A total of 231 turned out for this 4 mile road race in Belgooly to the south of Cork City. Despite the nice day, this was well down on the usual numbers that attend this race. On Stephens Day 2008, they got over 500. I thought the numbers might be down but not by that much. It just goes to show that the Belgooly 4 mile race on St.Stephens Day is a bit of a Christmas tradition. A lot of people know that it's on, even those who don't normally run in races and may be involved in other sports. For them, they might attend the Belgooly race just like others might go for the traditional Christmas swim. Move the event away from St.Stephens Day and it loses it's special appeal.
So looking at it from the perspective that it is just another club race then 231 is excellent!
I suppose the major downside of the lower numbers is that they will have only collected half as much for the Bowel Cancer charity.
Results.......
These are now ready and can be seen HERE
Photos...
Just after the start...
Danny Smith of Ballynonty AC winning the Belgooly 4
Lizzie Lee of Leevale AC winning the Ladies title in a time of 22:58
Thanks to Denis Kelleher of Midleton AC for some of the photos above.
Garry Lee has a large photo gallery of the race HERE.
I'm not from Belgooly and was not familiar with the race course. I was running on my own for the best part of the race.I was quite annoyed at the the lack of signage/marshalls at the turn off (the main Cork road). One female runner ran passed this pivotal point of the course. Luckily enough I heard the shouts of the participants behind me but the other girl didn't and I think that there is a responsibility on the race organisers to consider the safety of all participants. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, I'll pass it on to the organisers.
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