Over the past weekend Glendalough AC had three runners competing in different Half Marathon distance races as well as one tackling a very steep ultra.
First in Dublin, Colm Kenna and William Belton raced the Half Marathon in Phoenix Park, the next step of the Dublin Race Series. Colm edged ahead with a finishing time of 1hr 47min, William followed up shortly after at 1hr 56min. The training continues as the Dublin Marathon now quickly approaches.
Meanwhile abroad Bruce Phillips participated in the Oslo Half Marathon. On a warm day in Norway, Bruce completed the hilly course (almost 200m vertical) in 1hr 48 mins.
Finally closer to home, Dave Lawless battled the awesome Ben Nevis Ultra marathon, an intimidating 52km race with over 4,000m of climbing. While he didn’t manage to complete the course (only 119 our of 335 actually did..), he ran 31km of tough terrain, with 2,200m of up, up up!
Congrats to all the runners for some inspiring efforts this weekend!
Looking forward we now have several athletes focusing on preparations for the Eco Trail Wicklow (Sept 28th) as well as the Dublin City Marathon (Oct 27th).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Course statistics after the Winter League 2018/2019
We had the most competitive handicap race yet at Roundwood Reservoir today. 8 out of 10 runners improved their handicaps. With 4 runners improving their handicap by more than 2 minutes and thus getting the maximum score, there was a shake-up at the top with Bruce Phillips taking the lead – 38 seconds ahead of Aoife Joyce and 57 seconds ahead of Barry O’Neill.
Overall results after 11 of 12 rounds
It is only the second time the courses have been run so the fastest times run were reduced for nearly all races. Arne Klohn ran the new best mark for the 5 km (22:36) and Yvonne set the new ladies 5 km best at 23:56. The 10 km best times were reduced to 46:06 overall by Derek Cullen and 48:35 for the ladies by Donna Quinn. Barry O’Neill ran 44:12 but took the 10 km route along the lower reservoir so while his time has been accepted into the rankings, it won’t stand as a course best.
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.
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’.
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!
Glendalough AC 