Irish Runner 5 mile 17 July 2010

peanuthead · 17-07-2010 10:25pm

2 stars (poor)

Okay, I'll probably get shot for this but here it goes...

Okay the course was short. It's not that big of a deal in the long run guys.

I know:

Its not on
Its unprofessional
Its not what we paid for
It fecks up people's PBs

But really, all you have to do is a little bit of maths to figure out what your PB would have been and tell people that. You don't need to go into the "Well, the course was short...." unless you're looking to have a good moan.

I do get how frustrating it is but I also think that a little bit of perspective is needed here. People weren't sacraficed or burned at the stake. A 5 mile race was a wee bit off. Not on, but hardly a cardinal sin now.

Tipsygypsy · 17-07-2010 10:53pm

2 stars (poor)

robinph wrote: »

If anything the guys up the front won't care as much as we do. They gets their money, name in the paper and off to win the next one.

Its endearing that you dont realise that when I say 'more experienced/serious/faster runners' Im actually refering to you guys.

We are using things like this as standards to measure ourselves against and how we are improving over time, either during the year or just from one year to the next. We are not racing to win but we are racing to beat our previous times, although I've not actually done that particular course before, for them to not even manage to make the course the same as last years is shocking

It was a good day out and we got a nice tshirt and the course was well marshalled and we get the times appearing online very quickly and we get jelly babys in the goody bag (but only if your one of the lucky ones)

See, now I got Jellys and had them eaten/given away by the time I realised that Mr Gypsy had Chocolate raisins, so I couldn't swop and I had already used up all my room for yummy treats for the day, so couldnt steal. and he would've preferred the Jellys - life can be so cruel.

We did not get what we had actually paid for though. First thing that a race has to do is be the distance that they claim to be, it was not advertised as the "Irish Runner 4.88'ish mile".

This is true, it most certainly did not do what it said on the tin, and anyone who is annoyed by this is well within their rights to be, and an apology is in order from the organisers.

I still had a great day though!:D

figs · 17-07-2010 10:55pm

1 star (terrible)

RAL3 wrote: »

Good to see you back in action again Figs. Got an injury myself today - crick in my neck from looking around to check when you were going to steam by me!

Thanks RAL3. Great run by you today. No fear of steaming by you for the moment! Still need to work on finishing without a hobble! Look forward to doing battle in the 10 mile...

robinph · 17-07-2010 11:08pm

In other news:

I've just opened my bag and found that Energise Sport is apparently invisible to the Dublin Airport xray scanners.* Might be a handy tip for anyone wanting to do a bit of smuggling.

*May not be true, just that the bloke wasn't watching his TV screen as my bag went past.

robinph · 17-07-2010 11:10pm

Tipsygypsy wrote: »

Its endearing that you dont realise that when I say 'more experienced/serious/faster runners' Im actually refering to you guys.

Well I don't think anyone would claim I fit into the serious category.

peanuthead · 17-07-2010 11:10pm

2 stars (poor)

robinph wrote: »

In other news:

I've just opened my bag and found that Energise Sport is apparently invisible to the Dublin Airport xray scanners.* Might be a handy tip for anyone wanting to do a bit of smuggling.

*May not be true, just that the bloke wasn't watching his TV screen as my bag went past.

Why, where the hell are you going you lucky thing?

TheRoadRunner · 17-07-2010 11:12pm

2 stars (poor)

Git101 wrote: »

I have been robbed of a hard earned PB so now when asked about my PB for 5 miles the answer has to start with "well, the course was short but....."

+1

robinph · 17-07-2010 11:13pm

peanuthead wrote: »

Why, where the hell are you going you lucky thing?

Nowhere exciting, just back home as I'd only flew over for the race this morning. Well the race and an excessively large quantity of beers a couple of days before.

TheRoadRunner · 17-07-2010 11:16pm

2 stars (poor)

peanuthead wrote: »

I do get how frustrating it is but I also think that a little bit of perspective is needed here. People weren't sacraficed or burned at the stake. A 5 mile race was a wee bit off. Not on, but hardly a cardinal sin now.

I'm surprised it has taken this long for a post like this to surface. It is a big deal. There is a high probability I may never run as fast again as I did today for 5 miles.

Pacing Mule · 17-07-2010 11:19pm

3 stars (average)

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

I'm surprised it has taken this long for a post like this to surface. It is a big deal. There is a high probability I may never run as fast again as I did today for 5 miles.

for 4.9 miles you mean

figs · 17-07-2010 11:26pm

1 star (terrible)

peanuthead wrote: »

Okay, I'll probably get shot for this but here it goes...

Okay the course was short. It's not that big of a deal in the long run guys.

I know:

Its not on
Its unprofessional
Its not what we paid for
It fecks up people's PBs

But really, all you have to do is a little bit of maths to figure out what your PB would have been and tell people that. You don't need to go into the "Well, the course was short...." unless you're looking to have a good moan.

I do get how frustrating it is but I also think that a little bit of perspective is needed here. People weren't sacraficed or burned at the stake. A 5 mile race was a wee bit off. Not on, but hardly a cardinal sin now.

You're right. In the grand scheme of life, it's not an issue. However, purely in a running context, it is unacceptable for a highly publicised, popular and costly race to be incorrectly measured. They advertise on their web site as follows:

From http://dublinmarathon.ie/race_series.php
Course:Accurately measured route within the Phoenix Park. Water stations on course and at the finish. Results will be by Chip Timing with a digital clock at finish.

I think it should be raised and addressed by the organising committee to prevent this happening again.

I think the Adidas series is a great set of races. I thoroughly enjoy participating, and have done for the past few years. I would hate to see the standards drop. Repeated incidents like this would undermine the reputation of the series, and may cause the serious runners to give it a miss. I wouldn't like to see this happen... therefore we need to have a good moan to the organisers about it.

peanuthead · 17-07-2010 11:26pm

2 stars (poor)

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

I'm surprised it has taken this long for a post like this to surface. It is a big deal. There is a high probability I may never run as fast again as I did today for 5 miles.

Okay well I shouldn't say it's not a big deal full stop, sorry. It's not a big deal to me, but I do understand (that is what I meant by saying that I get the frustration) why a lot of people are angry.

But I suppose what I'm saying is that it's not like you didn't run the race, you did. Can't you just work out what your PB would have been had you kept going?? Does what it says on the web really matter that much? (thats not me being sarcastic, rather asking as I'm not exactly a pro runner myself, just new to it all.)

I don't get how people were cheated out of a PB if they ran the race well. They still deserved it and from it can work out easily what it would have been if the route was 5 miles. Again, I'm a noob but I would assume that those who were running at pace will find that job easier again?

robinph · 17-07-2010 11:28pm

It is a big deal I think. If anything this race being off by 0.12miles is a bigger issue than Aware being off by a kilometre for their race. This is a major race in Ireland, and due to it being linked so closely with the biggest*, DCM, it is unacceptable for them to get things like the distance wrong. It's not like it's the first year they have done it or anything and it's not a new route.

* I would count 12,000 doing a marathon around the capital as more significant event than 40,000 women walking 10km.

TheRoadRunner · 17-07-2010 11:49pm

2 stars (poor)

peanuthead wrote: »

I don't get how people were cheated out of a PB if they ran the race well. They still deserved it and from it can work out easily what it would have been if the route was 5 miles.

Of course I can it works out at 27 minutes dead.

It's similar to a snooker player going for a 147 clearance and at the last minute the match ref takes the black away from the pocket where it was resting waiting for the easy pot. Of course everybody knows the snooker player would have gotten it but he never gets the chance and ends up with 140!

peanuthead · 17-07-2010 11:57pm

2 stars (poor)

Well all I can say about that is well done, its a fab time.

How about we demand a re-run?

TheRoadRunner · 18-07-2010 12:04am

2 stars (poor)

peanuthead wrote: »

How about we demand a re-run?

Technically a refund is in order as people have pointed out to me today we didn't receive the 5 mile race we paid for. I'm not that aggrieved and I'll get over it and just find another 5 mile race soon.

I actually think the race series is a great idea and know some of the guys involved and they are top blokes who love running. The majority of them give up a lot of their time for the series so I do feel a little guilty being so critical. I guess the fact they are runners themselves is the major let down as all runners want the course to be spot on.

Also what I can't comprehend is that speaking to lads who ran the race last year they all said the start was further forward than last year, surely somebody on the organising committe must have kopped this also? Maybe the Gardai forced the start further forward than in previous years. If this is the case the finish could have been moved back 200 metres easily enough. There must be a logical explanation

Peckham · 18-07-2010 12:48am

Didn't run this race today, but agree with the sentiments above about this being the cardinal sin of race organisation, and it is very surprising that it has been done by the the group who are arguably the top race organisers in the country.

In my opinion, you have two responsiblities as a race organiser - to ensure the safety of all runners, and to get the distance right. Anything else (tshirts, goody bags) is just an optional extra.

Pretty embarassing for them that they failed on one of these.

Sosa · 18-07-2010 1:09am

Peckham wrote: »

Didn't run this race today, but agree with the sentiments above about this being the cardinal sin of race organisation, and it is very surprising that it has been done by the the group who are arguably the top race organisers in the country.

In my opinion, you have two responsiblities as a race organiser - to ensure the safety of all runners, and to get the distance right. Anything else (tshirts, goody bags) is just an optional extra.

Pretty embarassing for them that they failed on one of these.

+1 tomorrow im racing a 5k that was only 4.6k last year...it better be the full 5k this year,nothing worse.

It did strike me though that 5 runners under 24 was unusual when i read the results.

chinguetti · 18-07-2010 1:11am

2 stars (poor)

Folks, i wasn't aiming for a PB but just out for a run today so i'm personally not too bothered by the short distance. However Robinph is right, it is a big deal.

You had alot of people running there today who trained for this and made it a running goal for the summer. If people put the time and effort in, they should be rewarded with a proper race distance. All the other stuff, pens, jelly babies, t-shirt is immaterial.

Today's event is interlinked with the DCM in everything, website, printed material etc. If they had a 5 miler marked at 4.88, how the hell do we know that the marathon distance will be right cause someone may have put the starting thing in the wrong place? Some will have trained for months and will hope to use their times to enter Boston or other events.

If the organisation is poor and they messed up, come out and hold up your hands and instead of a refund, give some more money to charity and get the 10 miler right.

I hope to beat 70 minutes for the 10 miler so if that ends up short, my comments won't be as nice. That is my summer goal so DCM, be forewarned!

In a non-running moment, Up the Deise:D

Burgman · 18-07-2010 3:02am

Junior nerd reporting for duty. My Garmin 405 showed 4.88 miles. Given that I did not run the shortest possible route (although I aimed to do that) and that my distance should show a bit more than the official stated distance, I would round that down, for simplicity to 4.875 miles. This leaves the distance 1/8 of a mile short. It means that we ran 39/40 of the correct race distance so it is necessary to correct for the missing 1/40. I would do his by adding 1/39 of the actual time run to the actual time run to arrive at an adjusted time representing what you would have run if the course had been set up for the full distance. This adjustment factor will not, of course, be accurate because it assumes that you would have finished the race at your average pace: you are likely to have been going faster or slower than this. Nevertheless, here is my simple ready reckoner:

You have my permission to treat this adjusted time as a PB if you wish.

The table did not display properly so I am adding an Excel file and a pdf file if anyone wants to have a look.

misty floyd · 18-07-2010 9:03am

Burgman wrote: »

Junior nerd reporting for duty.

Thanks Burgman, what makes it extra nerdy is working that out at 3am on a Sunday morning/Sat night

My adjusted time is around 30:53 so I'm dead chuffed with that as this was my return from injury and some weight gain and a test to see if the leg would hold up.

Its a tough enough course. Would people reckon its harder than the Raheny 5m? I think so, by about 25seconds, what you reckon?

robinph · 18-07-2010 9:27am

I think Raheny might be harder actually as you have the hill right at the end just when your tryng to wind yourself up for the finish. This one had the hill earlier on when your still a bit fresher and have more time to get things back on track again.

digger2d2 · 18-07-2010 10:18am

2 stars (poor)

My Garmin read 4.92, however the additional .08 - .12 was probably due to the 'cross country' running I did on the ditches thanks to the muppets wh can't read, totally over estimate their ability or just don't give a sh1t about other people!!......Wanted to try hit 7:30 per mile to give me a 37:30 finish and was at 7:37 with a mile to go and really stepped on the gas....Ended up a 7:29/mile and a finish time of 36:38 so would have hit target in any event. However.....Really bad that the route was incorrectly measured or the start line erected in the wrong place....Not impressed!

runrabbit · 18-07-2010 11:22am

2 stars (poor)

Something else I noticed - I queued up for an x-small t-shirt, I noticed these were in different bags to the other sizes (white plastic bag instead of the red drawstring ones). One of the girls in front of me pulled out her t-shirt to let me see the size and it was one of the white 2009 ones! So herself and a few of the girls were trying to get swaps but "the sign says no swaps" (so said the t-shirt lady). I moved on and got a small one which was the 2010 version in the red bag. It's too big, and the colour is manky, so I probably should have got the x-small one, but it'll do for the winter. Did anyone else get a 2009 one or were there just a few duds there by accident?

devotional1993 · 18-07-2010 12:41pm

2 stars (poor)

PB this PB that-The course is full of hills and crowded. Do a flat 5m race outside of the park to get your PB. Believe it or not there are accurate 5m races outside of the park all the time;)

Git101 · 18-07-2010 1:02pm

devotional1993 wrote: »

PB this PB that-The course is full of hills and crowded. Do a flat 5m race outside of the park to get your PB. Believe it or not there are accurate 5m races outside of the park all the time;)

So because it's full of hills and crowded are people not entitled to a PB on a properly measured course?

devotional1993 · 18-07-2010 1:10pm

2 stars (poor)

Git101 wrote: »

So because it's full of hills and crowded are people not entitled to a PB on a properly measured course?

Yeah it's a pain it's short but there are lots of 5m races. Too many people are obsessed with races in the Px park. There is life outside of it and much faster courses!

8ofSpades · 18-07-2010 1:41pm

3 stars (average)

runrabbit wrote: »

I queued up for an x-small t-shirt, I noticed these were in different bags to the other sizes (white plastic bag instead of the red drawstring ones). One of the girls in front of me pulled out her t-shirt to let me see the size and it was one of the white 2009 ones! Did anyone else get a 2009 one or were there just a few duds there by accident?

my OH got one of these in a plastic bag, even though it was white it does say Irish runner 5 mile 2010 on the front. Even as XS goes its still pretty big.
Not sure why they were different.

On a different note another one of my friends finished with a clock time of 45:xx. He was going for a sub 40 so he strarted at the middle to back of the first wave so his time is way out. Who do I contact for these type of queries?

Finally, I get why people are pee'd, am a bit pee'd myself. Sure on the grand scheme of things its not a disaster. And when you compare it to what happened in Donegal last week then it doesnt even register on the disaster scale and puts some perspective on it. Its somethind that the organisers need to acknowledge though and put future preventative measures in place otherwise it will put doubts in peoples minds for the rest of the series and/or even the DCM itself. If the DCM ended up short then their would be uproar.

TheRoadRunner · 18-07-2010 2:13pm

2 stars (poor)

8ofSpades wrote: »

And when you compare it to what happened in Donegal last week then it doesnt even register on the disaster scale and puts some perspective on it.

True and compared to World war 2 it's not a disaster either, also compared to the recent spate of shootings we have had it's not a disaster either etc etc etc.

However in terms of one of the countries largest and most prestigious road races it is a disaster.

RacoonQueen · 18-07-2010 2:23pm

4 stars (good)

To be fair to the organisers, the 5 mile last year had a lot of congestion problems and they took peoples complaints and opinions on board and made improvements in the 10 mile race by adding starting pens and changing the original route so that they narrower kyber would be taken in on the second lap when the field was more spaced out instead of the first. Lets hope they do the same this year.

fletch · 18-07-2010 2:37pm

Did nobody else see the deer darting through the crowd of runners?

chinguetti · 18-07-2010 3:49pm

2 stars (poor)

I was about 50 yards from it when the deer flew by. Don't think they hit anyone and considering the crowd of people, thats a wonder in itself.

So 24 hours after the event, how are people on the whole 4.9/5 mile issue?

Git101 · 18-07-2010 4:31pm

fletch wrote: »

Did nobody else see the deer darting through the crowd of runners?

That happened just in front of me. Some of the runners held their arms up, slowed down and tried to stop the thousands of runners behind them so the deer could cross the road :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong I like deer (especially a nice roast

) but as far as I was concerned I was in a hurry, the deer had all day..

Brianderunner · 18-07-2010 4:34pm

2 stars (poor)

chinguetti wrote: »

So 24 hours after the event, how are people on the whole 4.9/5 mile issue?

No point ranting on and on about it for days. As long as the organisers issue an apology and acknowledge their mistake we can all move on.

aero2k · 18-07-2010 5:38pm

peanuthead wrote: »

Can't you just work out what your PB would have been had you kept going??.....can work out easily what it would have been if the route was 5 miles.

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Of course I can it works out at 27 minutes dead.

It's similar to a snooker player going for a 147 clearance and at the last minute the match ref takes the black away from the pocket where it was resting waiting for the easy pot. Of course everybody knows the snooker player would have gotten it but he never gets the chance and ends up with 140!

The problem with both the above examples is that nobody knows what would have happened over the extra .1, .12 or whatever it was. A runner could fall and fail to finish, a snooker player could have a horrible mis-cue...

In this year's Edinburgh marathon Phil Hinch passed the 26 mile mark with a considerable lead, around a minute I think, but when he turned onto the finishing straight with maybe 200m to go he came to a complete stop with leg cramps. Despite hanging onto the barriers and trying to stretch them out, he couldn't get going again, and Steve Littler came by to win. Hinch eventually hobbled over the line 16 secs later. If that race had been 2% shorter the result might have been very different. (I say might, who's to say a deer wouldn't have run into one of the runners?)

RayCun · 18-07-2010 5:39pm

2 stars (poor)

8ofSpades wrote: »

On a different note another one of my friends finished with a clock time of 45:xx. He was going for a sub 40 so he strarted at the middle to back of the first wave so his time is way out. Who do I contact for these type of queries?

What's the query? What was his chip time?

Daithi BC · 18-07-2010 5:50pm

1 star (terrible)

Brianderunner wrote: »

No point ranting on and on about it for days. As long as the organisers issue an apology and acknowledge their mistake we can all move on.

I'm actually more annoyed today than I was yesterday for some reason. Having said that, +1 to the above. Any word from the organisers yet? I'd like to know what the actual course length was for a start.

digger2d2 · 18-07-2010 6:06pm

2 stars (poor)

fletch wrote: »

Did nobody else see the deer darting through the crowd of runners?

No, but I hope they started in the correct Wave

robinph · 18-07-2010 6:55pm

devotional1993 wrote: »

Yeah it's a pain it's short but there are lots of 5m races. Too many people are obsessed with races in the Px park. There is life outside of it and much faster courses!

But I paid to do this one on this occasion.

8ofSpades · 18-07-2010 7:09pm

3 stars (average)

RayCun wrote: »

What's the query? What was his chip time?

Oh yeah....duh

His chip time was 39:xx
He said there was no way 5 minutes passed between the gun time and the time he crossed the line

daymobrew · 18-07-2010 7:56pm

3 stars (average)

Burgman wrote: »

Junior nerd reporting for duty. My Garmin 405 showed 4.88 miles. Given that I did not run the shortest possible route (although I aimed to do that) and that my distance should show a bit more than the official stated distance, I would round that down, for simplicity to 4.875 miles. This leaves the distance 1/8 of a mile short. It means that we ran 39/40 of the correct race distance so it is necessary to correct for the missing 1/40. I would do his by adding 1/39 of the actual time run to the actual time run to arrive at an adjusted time representing what you would have run if the course had been set up for the full distance. This adjustment factor will not, of course, be accurate because it assumes that you would have finished the race at your average pace: you are likely to have been going faster or slower than this. Nevertheless, here is my simple ready reckoner:

Nerd from the M35 category reporting...
Using Burgman's 39/40 equation, I have written a PHP script to give precise adjusted times.
Try it out: Short Course Corrector

There is no pretty pictures or colours. It's basic WYSIWYG.

PS The winning time goes from 23:49 to 24:25. 2009 winner was 24:14. That seems more realistic.

TheRoadRunner · 18-07-2010 8:29pm

2 stars (poor)

daymobrew wrote: »

Nerd from the M35 category reporting...
Using Burgman's 39/40 equation, I have written a PHP script to give precise adjusted times.
Try it out: Short Course Corrector

Love it, send the URL to the DCM site and see if they link to it

robinph · 18-07-2010 8:36pm

Dublin Marathon on their Facebook page wrote:

There was one small hitch with Saturday’s race when it was discovered that the course was approximately 146 meters short. The problem was traced to a mistaken reading of the reference point for the official start on the main road of the Phoenix Park. We wish to apologise for the error to all who took part in the event.

.

xebec · 18-07-2010 8:37pm

3 stars (average)

And we have an apology, from their FB page:

There was one small hitch with Saturday’s race when it was discovered that the course was approximately 146 meters short. The problem was traced to a mistaken reading of the reference point for the official start on the main road of the Phoenix Park. We wish to apologise for the error to all who took part in the event.

And Robin got there ahead of me

tunguska · 18-07-2010 8:38pm

1 star (terrible)

Had time to reflect and I think Im even more pissed off today than yesterday. Im not one for moaning but the organisers blew it big time, they need to make sure something like this never happens again. I just cant understand how they could possibly get THE most fundamental aspect of a race wrong. Feck the goodie bags, t-shirts, photos, press coverage, hype, poxy FM104 roadhog(worst radio station in the country, possibly the world) and any other unecceassary crap. Just give me an accurately measured course and thats all thats really needed. Its like going to a wedding where all the stops were pulled out but you arrive to the church to find that theres no bride and groom, it renders all the extras pretty much null and void. Id gladly sacrifice a poxy t-shirt or whatever for a proper time.
Anyway just hope its a once off and all will be well for the 10miler.

tunguska · 18-07-2010 8:41pm

1 star (terrible)

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

There is a high probability I may never run as fast again as I did today for 5 miles.

C'mon man, I dont believe that for a second. This time next year you could go sub 26. Great performance yesterday, short course or not.

Stupid_Private · 18-07-2010 8:47pm

Took a while to get through all my photos from the race...

Loads more photos here

TheRoadRunner · 18-07-2010 8:48pm

2 stars (poor)

tunguska wrote: »

C'mon man, I dont believe that for a second. This time next year you could go sub 26. Great performance yesterday, short course or not.

I was trying to be modest;) What I meant is I could get an injury or life circumstances could change so I couldn't train as hard as I have for this race.

I'm glad they admitted there was a problem with the course and I'm sure it won't happen again. In fairness to the organisers they did listen to problems from last year and improved upon them. I've decided it's time to move on and look forward to the 10 miler now (note the course can be 10.1 miles just make sure it's not 9.9)

robinph · 18-07-2010 8:49pm

Can't believe how crowded it is in the later shot going up the hill. :eek:

Dotcomdolly · 18-07-2010 8:49pm

I hate it when I don't get a photo on racepix, that's 3 races in a row....what do I have to do??? I'm going to wear that super low cut tank top to the 10 miler!

Irish Runner 5 mile 17 July 2010

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