Preview of the Cork BHAA 'ESB' 5 km race in Mahon - Sun 1st March (11am)
This is the 2nd road race of the year in the Cork BHAA calendar. Considering it is only 5 kms long, a lot of people will run this even though the Ballycotton 10 is only a week later.

Registration...This is in the Mahon Community centre, shown as a X on the map. It's very easy to find. If you are travelling down into Mahon on the Skehard road, just turn left at the church and the Community centre is in about 300 metres on the left. To get your bearings, click on this LINK. Use the + and - to zoom IN and OUT and try MAP and SATELLITE to get a clearer view.
Course...It's a short run of few hundred metres down to the start. See the map above. The race starts along the road on the way down to Blackrock Castle. After a few hundred metres, you need to follow the stewards instructions and veer off right into the car park and accross it. Now you need to be careful. Just as you get onto the walkway, you need to take a very sharp right. It's not so easy when the runners are still bunched, running fast and then have to brake and change direction. Once you get onto the walkway, you are on the nicest part of the route. You are running on a smooth tarmac surface along the water's edge with scenic views over the inner harbour. It's pretty straight and dead flat for the next 1.5 miles. Just one word of caution here. This walkway is not closed off for the race. It is a very popular amenity with plenty of people out walking with their kid's and dog's. Just keep it in mind. After the 2 mile mark, you are heading back past the large radio mast on your right. You run accross the weir, up a small ramp and then out and right onto another walkway. Here's the tough part. You need to run up and over the pedistrian bridge that goes over the South link road. It's probably a good 50 metres of uphill running and more than enough to leave you panting. The bridge is wide enough for about 2 people so if there are walkers there, runners will need to run in single file. Once you run down the other side of the bridge, you have a flat and dead straight run into the finish. The thing to remember here is that the finish is just beyond the tunnel under the main road. Once you see it, you know you're almost there.

Apres Race...That tunnel you just ran through was in fact under the Skehard road. To get back to the Community centre, just follow the road down and turn left at the church, a jog of about 1 km.If you want a closer look at the course, I have put it up on the MapMyRun website. I plotted the course in the SATELLITE view so it should be the more accurate option to look at.

Overall...A flat and fast course with one blip. The sections by the water are scenic and the path surface is good. Just watch out for those walkers!

News items and bits & pieces...Thurs 26th Feb

1) Ballycotton 10.......All of the Ballycotton entry packs have now been posted out. Inside you should find the event programme, your race number and a small white envelope which contains the chip for your shoe. If you are missing the race number or the chip, you should contact the organisers asap.

2) Races.....Next Sunday the 1st of March is a busy day for road races in Munster. Here in Cork, we have a Cork BHAA 5km race in Mahon. Elsewhere, there is a 10km race in Adare in Co.Limerick and another 10k race in Dungarvan, West Waterford. More details on these on the Running in Munster website.

3) Dungarvan 10 Mile....For anyone who did this race, there is now a video clip up on the Running in Munster website.

Results of the Eagle 5 Mile Road Race - Sun 22nd of Feb 2009

There was a big turnout for this 5 mile road race in Carrigaline with 263 runners taking part. For a non-BHAA / Ballycotton race, that's a serious number and shows that it is probably one of the more popular 5 mile races of the year.

No reports yet of any 'kettle' incidents. The main 'suspect' from last year was on the missing list today so maybe that's the reason ;o)

Update (Wed 25th Feb)....It seems as if there was some problems with the results on the day. The word is that it may not have been software related after all. Appearently, after the power cuts of last year, the race committee decided that this year they would go for the laptop option. They approached that 'well known' Eagle AC member who said he could supply one. Little did they know however that he had bought this laptop off his favourite eBay website. So he turned up early on the day with his new Cray 9000 Hex Core 1.9 THz laptop with a 56" plasma screen. It's supposed to be a rocket of a machine but it's just that it takes 2 hours to boot up. Hence the delay in the results. Mystery solved! A case of 'PC-Gate'???

Results......the results are now up on the Eagle AC website.

Photos......the club also have 2 sets of photos. One set shows people finishing and the other set is from the lead car so you can follow how the race progressed at the front.

Preview of the Eagle AC 5 mile Road Race (Carrigaline) - Sun 22nd Feb (11am)
This 5 mile road race takes place next Sunday, the 22nd of February at 11am in Carrigaline, just South of Cork City. It is on at just the right time, exactly 2 weeks before the Ballycotton 10. This race is a good test of your fitness before the big one and you have a full 2 weeks to recover.

Directions & Parking...See the map above. If you are coming from Cork (top of map), take the left at the 2nd roundabout as you enter the town. This is the relief road and you should see a signpost for Crosshaven. Go through the next major junction with traffic lights and take the first right into the car park.

Sign-On & Registration...Now this is important. Eagle AC have an online form so that you can pre-register if you want to and on the day, you just have to pay the entry fee and collect your number. You can avoid having to fill out forms. However.....they seem to have had some problems. See the following message..."If you pre-registered between 23:00 on Feb 3rd and 21:00 on Feb 10th, your registration disappeared into the net. We were unaware that the Registration portion of the site was down and no registrations were saved.
If you registered during this period, please register again." Pre-registration will close on Saturday evening at 8pm.

Otherwise, you can just enter on the day as per usual. This takes place in the local community centre. It is only about 200 metres or so from the car park. Note that there is only limited car parking available near the community centre and parking on the main road is strictly forbidden. The entry fee is €8 with €2 of this going to a local charity.

If you are still not too sure about where the community hall is, click on this LINK. Make sure the 'MAP' option is selected and you can zoom in and out to get your bearings.



The Course...It's not the flatest of races with a few drags out along the course but nothing too bad. You start about 500 metres East of the Community Centre in a housing estate (When you come out of the community centre, turn right and follow everyone else to the start). The road is fairly wide at the start and by the time the runners reach the main road, the field should be well spread out. There is nothing special about the first 2 miles. It's pretty flat with a few tiny hills and you can expect your first mile time to be very fast. Note that the road here is not closed so watch out for any cars. Just before the 2 mile mark, you turn left into probably the most serious hill of the race which is about 400 metres long. It's not so bad if you take it handy. Then through 2 kinks in the road and down into the village of Shanbally. Left past the church, climb slightly and then fall downhill to the 3 mile mark, all inside the hard shoulder of the main road. At about 3.5 miles, you turn left off the main road and then you have the next climb. It's pretty short but enough to get you into trouble if you push too hard. Then you run downhill to the 4 mile mark which is in a hollow and then climb back out at the other side. This is the 3rd real hill in the race and the least serious. After that, nearly all of the running is flat or slightly downhill as you finish through the housing estates. After the last corner, which is a sharp left, the finish is about 70 metres away so you should see it in plenty of time. So overall, probably not a course for getting PB's but it's not too bad either. The 11am start is a good idea. It means people can go there, do the race, go home and still have the afternoon free.
If you want to have a closer look at the course, you can find it on the MapMyRun website.

Other Info...The race page on the Eagle AC website can be found HERE.

The flyer for the race can be seen HERE.

Anyone who did this race last year will of course remember the 'Kettlegate' affair. We wait with bated breath to see what kind of post race entertainment will be provided this year ;o)

Training for the Cork City Marathon - 1st of June 2009

If you are considering doing the Cork City Marathon in June, now is the time of year to start thinking about it. Most training schedules are 16 weeks long. That means that Monday, the 9th of February was the start of week 1 and we are already into week 2. That's right!.....only 14 weeks or so to go the Cork City Marathon!!

If you are currently training for the Ballycotton 10 on the 8th of March then you're fine. You're way ahead of the curve and there is no need for any extra training. You can start thinking about the Cork Marathon after the Ballycotton race.

If you are not doing Ballycotton and you are a beginner, then you need to start giving it some serious thought. The worst thing you can do now is to jump in at the deep end, do too much and get injured. Running 26.2 miles is no joke and you really need to get your body ready for it. The trick is to build up the milage slowly and get your legs used to the increased load. An unwritten rule is that you should increase your weekly milage by 10% per week. Little steps, start now and you'll get there fine.

Next week, I'll have a look at some training schedules. In the meantime, have a look at the Cork City Marathon website and the entry form. For those of you not interested in the Marathon, don't forget that a relay team of between 2 and 5 people can also take part.

So, 14 weeks and counting...

Irish Sports Council Report...18th Feb 2009

There was a piece on the Irish Examiner today proclaiming that 'half the population is active in sport'. Half ??....maybe I'm being a little bit cynical here but as far as I can see, most Irish adults do absolutely nothing.

It turns out the information for the article came from a report that has just been released by the Irish Sports Council. In it, there are a few interesting facts. Such as...

• 32% of adults are members of sports clubs
• Personal exercise activities (going to the gym, fitness classes, exercise machines etc.) are now the most popular sport and exercise activity in Ireland, followed by swimming
• Combining volunteering, membership and attendance, Gaelic games remain the leading sports for social participation, but there are now more gym members than GAA members
• 58% went for a recreational walk of at least 20 minutes during the previous 7 days

I presume it is the last one that led to the original claim in the Irish Examiner about half the population being involved in sport. It would seem as if they are counting 'casual walking' as a sport. Even allowing for this, I still think the numbers are a 'bit' high.

You can read the report in full HERE.

Comments...???

Results of the Eact Cork AC '3k Winter Series' road race (No.7 of 7) - Tues 17th Feb 2009

A total of 109 runners turned out for what was the last race in the series in near perfect weather conditions. Overall, the numbers for the series this year seemed to be more or less on a par with last year. Full credit to Liam O'Brien and the gang from East Cork AC for putting on a great series again. These races are a great way to help people train over the dark winter months. And of course once no.7 is over, you know the long winter is nearly over and those long evenings are just around the corner.

Here are the results of the last race...

East Cork AC 3Km Winter Series Race 7....17/02/09

1 Sean McGrath East Cork AC 9.09

2 Shane Maher Thurles Crokes 9.35

3 Noel Curtin Youghal AC 9.56

4 Cathal Kelly St Finbarr's AC 10.01

5 Alan O'Reilly CIT 10.10

6 Tim Mahoney East Cork AC 10.14

7 Denis McCarthy East Cork AC 10.17

8 Brian O'Connor Grange/Fermoy AC 10.23

9 David O'Dwyer East Cork AC 10.29

10 Kevin Smith East Cork AC 10.30

11 Paul Hynes Glanmire 10.40

12 Emmet Hennessy Midleton AC 10.43

13 Tom O'Brien Cork 10.45

14 Martin Curtin Loughaderra 10.46

15 Shane Maher Grange/Fermoy AC 10.54

16 John Dunphy Midleton AC 10.55

17 Marty O'Keeffe Youghal AC 10.57

18 Denis Carroll Eagle AC 10.57

19 Paul Cleary Whitegate 11.11

20 John O'Callaghan Rising Sun AC 11.13

21 Shane Cooney Midleton AC 11.14

22 Dan Horgan Midleton AC 11.15

23 Alan Kelly Midleton AC 11.21

24 Tony Lilley CIT 11.23

25 John Cashman Midleton AC 11.24

26 John O'Connell Midleton 11.24

27 Phil McGrath East Cork AC 11.30

28 Billy O'Sullivan Midleton AC 11.31

29 Cathal McCarthy Midleton AC 11.32

30 John Griffin Carignavar AC 11.36

31 Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan Midleton College 11.42

32 Niamh Walsh Youghal AC 11.46

33 Maurice Tobin Grange/Fermoy AC 11.47

34 Ned Ramsell Midleton AC 11.54

35 Dermot Murphy Midleton 11.57

36 Ann Geary Lisgoold 11.57

37 Ken Owens Midleton AC 12.01

38 Mick Murphy Midleton AC 12.05

39 Peter Stanley Carrigaline 12.06

40 Colm Egan Midleton AC 12.09

41 Darren Kearney Midleton 12.10

42 Darragh Flynn Grange/Fermoy AC 12.12

43 Caroline Geary Midleton AC 12.14

44 Leo O'Donovan Ballinacurra 12.15

45 Pat Fogarty ESB 12.17

46 Kevin Geary Ladysbridge 12.22

47 Kevin O'Reilly Midleton 12.23

48 Brian Cott Midleton 12.26

49 Mark Ryan Midleton 12.31

50 Rick Prendergast Castlemartyr 12.33

51 Michael Hanrahan Midleton AC 12.35

52 Pat Walsh Midleton GAA 12.39

53 Margaret Hegarty Midleton AC 12.50

54 Mike Hallahan Midleton AC 12.54

55 John Walshe East Cork AC 12.56

56 Donal O'Donoghue Little Island 12.59

57 Tom Kelly Ballymore/Cobh AC 13.00

58 Killian Hennessy Cork 13.05

59 Finbarr Lyons Midleton 13.09

60 Padraig O'Regan Ladysbridge 13.10

61 Jimmy Murray Rising Sun AC 13.11

62 Matt Geraghty Cloyne 13.12

63 Maria Murphy Midleton AC 13.13

64 Danny McCarthy Midleton AC 13.16

65 Karen Kenny Grange/Fermoy AC 13.22

66 John Fennell West Waterford AC 13.26

67 Batt Kearney Leevale AC 13.28

68 John O'Riordan Rising Sun AC 13.30

69 Maire Histon de Barra Rising Sun AC 13.34

70 Con Warren Carrigtwohill 13.34

71 Denis O'Callaghan Glanmire 13.42

72 Don O'Hanlon Midleton 13.45

73 Brian Cashman Midleton AC 13.46

74 Eibhlin Cleary East Cork AC 13.48

75 Helen O'Shea CIT 13.52

76 Barbara Hennessy Midleton 13.55

77 Paul Kierans Carrigtwohill 13.56

78 Mick McCarthy West Waterford AC 13.57

79 Christine Murphy Midleton AC 14.01

80 John O'Callaghan Midleton 14.12

81 Rose Smith Cork 14.13

82 Roy Collins Tipperary 14.16

83 Pat Meaney Cork 14.29

84 Elaine Hennessy Midleton AC 14.40

85 Dermot Cashman Carrigtwohill 14.41

86 Mary O'Keeffe Midleton AC 14.44

87 Lillian Grandfield Cloyne 14.45

88 Maura O'Doherty Midleton AC 14.46

89 Donie O'Connell Midleton AC 14.46

90 Maura Burke CIT 15.09

91 Jim Curtin East Cork AC 15.14

92 Diane Lilley CIT 15.16

93 Donal Kerins Carrigtwohill 15.24

94 Billy Caball Cork 15.27

95 Margaret Beausang Midleton AC 15.28

96 Olivia Connolly ?????????? 15.47

97 Olan O'Brien Midleton 15.53

98 Tara Murphy Midleton 15.54

99 Fionnan O'hAodha Cork 16.05

100 Karina Erangey Whitegate 16.08

101 Trish Murphy Midleton 16.17

102 Eoin Cashman Midleton AC 16.19

103 Joan McCarthy Midleton AC 16.42

104 Ann Thornborrow Whitegate 16.53

105 Hubert Crowe Tipperary 17.45

106 Clare O'Leary Midleton AC 18.14

107 Eadaoin Murphy Midleton 18.14

108 Marie McGrath Ballycroneen 20.06

109 Kathleen O'Connell Midleton AC 21.17

(with thanks to Liam O'Brien of East Cork AC for the above results)

Results of the Cork BHAA 'Cross Country Challenge' - Sun 15th Feb 2009

A total of 107 runners took part in this Cork BHAA cross country event, just one shy of the number for last year.

Results......the full results are now available HERE.

Here are the category results...

CORK BHAA 5km Cross-Country, Beaumont Park, Blackrock, Cork
Men: 1 S McGrath (McGrath Landscaping) 16:45; 2 P Healy (CIT) 17:26; 3 S Simcox (Leisure World) 17:37; 4 K Wilmot (Bandon Tyres) 17:58; 5 A O’Reilly (CIT) 18:07; 6 K O’Sullivan (Cork Garda) 18:10; 7 J O’Driscoll (CIT) 18:17; 8 J Shanahan (Dept of Educ) 18:27; 9 M Buckley (Joyce-Wolfe) 18:27; 10 S Coffey (temp-reg) 18:33.

M40: 1 T Sheehan (Bandon Tyres) 20:03; 2 C Murray (Jannsen) 20:47; 3 M Dooley (IPS) 20:57.

M45: 1 M Bickerdike (Blarney School of Motoring) 18:55; 2 S Byczek (Dairypower) 19:37; 3 D Carroll (Blarney Woollen Mills) 20:25.

M50: 1 J Collins (Team adidas) 18:47; 2 W O’Riordan (Army) 20:16; 3 T Kelly (Naval Service) 22:58.

M55: 1 J Gough (Mileeven Foods) 18:47; 2 P McGrath (McGrath Landscaping) 21:53; 3 D O’Connell (Midleton News) 24:41.

M60: 1 P Gyves (ITW-Hi Cone) 22:39; 2 J Holland (An Post/Eircom) 22:44; 3 D Cotter (Cork Painters) 24:08.

M65: 1 G Webb (Plant Hire) 27:08; 2 B Caball (FAS) 29:07.

M70: 1 J O’Leary (Bookdeal) 26:19.

Women: 1 A-M Healy (HSE, F35) 21:02; 2 L Geary (BoI) 21:28; 3 V Hourihane (temp-reg) 21:39; 4 B Liston (Leisure World) 23:05; 5 C Buckley (temp-reg) 23:52; 6 A Hourihane (temp-reg) 24:50; 7 A Murphy (UCC, F45) 25:06; 8 A Corrigan (Dept of Educ) 25:49; 9 K Madigan (CIT) 25:55; 10 H O’Shea (CIT) 25:59.

F45: M Mulcahy (BoI) 26:18.
(...with thanks to John Walshe of Ballycotton Running Promotions for the above results)

Preview of the Cork BHAA 'Cross Country Challenge' - Sun 15th Feb (11am)

This 5 km race takes place in Beaumont Park in Blackrock, Cork City. It is the only cross country race on the BHAA calendar and last year, it attracted just over 100 runners. For anyone new to the running scene, you might think that this cross country race will be a race with mud and dirt everywhere. The reality is that this is just a race on grass rather than on tarmac. If it's wet, it might be a bit slippy but otherwise, it's just like a normal race. As the ground is soft, you'll need to work a bit harder during the race so don't expect your time to be close to your 5 km time on the road.

Registration.....The sign on for this race is at the Cork Constitution Rugby grounds. If you are not sure where that is, click on this link and zoom in and out to get your bearings. As you can see from the map below, Beaumont Park is just accross the road. The Yellow dots show how to get there.

Course......Basically, it is roughly 3 loops around the same course. See the map above. See A...the start and finish point are near here. For the very first lap, you head accross towards E and then back towards B. Other than that, you basically follow the dots above.

A-B....slightly uphill & the ground is just short grass.

B-C...here you are running under trees on a rough path and grass. It is slightly downhill all the way so it's the most likely place you might trip if you are not careful. It can be a bit boggy half ways down.

C-D...this is mostly uphill running and it's slow going. The closer you get to D, the steeper it gets. In fact just before D, a lot of people will walk this. It's steep and you'd be forgiven for going down on all fours trying to get up it! As the ground gets cut up, it gets more difficult the 2nd and 3rd time around. The only thing though is that it's short...just watch your footing!

D-E...initially flat and then gradually downhill.

E-A...more or less flat.

Shoes...the obvious choice are proper cross country shoes but a lot of people won't have these. If the day is dry, you could probably get away with a pair of old runners. You would however have to watch the downhill sections and the sharp corners.

As a race, it makes a nice alternative to the road and it's a good one to do if you just want to get a taste of what cross country is like.

Guest article.....How to attract the shoppers?

You may have noticed that from time to time, I have some material written by other people on this blog. So, with that in mind, I will publish some articles by David O'Dwyer of East Cork AC here on a regular basis. (This is David's 2nd article on this blog, his 1st article is here). David covers various topics from a personal point of view and if you agree, disagree or would just like to add a comment, click on the Comments link below this post. I would just like to say thanks to David for allowing his articles to be published here on this site. The following piece was written about a year ago just before the Beijing Olympics but no doubt it is as relevant today. Hope you enjoy it.............John Desmond.



How to attract the shoppers?.......by David O'Dwyer
At the recent Cork City Sports some of Irelands most high profile and best possibilities of a medal in the Beijing Olympics were competing. The performances of Derval O’Rourke, Paul Hession and Alistair Cragg were right up there and compared favourably with the corresponding winning times in the British Olympic trials held over the same weekend. The performance of Hession was particularly impressive, winning both the 100m and 200m. In doing so he set the fastest time ever over 100m on Irish soil of 10.21secs, just outside his Irish record of 10.18secs. Not bad for a white guy from the West of Ireland in an event dominated by athletes from West African or West Indian extraction. In fact right now he’s one of the fastest white guys around.

Unfortunately a second sporting event was also taking place at the same time in Cork on Saturday afternoon between 2.00pm and 4.30pm and consequently only a few hundred people were there to witness the efforts of Hession and co. This rival event didn’t need any promoting but was very well attended none the less. In fact the few hundred who showed up at the Mardyke would be dwarfed by thousands who streamed through the Mahon Point Shopping Centre on the other side of Cork city. Shopping is after all not just the new religion, it is also the new sport and one that we are excelling at.

The main action was obviously not in the world class performances on display in the Mardyke because there was some shopping to be done. This world class indoor arena was built for a reason and by God we are going to use it to its full potential. As for why we haven’t built a world class indoor running arena, well that’s a whole other story but suffice to say there’s more money to be made from shopping centres. There wont be any medals won for shopping in Beijing but rest assured there will be a delegation setting off soon to get the event installed for London in 2012 along with ballroom dancing and karyoke and we’ll surely bring home gold. It will no doubt be the shoppers who will be asking why we sent anyone to the Olympics if we don’t medal in Beijing. Why didn’t we spend the money on more worthwhile pursuits like the Health Service, Education and of course infrastructure, presumably in order to get in and out of the shopping centres quicker? Ignorance is bliss after all.

The Cork City Sports has a rich history of world class performances including a number national and world records that have been set over the years. Many of these were set in the ‘80’s when Ireland produced world class middle distance runners like we now produce world class shopping centres. The 80’s are also synonymous with unemployment, emigration, basket economy etc. You get the picture. Basically you weren’t spending too much time shopping. We still had the Cork City sports though. If you take a look at some of the photographs or archive footage of those meets you’ll notice the huge crowds and great atmosphere at the Mardyke. Another striking feature is that the meet took place in the evening as opposed to the afternoon. This meant that if you were lucky enough to have a job then you could still make it to the Mardyke to see legends such as Eamon Coghlan, John Walker, Sydney Maree……………..the list goes on. I don’t know the reasons for switching to the afternoon from the evening but why not revert back to the evening schedule for next year and maybe we could avoid the clash that is inhibiting the shoppers from attending?

In addition to David O'Dwyer's articles appering on this website, David also has had some of his articles published in the Irish Runner magazine. This is published every 2 months and is the main magazine for running and athletics in Ireland.

Comments.....???

To send a comment or to read other comments, click on the 'comment' link below.

Final entry list for the 2009 Ballycotton 10...

With just 4 weeks to go, the final list of successful entrants is now up on the Ballycotton website.

The numberical list is HERE

The alphabetical list is HERE

Last year, they got 3087 entries and they got a turnout of 2203 runners on the day.

This year, they have a record 3367 entries. With the same type of dropout rate, that would suggest that if the weather is ok, they should get a record turnout of about 2,400 runners on the day.

This is a breakdown by club entries (Irish)

Midleton AC 79...West Waterford 75...Eagle AC 73

Waterford AC 66...St. Finbarrs AC 47...Slaney Olympic 47

Mallow AC 36...Kilkenny City 30...Bandon AC 25

Donore Harriers 25...Limerick Country 25...Grange-Fermoy AC 24

East Cork AC 23...Mullingar Harriers 22...Limerick AC 21

Athenry AC 20...Clonmel AC 20...Raheny Shamrock 20

Sportsworld RC 19...Thurles Crokes 18...West Limerick 15

Donoughmore AC 14...Galway City 14...Crusaders AC 13

Gneeveguilla AC 13...Leevale AC 13...Rathfarnham-WSAF AC 13

Rising Sun 12...Carraig na bhFear 11...Carrick-on-Suir AC 11

Loughrea AC 11...Sli Cualann 11...Tralee Harriers 10

UCC AC 10...Clonliffe Harriers 8...Ballincollig AC 7

Kilnaboy AC 5

(...with thanks to John Quigley of Eagle AC for the above info)

Ballycotton 10 rumours........from a 'little birdie'

Running in Ireland blog updated...

Last Summer, I put up a website called Running in Ireland which basically was just a list of all of the long distance races in Ireland. However, it had gone way out of date so I have now changed the format so that it is a lot easier to maintain.

The website is just one page with a list of all the races that are 10 miles and over in Ireland. Where possible, I have included a link to the website for each race so if anyone is interested in a particular race, they can look into it themselves. Hopefully, people will find it useful for planning the year ahead.

Record month, Dungarvan 10 and Race Calendar

1) Record Traffic........First of all, January 2009 turned out to be a record month for traffic to the Running in Cork website. By the end of the month, it had got 10,735 hits, an increase of about 800 on the previous record which was set in June 2008 with the Cork City Marathon & Relay.


It's hard to believe that only 2 years ago, it got 305 hits for the month of January 2007!! With an average of over 8,000 hits per month, the annual traffic total is now up around 100k per year. This would make it by far the most popular running related website in Cork, probably the biggest in Munster and should be up amongst a few others on the national scene.


2) Dungarvan 10......There was a great turn out for this race last Sunday. If you did not already see them, the most up to date results and some links to photos are up on the Running in Munster website.


3) Race Calendar........On the right hand side of this race, you'll probably notice that I keep a short race calendar of the races coming up. Usually, I updated it at the start of every month so that the current month and next month would be shown. By the end of the month, you could only see 1 month ahead. With some of the longer races, people like to know well in advance what is coming up. I have now extended the calendar by a month so that it will now show 2 to 3 months ahead. Looking at it, there is certainly no shortage of races in the next few months.

Results of the South Munster Schools Cross Country match - Fri 30th Jan 2009

Last Friday in Midleton in conjunction with the South Munster Schools, the first ever CIT Vs UCC Cross Country match took place. It was one of those days where you wouldn't put a dog outside as the rain pelted down yet 13 hardly souls slogged it out.

These are the results with UCC taking the overall honours...

UCC/CIT Cross Country Dual Meet.......January 30th 2009.........Distance: 4.4km
1 George Boyle UCC 15:48

2 Padraig Healy CIT 16:11

3 Peter Fennell UCC 16:17

4 Tony Kelleher UCC 16:20

5 Barry O' Donovan UCC 16:29

6 Frank O' Carroll CIT 16:39

7 Alan O' Reilly CIT 16:40

8 Donal Coakley UCC 17:09

9 Dan Weaver UCC 17:13

10 Brian Keane CIT 18:12

11 Ronan O' Donoghue CIT 19:05

12 John Collins CIT 19:42

13 Kevin Maybury CIT 21:05
Team1 1,3,4,5,8,9 30 UCC........2nd 2,6,7,10,11,12 48 CIT

Conditions were awful as you can see from the photo below...

Later, both teams joined forces to look for a missing runner.....

Somehow, it seemed to be an event where you wouldn't be suprised if one of the race officials had to chase the ducks off the course beforehand.