Pacers for the Cork Half-Marathon...

With the Cork Half-Marathon in Blarney coming up on Sunday the 11th of September, it's time to look at a new feature for this years race...pacers.

The use of pacers for races is a relatively new feature. It started with some of the bigger Marathons and now a number of the Half-Marathons use them. So how do they work? Basically, sets of experienced runners will run at an even steady pace for the duration of the race with the objective to break a certain time.

For the Cork Half-Marathon, they will have pacers for 1h 30m (90 mins), 1h 45m (105 mins) and 2 hours (120 mins).

There will be 2 pacers per time band and they will be wearing bright orange gear supplied by the race sponsor, John Buckley Sports, the same colour as used by the organising club St.Finbarr's AC. Due to the nature of the course......which is roughly uphill for the 1st half and downhill for the 2nd half......they are likely to adjust the pace slightly to allow for the hills.

John Buckley Sports

Please note that the closing date for cheap entries is next Saturday, the 3rd of September. The cheapest way to enter is by calling into the race sponsor John Buckley Sports in Cork City, filling out the entry form there and paying the cheaper entry fee of €20 (€25 after Saturday).

Note that anyone running this race will get a 20% discount voucher for John Buckley Sports. This is not restriced to just one item but to everything at the time of purchase. So the more you spend, the more you save. Considering that a new pair of good running shoes may be ~€100, then the discount could easily cover the cost of entry for the race.

Full details on how to enter with other race details can be seen in this earlier post.