Brockagh Woods – Glendalough AC

WINTER LEAGUE – Final Round

February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Winter League

Today’ result and final tally. 16 runners competed and 9 got the minimum 6 to score. The final round saw a three way battle between Aoife, Flora and Rene for the win and the Sportsroom voucher!

The final round of the Winter League took part on the Brockagh Woods course with runners trying to best their handicaps against the 5k and 9.1 km courses.

The situation

Aoife Joyce only had to better her current results by 21 seconds in order to make it impossible for either Flora McKnight or Rene Borg to catch her. It proved neck on neck as both Rene and Aoife had recorded the maximum score for the last 4 races in a row and would do so again at the fifth asking.

Having run 29:41 and thus running off a 30 minute handicap, Aoife obliterated her time with 25:28. This made Rene’s time academical but he got some consolation by lowering Barry O’Neill’s course record of 42:55 to 42:07 and taking the win on the day. Flora could not improve her handicap and dropped from 2nd to 3rd in the overall with Rene taking second. It all came down to 21 seconds after 12 races!

Position	Name	Start time	Finish time	Actual time	Average Pace	Avg / lap	Behind winner	Course run
1	René Borg	9:43 am	10:25:07 am	42:07	4:35 min/km	10:32		Long
2	Aoife Joyce	10:00 am	10:25:28 am	25:28	5:06 min/km	12:44	0:21	Short
3	Marcus Murphy	10:03 am	10:29:08 am	26:08	5:14 min/km	13:04	4:01	Short
4	Colm Kenna	10:03 am	10:29:09 am	26:09	5:14 min/km	13:04	4:02	Short
5	Derek Cullen	10:07 am	10:30:46 am	23:46	4:45 min/km	11:53	5:39	Short
6	Barry O’Neill	9:47 am	10:30:58 am	43:58	4:47 min/km	11:00	5:51	Long
7	Flora McKnight	10:03 am	10:33:15 am	30:15	6:03 min/km	15:07	8:08	Short

Round 12 – Brockagh Woods – standings

League summary

The league was evenly contested for much of it with several winners: Barry O’Neill and Bruce Phillips won one race each, Aoife, Flora and Colm took two each and Rene won 4.

#	Name	Wins	\Races	TOP 6	AVG	Behind
1	Aoife Joyce	2	6	5:48:03	0:58:01	0:00:00
2	René Borg	4	6	5:48:24	0:58:04	0:00:21
3	Flora McKnight	2	6	5:49:10	0:58:12	0:01:07
4	Derek Cullen	0	6	5:52:43	0:58:47	0:04:40
5	Colm Kenna	2	6	5:55:49	0:59:18	0:07:46
6	Donna Quinn	0	6	5:56:05	0:59:21	0:08:02
7	Marcus Murphy	0	6	5:56:58	0:59:30	0:08:55
8	Bruce Phillips	1	6	5:57:04	0:59:31	0:09:01
9	Yvonne Brennan	0	6	6:01:39	1:00:17	0:13:36
10	Richard Kieran	0	5	4:56:05	0:59:13
11	Barry O’Neill	1	4	3:58:10	0:59:33
12	Catherine Devitt	0	4	4:07:19	1:01:50
13	Aisling Kirwan	0	2	2:02:04	1:01:02
14	Anne Marah	0	1	1:00:28	1:00:28
15	Rachel Wisdom	0	1	1:01:46	1:01:46
16	Michael Heatly	0	1	1:01:49	1:01:49

League 2019/20 – final standings

Notable achievements

This year’s league had four new course records: Donna Quinn and Aoife Joyce lowered the Roundwood 10k and 5k courses to 46:49 and 23:24 while Rene Borg lowered the long course times for Clara Vale and Brockagh Woods to 39:44 and 42:07.

People where adept at cracking their handicap breaking their times in 69 out of 106 attempts. Most of the 43 ‘failures’ – 15 – happened in the first two rounds as people were adjusting to their 2020 fitness levels!

League 2020/21

The league will return November 2020 but we will have other Saturday activities coming up for the rest of the year.

Next year’s league will feature and even tighter handicap system which should help keep the maximum number of people in contention for the longest period of time. We will also revisit bringing back the Pink Poulanass and Lower Lake Round courses to create a 16 round league.

REPORT: Winter League final round (Brockagh Woods)

March 10, 2019March 10, 2019 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 2^nd 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.

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

March 7, 2019 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

WINTER LEAGUE – ROUND 6

December 22, 2018December 22, 2018 by glendaloughac, posted in Club races / events, Race reports, Trail running, Winter League

wlrich We got midway through the Winter Handicap League today with the new run at Brockagh Woods. The course proved popular with several commenting it would make a nice IMRA trail race (in fact, a good part of the course is used in the Laragh Trail Race 6k).

Three runners competed in the long 9 km route with the remaining seven taking on the shorter 5 km route – all counting in the same rankings courtesy of the handicap system.

Fastest on the long course was Barry O’Neill with 44 minutes flat whilst Johnny Conway was fastest on the short with 22:36. Both will stand as course records until the second running along with Yvonne Brennan’s 24:31 (fastest female time).

Once adjusted for handicaps these were the results with Barry O’Neill winning 36 seconds ahead of Johnny who in turn had 11 seconds to Colm Kenna in third.

round6results — Results (handicapped) for round 6 of 12

In the overall ranking the defending league winner – club coach René Borg – retains a 5 second lead to Donna Quinn but with the four best counting, runners will have plenty of results to discard in the final 6 races and for the runner who have run 3 or less, they could still feature at the top once they get in their fourth race.

**Overall results:** round 6 of 12 (best 4 results to score)

Next round we restart our run through the six courses with Kevin’s Jaunt up St. Kevin’s Way and back to the Glendalough Hotel – next Saturday (29th) from 9:30 am. As always everyone is welcome, entry is free, and coffee and cakes a’plenty in Glendalough Green afterwards.