A look at the numbers for the Cork BHAA evening road races for 2026

The Cork BHAA hold some of the most popular road races in Cork and they recently had their last summer evening road races for 2026. I had a look at the numbers to see if there are any trends.

The following 11 evening races were held in both 2025 and 2026... John Buckley Sports 5k, PwC 5k, Gas Networks Ireland 5k, Musgrave 5k, Stryker 4m, Sterling 5k, Apple Employees 5k, Pfizers 6m, J&J MedTech 4m, ThermoFisher 4m &  Carey Tools 5k. 

Out of those, six were up in 2026 while five were down when compared to 2025. Doing the same exercise for 2025 versus 2024, it was five up and five down. This in itself is a rather imperfect method of seeing a trend but it does suggest that not much has changed.

To get a more accurate picture, I worked out the average number of finishers for all eleven events and the figure was about 530. 

Regardless of whether numbers are going up or down, the fact that there were an average of 530 finishers in the Cork BHAA evening races during the summer of 2026 just shows how popular they are.

If we now compare the same eleven races to 2025 then we can see there is a 2% drop in numbers. That's a very small drop and it pretty much says that there is no real change.

The BHAA have seven races which were held every year from 2022 to 2026. These are some of the more popular BHAA events and the average number of finishers in 2026 was 650.

The 2026 numbers were down just 1.5% on the number for 2025 and the averages for these seven races are shown above.

In conclusion... While some of the club races seem to be gradually reducing, the numbers at the Cork BHAA races seem reasonably steady. 

The 2026 numbers suggest that any growth in numbers in 2027 is unlikely and the challenge for the Cork BHAA will be to hold on to the numbers that they have.

At the end of the year, I'll look at the Cork BHAA numbers for the year as a whole.