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 |
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 |
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.
Glendalough AC 