Glendalough AC

Dunes, road and local hills where this menu for this belated update covering races from 10th of November to 3rd December.

STOOK 10 MILE

Wicklow Wolf RC alumni Andy Walker was our sole representative in the Stook 10 mile – only the fifth run over this classical distance by a club member this year.

HALVE DEN MONSTER

Catherine Devitt ran the dune race – ‘Monster half-marathon’ – or ‘Halve den Monster’ in Dutch for the second time. She finished 3rd woman for the second time in a time just over a minute slower than 2 years ago in what continues to be a very impressive season for Catherine.

POWERSCOURT RIDGE

Torben and Eoin Phelan braved wet conditions ahead of the IMRA AGM at the tough 15 km Powerscourt Ridge course.

VALENCIA MARATHON

David Murphy secured a marathon PB on a very fast day in Valencia in the 43rd marathon race run by a club member in 2024.

WATERFORD HALF-MARATHON(ISH)

It’s tradition with the odd road trip for our club and county Waterford has been the destination for a few. This time it was a double quartet travelling to the Waterford half-marathon with several good runs and Louis Byrne leading the club home again after doing so in Dublin. Only real negatives on the day was that the course appears to have been roughly 300m short meaning times cannot be accounted for in the old PB reckoning and that Aoife Joyce had to DNF after roughly 8 miles.

Eoin Phelan extended his record of races per season for the club to 52.

Our trail runners were in action on Dutch dunes, in Clara Vale at Gaelforce and at the annual Run the Line event in Dublin whereas our road runners were kept busy at Run in the Dark or Clontarf Half-marathon. Finally, more ParkRun results from Angus Tyner….

Haagse Duinentrail

Catherine had another strong run in the Netherlands in the weekend of the 9th winnin the women’s race and finishing 8th overall in a race over mainly dune trails. Irishman Geraid O’Shea won the race.

GAELFORCE WICKLOW 10K

Our runners were out on a real variety of trails the last 10 days starting with the new Gaelforce 10k in Clara Vale where Edson Ferreira made it three out of three in the Gaelforce trilogy and finished first club runners with Brian Howard and Britta Luebbert next.

RUN IN THE DARK 10K

Brian and Edson did take much of a break from Gaelforce before embarking on a faster 10 k – on the roads of inner city Dublin.

CLONTARF HALF-MARATHON

Paul O’Riordan set a brilliant new PB of 1:24 in the Clontarf Half – the second fastest half-marathon run by a club runner this year (in 38 attempts – Richard Costello is fastest with 1:21). Eoin Phelan keeps extending the record for ‘most races in a season’ hitting his 50th race with this event and with 4 more planned this year!

BRICKFIELD AND FATHER COLLINS PARKRUN

Angus Tyner ran his 10th and 11th 5 km (all ParkRuns) of the year at Father Collins and then Brickfield. His time has been coming steadily down through the season peaking wiht 18:49 and a category win at Father Collins before a slightly slower 19:46 at Brickfield.

FATHER COLLINS

BRICKFIELD

RUN THE LINE (13K AND 25K)

We had eleven runners in this year’s Run the Line with Aoife O’Brien not only first club runner home but also taking second place in the women’s race. Eoin O’Neill was next followed by Kevin Doherty who had a solid pacer in newly crowned club champion Paul Duffy. Rebecca Whineray was next with Nora – in post marathon mode – next and Gerard O’Rourke rounding out the field.

LONG

SHORT

Twenty-three of our runners competed at EcoTrail Wickow this year where the team were hoping to defend their team win from 2023. While this fell short (we finished 2nd) there were plenty of good results to report on. In between we have a host of road race results including a new women’s 5 km club record before we finish with recent results from the Glendalough Trail and Wicklow Way Race off-road events.

WICKLOW WAY RACE & NAV CHALLENGE 3

Graham Bush warmed up for his Wicklow Way Race by finishing 4th on the short course of IMRA’s last Nav Challenge of the year and five days later he was ready to go with a stellar 11th spot in 16:47.

ZUIDERPARKRUN

In the Netherlands Catherine Devitt lowered her own PB from earlier this year by 7 seconds to run 18:32 breaking her own women’s club record as well. It was a tough field as despite this Catherine was only 2nd woman!

FIGHTING BLINDNESS 15 KM

Eoin Phelan clocked his 47th race of the season at Fighting Blindness – on a course lengthened to 16.4 km this year due to NPWS works on the Spinc.

No we are not talking craft beers but rather the racing action since 22nd of September which began in the US….

MAMMOTH 26 KM

John Conway ran off any lingering Dragon’s Back disappointment with a strong run in the 26 km race that was part of the Mammoth trailfest in California last event of the Golden Trail Series.

ECOTRAIL WICKLOW 2024

Our club’s finger and footprints were all over this year’s EcoTrail Wicklow with coach Rene Borg one of the main organisers and a large part of the crucial crew coming from our ranks. There was still time to compete as 22 of our runners took the 5 start lines (10k, 19k, 30k, 46k, and 80k) with some strong results.

We couldn’t quite defend our team title from 2023 but finished 2nd with Barra O’Duill, Paul O’Riordan and Blaise Kinsella the three scorers for the team (the 10k and 80k do not count in the tally).

10 KM

The shortest race ran last and here it was Dynafit representative and Wicklow Wolf RC representative Ross Thompson who was our lonely racer finishing 24th out of 123.

19 KM

It was a bit surprising perhaps that only one of our number (recent Wicklow Wolf joinees Barr O’Duill) opted for the 19 km. This made him a key cog as the scorer in the club competition for the 19 km race.

30 KM

Most of our runners (and our two only female representatives) had preferred the 30 km distance on the way and here Paul O’Riordan ran a stellar race to get in ahead of in-form Richard Allan. Anthony Breen suffered a nasty fall going down the Sugarloaf but recovered to finish third of our bunch. Julia Palma was our first woman home in 113th.

46 KM

Blaise Kinsella led home our 46km men in his longest race yet and was followed by Eoin Phelan getting in a very long pre-marathon run and Alan Kennedy who may have avowed the ultras but not the ‘pseudo-ultras’.

80 km

Philip O’Brien and Graeme Warren both ran very well blowing well below the 10 hour barrier and finishing in the top quarter of the field. Graeme also got to take the o50 prize courtesy of the an m50 finishing on the main podium while it was another tough day at the office for James Heggie who was counted out by the time limits after 52 km at Lough Tay.

* a faster time was run in 2023 but on a different course (shorter with less climb)

BERLIN MARATHON

Meanwhile in Berlin, David Murphy and Mark Lindsay took on the fast marathon course there and finished with some strong times. David Murphy took 28 minutes off his PB for a 3:32 with Mark Lindsay not wanting to be outdone and he lowered his PB from 3:47 to 3:23 (24 minutes). Super running from the chaps who now move into 13th and 16th position on our men’s ‘all time best marathon’ performances.

Beer and PBs in Berlin

GALWAY BAY HALF-MARATHON

The wind also didn’t stop Paul Duffy lowering his PB by about a minute to 1:28:25 and moving past Gavin Kennedy and Aran Lynham in our half-marathon men’s rankings. Wife Sile ran her longest run ever as she finished in 2:23.

3/4 MARATHON

Eoin Phelan continued his racing bonanza (and Dublin marathon preparation) running 2:44:09 in the Longwood 3/4 marathon to finish 257th and top-25% of the field. He was only the third Glendalough AC runner to race at this distance and, as only the second man, bettered Colm Kenna’s official time and set the club record.

CROSS-COUNTRY?

For the first time in our club history, we had no representatives in either the Novice or Intermediate cross-country events. Hopefully, we’ll have some results to report later in the cross season.