Our team took up the team challenge of the Wicklow Way Relay for the fifth year running and it was another buzzing day.
Half the battle is getting to the start line!
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.
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.
Glendalough AC 