for a nice top-10 spot.

RESULT

1. Donal O’Kelly () 1:01:01

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

8. Aran Lynham 1:10:53

THE AYLING ABYSS

Brian Lydon completed his 6th IMRA race (and first since the Relay in May) coming a very credible 25th in the tough and technical 10 km on the Ayling Abyss at Djouce.

RESULT

1. Derek Crammond (Parnell AC) 51:08 (CR)

——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-

25. Brian Lydon 1:03:47