With the vast majority of entrants coming from athletic clubs, the standards and times were also a lot higher than say the usual Half-Marathon which would have a lot more non club runners. Back in January 2011, the organising club Waterford AC held their own Half-Marathon over the same course and coincidently got the same number of runners...690. In the January event, only 8 runners broke the 80 minute mark and 78 ran sub 90. For the National Half, 101 ran sub 80 while 257 ran sub 90...a huge difference.
Links to the various results can be found on the Running in Munster site.
John, also of note is that each time it is run in Co. Waterford over 400 take part, (3 times in the last 10 years), when run in nearby Carlow numbers drop but are still the highest outside of the Deise. Is this the influence of having top quality 10 mile road races run in East Cork/West Waterford. Compare this to the very small numbers that run in Donegal, I know it is a long drive from any other part of the country, but there is a healty running scene in the north-west.
ReplyDeleteFergus