Pages

▼

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Dingle Ultra-Marathon comes to an end...

Going back to 2010, the Dingle Marathon was one of the first to add an ultra race to their list of events. At the time, there were relatively few ultra events in the country and their 50 mile race on the road was one of the longest in the country. Fast forward to 2014 and there is a marathon nearly every weekend somewhere in Ireland and there are loads of ultra races to choose from. For example, there was the Kerry Way Ultra on the same weekend as Dingle this year and there was an ultra in the Glen of Aherlow just a few weeks later.....and that was just in Munster.

The thing with ultras though is that the numbers are always going to be small. Any race organiser has to balance the cost and effort of putting an ultra event on against the number of people that will actually enter it.

Back in May of 2014, the Dingle Marathon organisers announced that they were replacing the 50 mile ultra with a 39.3 mile ultra instead.

Today, they announced that the ultra race is going to be scrapped altogether.

"Update RE Dingle Ultra Marathon 2015. The bad news is that we are not going to continue the ultra marathon any longer. We have had four great years organising this amazing event. The decision has been made to put all time, energy and resources in to making the half and full marathon even better again. I know a large number of people will be disappointed but we are certain we have made the right decision. Our full concentration is now on making the half and full marathon the best experience possible for all that take part."

Is it a case of there just being too many races? How many more ultras in Ireland will follow suit?
at

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous30/9/14 5:13 pm

    I saw the first ultra there in 2010. I always thought the marathon was the ultimate distance for any runner and watching runners coming in after 7 - 9 hours running 50 miles was pretty cool. That said it was always going to be a minority activity. Mind you the Connemara ultra seems to be expanding every year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown1/10/14 12:58 pm

    Shame Clon crew ran it last year and some this year and enjoyed the challenge. Ultra running needs to be supported in Ireland. We look forward to supporting and promoting our National 100 K record holder Keith Whyte who is running World championships in Doha in Nov with Team Ireland.We look forward to promoting and supporting the Keith Whyte Waterfront Ultra Marathon III on July 25th 2015.Best wishes to all supporting,promoting running in Ireland.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous14/12/14 11:08 pm

    I have wanted to run the ultra for a couple of years now after running Connrmara ultra, I wanted to run Dingle ultra in 2015 to celebrat as I would be nearly 50, what a big shame.

    ReplyDelete

Please note that all comments must be moderated before they appear on the site. All spam and nearly anything with a link in it just gets deleted.