Category: Uncategorized

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

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.

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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.

 

REPORT: Hellfire

by glendaloughac, posted in Mountain running, Race reports, Uncategorized

After the club shenanigans in Clara Vale Saturday, one club runners was involved in more serious business as the IMRA 2019 season kicked off at Hellfire Woods.

Seven day after her come-back in cross-country, Catherine Devitt returned for her first IMRA run since August 2017 and finished 14th in the ladies race and 86th overall with 217 finishers in this the first race of the Winter/Spring League.

RESULTS

  1. Conor O’Keefe, UCD 30:52

———-GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS———

86. Catherine Devitt 43:46

full results: https://www.imra.ie/events/results/id/1672/category/O/

TRAINING: Club runs over Xmas Period

by glendaloughac, posted in Club training, Uncategorized

An update on training over the Xmas period:

  • THURSDAY 20/12: Cross-country training at Vartry Reservoir from 7 pm to 8 pm
  • SATURDAY 22/12: Club Winter League at Brockagh Woods – 5 km and 9 km run options from 9 am
  • SUNDAY 23/12: Group long run (venue to be confirmed)
  • THURSDAY 27/12: NO TRAINING!
  • SATURDAY 29/12: Club Winter League Round 2 – Kevin’s Jaunt course from 9 am (meet Glendalough Hotel)
  • THURSDAY 03/01/19: Final tune-up before Master’s Cross-country (short session) – likely Vartry

 

There are likely more runs being organised over this period but keep in mind there are several races as well including Wicklow 5k, Djouce Remembrance Race, Solstice Mile and the GOAL Mile.