Results of the Poll...' What is your preferred distance for a road race? '
This poll got 54 votes and thanks to everyone who took the time to vote. Originally, I was going to include 'No preference' as an option but I thought that too many people might click that and it does'nt really provide any relevant info. I wanted visitors to the blog to make a choice and provide some feedback.

Results - So, lets look at the results. With 54 votes and with most of the visitors to this blog coming from Ireland, I would think that it is a big enough sample to indicate the preferences of 'local/Irish' runners. So, here are the main points...
a) The most popular distance was 5 miles. Only one person picked 4 miles strangely enough. I assume that most people here went for the shorter option of 5 kms or the longer option of 5 miles.
b) I thought it was unusual that 31% went for the 10 km option even though there are very few 10k races locally. The BHAA UCC 10k is the only one that springs to mind. Perhaps some of the non-Cork visitors picked this one?
c) I was a bit suprised to see that so few picked the 5km option. I thought that this would have been one of the most popular.
d) Some basic stats from the poll...
67% of runners (i.e. two thirds) prefer races that are about 5 to 6.25 miles in lenght.
82% of runners prefer distances of 5 miles and over.

My own vote - By the way, my own vote was for the 10 mile option. For me, all of the races between 5k and 10 km are much the same. The courses are different of course, but the way I run each race is much the same.
But with a 10 mile race, it's different. Some people start too fast, some too slow and positions change all the time. It's a fine balancing act between how fast you can run and how far you have to run. For me, the long races (10 miles +) are something special.

Conclusion - Before the poll, I would have expected a lot more people to have picked the shorter options but that didn't turn out to be the case. Most runners seem to prefer the medium to longer distances. About 10 years ago, there seemed to be a glut of 5k races. More recently however, especially with the success of the Cork City Marathon and big numbers at the Ballycotton 10, Munster Spring Classic 10 mile series, Cork Half Marathon and Cork to Cobh race, the trend now seems to be going in the other direction. So, maybe the poll results aren't so suprising after all.

and finally...there is a new poll now on the right hand side of this page. The poll question is...How long have been you been running on a consistent basis? Just click and vote !