Despite the Dublin Marathon coming up and winter training in full swing for many, a few club runners still got a race in over the last two weekends – in this case our two Danes!
First up was Torben Dahl who finished 13th in ‘To Hell with the Fairies’ out of 101 runners over the testing half-marathon course with 650 m ascent.
This Sunday, Rene Borg ran the European Cross-Country Experience – a ‘relaxed’ cross-country races offering a glimpse at the European Championship course. He finished 28th out of the 496 participants.
First in action this week was Colm Kenna – doing his warm-up for the Frank Duffy 10 km
4 days later on the slopes of Brockagh. Newcastle AC’s Luke McMullan’s win
meant Northern honours prevailed on the race. Colm came home in 72:13 for 103rd
place in a mid-size field of 162.
A ‘hang-over’
from last weeks result must also be mentioned as Torben Dahl took on the
technical route up and down Djouce – dubbed the ‘Ayling’ Abyss after inventor
Alan Ayling. Perhaps still feeling the Tucker Trail 80k in his legs Torben swooped
across the finish line in 27th – a bit down on his usual placings in
the league. The next day he could celebrate his 41st birthday –
congratulations from everyone in Glendalough AC!
RESULTS
Barry Cronin 52:40
————GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
27. Torben
Dahl 63:55
South Dublin 10k
Yesterday’s big Saturday fixture is the South Dublin 10k – part of the Dublin race series – where Richard Costelloe, Colm and William Belton were in action. Richard had a particularly good run setting a new PB of 41:50.
RESULTS
Paul Pollock, Annadelle Striders 29:28
————GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————-
259. Richard Costelloe 41:50 (PB)
696. Colm Kenna 47:46
840. William Belton 49:24
With three club runners in action, this race becomes an automatic counter in the club championship. Richard’s win here means he now leads the championship as although Torben Dahl and Barry O’Neill can still overtake him if they ‘win’ their ‘run in hand’.
NeverGiveUp 10k
Aoife Joyce capped off the weekend action in Inch at the NeverGiveUp 10k, her first race on the distance for nearly 6 years. Her time of 46:06 sufficed in securing third lady’s spot and 2nd F40.
Torben Dahl has well and truly shrugged off the knee injury
dogging him in the weeks leading into the Wicklow Road Championship. After
completing the Glendalough Tucker Trail in 6th place over the
weekend, he opted for a race on Tibradden Wednesday as his recovery run and
still had enough in the tank to finish 16th.
While our seven representatives at the Wicklow Road Championship this year was our smallest contingent yet, they still brought home two individual and two team medals.
Rachel Wisdom and Donna Quinn took 1st and 2nd in the ladies O35 category and combined with Aoife Joyce, back for her first race in 4 years, to take the team gold in the women’s masters o35-49 category.
Due to injury and late drop-offs we only fielded one men’s team: a masters team and not a senior team as well as in previous years. Here Torben Dahl was first home in 17:52 followed by Barry O’Neill and Richard Costelloe who arrived close together and Colm Kenna as the fourth man to count.
Also a big thank you to the organisers and to our own volunteers who stepped up: Yvonne Brennan and Angus Tyner.
RESULTS
Brian Geraghty 15:53 , Greystones and District
———————–GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS—————
21. Torben Dahl 17:52 (team Bronze 35-49)
41. Barry O’Neill 18:50 (team Bronze 35-49)
42. Richard Costelloe 18:54 (team Bronze 35-49)
50. Rachel Wisdom 20:17 (Individual Gold 35-49, Team Gold 35-49)
65. Donna Quinn 21:03 (Individual Silver 35-49, Team Gold 35-49)
The team very nearly didn’t make the starting line. First Torben Dahl called in with a poor IT band Tuesday evening (he had a miracle recovery), Angus Tyner did in his ankle on Wednesday night (he didn’t recover) and finally Amidou Dembele’s car broke down in Sligo on the way down from Donegal Friday evening. One rental car later Amidou was at least on his way to Dublin but injury and other commitments in the men’s team meant genuine concerns existed around whether Angus could be replaced.
That was until Richard Costelloe dusted himself off early in his Ballyhoura recovery and took over in the eleventh hour (thanks Rich!) and making his debut in the event. Derek Cullen and Anthony Breen also had their debuts on the ‘official team’ having previously only competed in the event along with the ‘Laragh Locals’. He ran strong despite sheepishly admitting his house-renovation project had left him short of training since qualifying!
The times they are a-changin’!
The final team thus bore only 4 repeat runners from 2018: Rachel Wisdom, Torben Dahl, Amidou Dembele and Yvonne Brennan with Marcus Murphy, Angus Tyner, and Blaise Kinsella (injured) and Johnny Conway (moved to London!) making way. By accident rather than design, the four returning runners ran the first four legs!
Barry O’Neill bore the captain’s mantle and sat down with club coach Rene Borg to bang out a time schedule based on people’s predictions. It was pretty good as it proved – the team predicted an 8 hour 31 minute finish and crossed the line in 8:29 – 45 seconds faster than the 2018 team.
Predicted versus real times
Looking at the team line up, we knew ahead of team that getting into the top-10 would be hard enough with many closely matched teams behind the run-away top-2 (TT Racers and Rathfarnham – TT Racers going on to do an unprecedented ‘4 in a row’).
Flying as high as 4th early on, the team eventually settled in 8th place (2 spots up from 2018) meaning a fifth top-10 finish in five years. No one got lost, no one was late and no one had any notable trouble along the route so that is about as uneventful as a Wicklow Way Relay can get. Even our tracker didn’t give out.
Placings by leg:
Leg 1: 9th Amidou
Leg 2: 5th Torben Dahl
Leg 3: 10th Yvonne Brennan
Leg 4: 15th Rachel Wisdom
Leg 5: 12th Richard Costelloe
Leg 6: 16th Derek Cullen
Leg 7: 11th Anthony Breen
Leg 8: 6th Barry O’Neill
Some history
Amidou Dembele ran Leg 1 for the eighth time – the joint-most attempts on leg 1 in the competitions history along with Nadya Dunne and Derek Charles. He has a bit to go to break the record for ‘most attempts at a leg’ which belongs to Tommy Galvin who has run leg 2 twelve times (!).
We keep track of every club runners history in the relay and it can be seen below with the 2019 times. Times before 2015 were run by these runner for their previous clubs/teams.
Barry O’Neill’s leg 8 time is the fastest time set by a male runner in our club and the third fastest overall and Torben Dahl’s 74:02 on leg 2 is a new club record. Rachel Wisdom’s leg 4 time was the fastest female time on the new (since 2018) extended leg 4 course.
Meanwhile earlier in the week at Downshill, our runners kept polishing off the form for the Wicklow Way Relay. Torben finished a good 5th followed by Barry O’Neill in 13th and Richard Costelloe in 25th. Colm Kenna was 93rd.
The final chance to make a claim for our Wicklow Way Relay team was had in the Devil’s Glen where a new and faster course was inaugurated. Torben Dahl – already preselected – underlined his credentials finishing 10th as our first man across the line.
Barry O’Neill had another stomping run to finish 22nd and he was followed by Richard Costelloe in 34th and Colm Kenna in 98th. 136 runners competed. One round of the Trail League remains and Torben sits in 8th with Barry O’Neill joint-14th.
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.
Barry Murray got a fine podium finish (2nd) at Annagh Hill this weekend – 31 seconds behind the legendary Robbie Bryson who continues to run strongly in his fifties. This was also Barry’s first run for his new club – West Kerry AC – so we bid him farewell (here in our race reports) but will continue to follow his exploits with interest in his new home.
A wrong turn lead some of the top-10 runners astray including Torben Dahl, who had also missed the start and came home in an uncharacteristic 23rd and Adrian Hennessey, former ‘Lap of the Gap’ and Run the Ridge winner, whose wrong turn dropped him to 9th.
Glendalough AC 