Jerry Forde nearly at 400 marathons & a request for help

During the last week, I updated Jerry Forde's list of marathons on his website and he is now very close to the 400 mark!

Jerry's website... https://jerryforde.wordpress.com/

As a wheelchair athlete, Jerry probably has more marathons completed than anyone else in the world. One of the biggest problems at the moment though is just keeping track of what he has completed and what can be verified for record purposes.

For example, his current listing on the 100 Marathon Club in the UK is way out of date. A new list of verified marathons must be submitted but this requires quite a bit of work.

If anyone would be willing to help out Jerry on an ongoing basis, please let me know. Someone would need to familiar with the various marathon websites, the rules of the various marathon clubs and the ability to generate and maintain a proper verified record of all the marathons. The work doesn't have to be done in one block, just something that can be worked on over time.

If you can help, my contact details are on Jerry's website HERE

History of Sub 2h 20m marathon times in the USA

I came across this graphic recently showing the number of sub 2h 20m marathon performances per year in the USA. Although it stops at 2012, it clearly shows the surge of fast times back in the late 70's and early 80's.

As for the reason? The first running boom back around 1980 was fueled by mostly young men who trained a lot. The current boom has a much older age profile and fewer young men are doing the high mileage that their predecessors did.

Dave Brady sets new Irish record of 104 marathons in one year

Today at the Lock Up the Year marathon in Leixlip, Dave Brady from Kildare completed his 104th marathon for 2014. Dave who is a member of Raheny Shamrocks AC in Dublin has now set a new Irish record for the most number of marathons run in one year.

Dave Brady after reaching 300 marathons in 2013

In 2012, Dave Brady ran 46 marathons that year to set a new Irish record. In 2013, Brian Ankers ran 82 marathons to set a new record. Now, Dave Brady has pushed the bar even higher with 104 marathons in one year.

Dave Brady completed his first marathon in 1986 and it took him 21 years to do the first 100. With the creation of so many new marathons, it took just 6 years to do the next 200. He passed the 300 mark in August of 2013. Add in the balance of 2013 and the 104 of 2014 and he must be up around the 430 mark at this stage.

104 is an incredible figure not only from the physical effort of doing them but also the logistics is getting to each one.

Dave Brady with Brian Ankers today after passing the 104 mark

Wheelchair athlete Jerry Forde hits 300 marathons!

Our very own Jerry Forde has finally reached the magic 300 marathon mark! At the Waterfront Marathon in Clonakilty last Saturday the 6th of December 2014, Jerry crossed the line in an emotional finish to record another major milestone.

It has taken Jerry just 3 years to rack up the last 100 having hit the 200 mark back in Oct 2011 at the Dublin City Marathon.

As a wheelchair athlete, the Blarney man has certainly completed more marathons than anyone else in the UK and Ireland. It's quite possible he has more than anyone in Europe and quite possibly the world. If there is anyone else out there then they're keeping a very low profile!

When I asked Jerry about his next target, it was 400 of course.....although he does have his eye on a few interesting 'projects' along the way ;o)

A list of Jerry Forde's marathon can be seen on his website... http://jerryforde.wordpress.com/

Beep...beep...beep...beep...beep....

Largest Marathons in Ireland in 2013

Going back about 10 years or so, there were only a handful of marathons in Ireland. Fast forward to today and there are a multitude of them. There's hardly a weekend that goes by without some marathon somewhere in the country.

Many of these are of course very small and only a relatively small number manage to attract in excess of 100 runners. With that in mind, I did a bit of digging and I have complied a chart which shows the relative size of each marathon in Ireland...

Dublin with it's 12,354 finishers in 2013 does of course dwarf the other Irish marathons in comparison. As I outlined in a post last April, Dublin was the 7th largest European Marathon of 2012 and attracts visitors from all over the world.

To get a clearer picture, I put together a second chart with Dublin removed...

Now the relative size becomes a lot clearer. There is a major step change from Belfast to Derry & Cork and then to the rest.

Notes...
1) Only marathons with over 100 finishers are shown.
2) Many of these events have half-marathons associated with them which usually get a lot more entrants. That being said, the purpose of this post is just to show the relative size of the marathon fields.
3) Clonakilty B2B were the Back to Back marathons on a weekend in Feb 2013.

If you are planning to do a Marathon in Ireland in 2014, at least now you can get an idea of just how big it's likely to be.

Wheelchair athlete Jerry Forde passes the 250 Marathon mark...

A few weeks back, I had a story on the blog about how Jerry Forde from Blarney was about to do 10 Marathons in 10 days in Sixmilebridge, Co.Clare. Just getting there for the start of the first one was a story in itself as outlined by Mick Dooley in this post.

After that, a number of people asked about how did Jerry get on? Needless to say, he completed all 10 Marathon as can be seen in the results HERE.

Recently I caught up with Jerry for a quick chat about where he was at in terms of the number of Marathons completed. Those ones in Co.Clare actually took him past the 250 mark and at the start of August 2013, he had 256 Marathons completed.

These can be broken down as follows........
Marathons (26.2 miles) : 244
Ultra-Marathons (26.2 miles +) : 12
30 Miles x 1
36 Miles x 1
39.3 Miles x 7
100 kms x 2
100 Miles x 1

That is of course a huge number of Marathons and it has taken quite a while to rack up that many.

Jerry first started taking part in the local road races back in 1992 and his first race was the Cork BHAA race in Pfizers in April of that year. Later on in October, Jerry completed his first Marathon in Dublin.

Back in the 90's, there were relatively few Marathons and #24 came at the end of that decade. In more recent times, there have been many more opportunities to take part in Marathons and Jerry's list has grown as a result. In April of 2006, he completed his 100th Marathon with his 200th coming in October of 2011. He is now well on his way to #300 possibly some time in 2014/15?

Looking around various sites on the Internet, there is obviously no shortage of people around the world who have completed 100+ Marathons but the same cannot be said of wheelchair athletes. If they are out there then they seem to be relatively unknown as there is very little information available.

It's fair to say what Jerry Forde is doing is pretty unique. He has almost certainly completed more Marathons as a wheelchair athlete than anyone in Ireland or the UK. Quite possibly, he may well be No.1 in Europe if not the world.

With that in mind, I think it's only right that Jerry's achievement should be made public and be available to view from anywhere in the world. I have recently put together a website for Jerry so that  is now possible. The address is.... http://jerryforde.wordpress.com/

(Photos courtesy of Doug Minihane)

Dave Brady passes the 300 Marathon mark...

Dave Brady who is a member of Raheny Shamrocks AC in Dublin recently completed his 300th Marathon. Having started in 1986, it took him 21 years to do the first 100 and just 6 years to do the next 200.

To mark the achievement, Dave was presented with a special plaque at a recent East of Ireland Marathon in Howth, Co.Dublin by race directors Frank McDermott and Ger Copeland.

Dave also has the current Irish record of having completed 47 Marathons in one year.

Photo credit...Hannah Levy Photography

The Top 20 Marathons in Europe by size...

Back on the 11th of April, I had a post up about the Dublin City Marathon and how they were cutting the top prizes and elite field as a result of not being able to find a sponsor.

Afterwards, it got me thinking about just how big is the Dublin City Marathon really? How big is it in comparison to say the other European Marathons?

The answer for me was a real suprise in that the Dublin Marathon is in fact the seventh largest in Europe. Just to put Dublin into context, it is on an island off the north-west of Europe and the immediate catchment area are those living on the island itself. Otherwise, anyone else taking part has to travel to Dublin by air or sea. Taken as a whole, the population of the island of Ireland is about 6.4 million making it only the 17th largest when compared to other countries in the European Union.

These were the top 20 Marathons in Europe in 2012 by size...

Looking at the list above, there are many other Marathons in major cities around Europe which are smaller than Dublin. Some of those not shown are.....Athens (6,376), Munich (6,084), Vienna (5,892), Prague (5,624), Helsinki (4,261), Budapest (3,585), Zurich (3,046).

The list of the top 50 European Marathons by size in 2012 can be seen HERE

It's obvious that Dublin punches way above it's weight. Going on the figures above, Dublin's 'natural' level might be down around the 6,000 mark. Instead it's almost double that. Why??

Obviously a lot of it is due to a lot of hard work over the years building up the 'brand'. Things like going to expos at other Marathons overseas and advertising the event. Some will argue that it's because of the presence of elite fields with East African athletes posting times down around the 2:10 mark which suggests in turn that it is a fast course thereby encouraging more people to come. Personally, I don't believe that argument. I think overseas visitors are much more likely to come because of cultural reasons...i.e. because it's in Ireland and all they associate with that.

Whatever the reason is, being one of the top 10 Marathons in Europe is a major selling point. Yet when I looked at the Dublin website this morning, I could see no obvious mention of how popular the Marathon was. There is no mention of it being one of the top ten European Marathons. Their 'general info' page doesn't exactly impress either with just a few lines of text.

Surely being the 7th most popular Marathon in Europe is something that the Dublin Marathon organisers should be shouting about? After all, that fact alone will catch a lot of peoples attention and attract even more. In terms of sponsorship, are the Irish tourist board even aware that Dublin is the seventh largest?.....and that it is something unique and not something that can be taken for granted? Is it not worth supporting the Dublin Marathon to help keep it in the top 10? There are no shortage of Marathons on the continent with many cities trying to attract those extra visitors. I'm sure that there are a lot of tourist boards supporting those other Marathons that would gladly take it's place.

Thoughts???