BHAA 2015

glacial_pace71 · 28-05-2015 7:39pm

belcarra wrote: »

Great race in Dunboyne on Tues evening.
First time doing this race and the course was excellent. Got stuck too far back at the start and probably lost up to 10 seconds because of this, but everything else was great.
Finished in 33:55 - a 30sec PB on Terenure.

Good to catch up with a few boardsies on the evening too.
One query though: I offered the €15 entry fee for a day runner but was told that it was only €10 tonight...was that just a mistake or was there some other reason for this?

Definitely one for next year anyways!

Day members pay €15, members €10. However, there have been cases where a person registered during the middle of the cross-country season, i.e. at the end of last year, not realising that the membership holds good for the summer road, track, beach and park runs this year.

I was on one of the registration desks. In the old days there used to be a very fussy screen with a former member marked as ', inactive'. The process of taking the €15 annual membership fee plus the €10 race fee used to then involve several stages, and much grumpiness in the queues, as members used not show up on the printed membership lists that were used for taking race registrations back in those days. I haven't been running too many BHAA races for the past few years (or been involved in registration as a result) but noticed that the registration/reactivation of lapsed members seemed a little easier. Perhaps you got a lucky break? Then again I noticed that the Dunboyne runners' registration process was running in parallel. There are probably any amount of reasons for the €5 going astray.

If you're running 3 races in the year as a day member (3 x €15) then you're better off joining as a member for €15 and paying €10 per race. You'd also be eligible for team prizes with your workplace.

The Trinity Track is a great event. If you work in the city centre do check it out in June: there's something very different about racing on grass instead of the track.

glacial_pace71 · 28-05-2015 7:48pm

Bungy Girl wrote: »

Trinity Track 10th June

I've never done this event before (something always seems to crop up :rolleyes:) so really looking forward to it this year. Just curious if people tend to do both events on offer (1200m and 2000m) or just the one ?

People often do more than one event but, given the spread of abilities, they sometimes need to merge certain races. This can make for a flat-out attempt at the 1,200 m out of an irrational fear of being lapped and/or being taken along by the initial surge, with the 2k then being a hobble. If you're going to do more than one event just keep in mind that, although they'll try their best to ensure a balanced grouping of abilities, there might be a few races in which hares, greyhounds and tortoises are paired.

ArgieExile · 10-06-2015 3:44pm

As a tortoise, I am looking forward to tonights races... Hopefully I can run a 5 minute 1200m (at Standard 17), and won't quite get lapped if they put us together.... The 2Km might be a different kettle of fish....

glacial_pace71 · 10-06-2015 10:00pm

ArgieExile wrote: »

As a tortoise, I am looking forward to tonights races... Hopefully I can run a 5 minute 1200m (at Standard 17), and won't quite get lapped if they put us together.... The 2Km might be a different kettle of fish....

I came out of my shell for the 1.2k/.75 mile.

For the 2k/1.25 mile I felt a bit like Wiley Coyote chasing the RoadRunner out into a cloud of smoke then finding he's over the edge of the cliff. Certainly the 5th lap was my cliff plunge. (I almost heard the guys ahead of me making some sort of Meep, meep sounds).

Very enjoyable.

Bungy Girl · 10-06-2015 10:06pm

What a great evening's racing ! Did both events and really enjoyed them.

glacial_pace71 · 10-06-2015 10:50pm

Bungy Girl wrote: »

What a great evening's racing ! Did both events and really enjoyed them.

How did you find the merging of the different standards? For the 2k the poor chap was calling "two laps ... three laps" for the different people passing, but he got every single call right. (The joys of traditional clipboard criers and scribes rather than chip timing).

Overall I think it would have been an encouraging experience for people, as the 5 min milers will still find their way around anyway but it lets others give chase for a few meters.

My poor Garmin couldn't cope: I was apparently climbing a hill and descending a valley each lap. I had held back a little in the first race, so was perhaps a bit too cautious, but the second race was good fun. (I'm a 17 standard, so was lapping people in the second race, a very rare phenomenon when it comes to my running). Looking forward to seeing the official finish times.

Bungy Girl · 10-06-2015 11:34pm

glacial_pace71 wrote: »

How did you find the merging of the different standards? For the 2k the poor chap was calling "two laps ... three laps" for the different people passing, but he got every single call right. (The joys of traditional clipboard criers and scribes rather than chip timing).

Overall I think it would have been an encouraging experience for people, as the 5 min milers will still find their way around anyway but it lets others give chase for a few meters.

My poor Garmin couldn't cope: I was apparently climbing a hill and descending a valley each lap. I had held back a little in the first race, so was perhaps a bit too cautious, but the second race was good fun. (I'm a 17 standard, so was lapping people in the second race, a very rare phenomenon when it comes to my running). Looking forward to seeing the official finish times.

I decided to ditch the Garmin and just run by feel and it was great! Very much a back to basics evening all right with the hand timing and the clipboards. There was just one race for all the women regardless of standard but the numbers wouldn't have justified breaking in down any further. It did mean some people got lapped but I doubt that would have discouraged anyone. In fact the support from the students was great, they didn't even throw their beer cans at us

ArgieExile · 11-06-2015 12:33am

Really enjoyed tonight. Came away with an individual prize and a team victory too, the first a little surprised to get. Went off too fast in the 3 lap,90 secs for the first lap and had nothing in the legs for the last 50m.... Think I finished 5th in the race, not too sure, 4.50 something I think. Ran a better 2k, even paced and around 9 mins but still nothing in the legs at the end. Thoroughly enjoyed the night, great craic, great organisation, and took me back to the 70's and old style track races .... Wish I could run as fast as I did back then.....

ArgieExile · 11-06-2015 11:06am

glacial_pace71 wrote: »

How did you find the merging of the different standards? For the 2k the poor chap was calling "two laps ... three laps" for the different people passing, but he got every single call right. (The joys of traditional clipboard criers and scribes rather than chip timing).

Overall I think it would have been an encouraging experience for people, as the 5 min milers will still find their way around anyway but it lets others give chase for a few meters.

My poor Garmin couldn't cope: I was apparently climbing a hill and descending a valley each lap. I had held back a little in the first race, so was perhaps a bit too cautious, but the second race was good fun. (I'm a 17 standard, so was lapping people in the second race, a very rare phenomenon when it comes to my running). Looking forward to seeing the official finish times.

We must have been in the same races last night as I'm a 17 as well -

emerald007 · 11-06-2015 3:34pm

PDF format results from last night are aviable now. http://bhaa.ie/trinity-track-2015-pdf-results/

glacial_pace71 · 11-06-2015 7:50pm

ArgieExile wrote: »

We must have been in the same races last night as I'm a 17 as well -

I was somewhere in the sub 5 min pack in the 1.2k race. In the 5k race I was the unfortunate chap in the orange t-shirt who went out with the lead two, realised just how fast they were going, then seemed to go backwards for the rest of the race. I held onto third place, just picking a target or two to lap, but I was not in good shape at all on that third lap. (Just over 8:30, but that was probably a 90 second lap followed by 4 x 105 sec efforts). Definitely needed something out of a crate labelled 'Acme' if I was going to keep up with the two roadrunners ahead in that race. Great night out though.

Killerz · 11-06-2015 8:58pm

Great evening's racing, what weather! Enjoyed the races, but Std 1-7 is a huge bracket to have (feels especially huge when you're a 7!). Main thing was to try not finish last, which i managed in both races

. Was a team scorer for the second race, so delighted to be part of our overall first place team award on the night.

glacial_pace71 · 19-06-2015 9:16pm

Ok, everyone ready for the 3 x 5k mini-series?

Grass, track and road races. This offers a diverse range of underfoot conditions.

http://bhaa.ie/events/5km-summer-series/

The combination of weeknights and weekends may not suit everyone but they're still a great opportunity to get a few different challenges in to break up the monotony of the 10k weekend races that monopolize every Saturday and Sunday over the summer months.

I live near the Phoenix Park, but haven't ran a decent race there in about 5 years, so alas will probably be doing my own version of the Tugg Speedman character in 'Tropic Thunder'.

I don't run too well on track. Ok not so whingy-sounding as Thom Yorke on Radiohead's "Bends" but still a bit much to endure when I'm turning 4 times for each 400 metres, not to mention having to also navigate Irishtown Park without wondering aloud about 'Fake Plastic Trees' or 'My Iron Lung'.

The road race in Marino should be great. My nephews have just grown out of Fireman Sam but I can still sing about 'move aside, make way' as I lumber around.

Definitely worth doing as a 3 race series, with a t-shirt on offer too.

adrian522 · 19-06-2015 9:33pm

It only starts and finishes on the track, it also has 3 loops of the park.

ArgieExile · 23-06-2015 11:22am

Looking forward to tonights 5K ? struggled in the heat in Dunshaughlin on saturday, so hope it cools down a tad tonight.... (Can't please anyone with the weather in this country!)...

Killerz · 23-06-2015 4:51pm

Will see you there! Still recovering from the midnight track marathon at the weekend but gonna do my best

glacial_pace71 · 23-06-2015 10:40pm

Well, that was enjoyable, a bit tricky underfoot but well-measured and not too many chokepoints, it thinned out nicely after about 3/4 of a mile.

I missed the attempt at making venison chops: I gather that those on 15-20 min finishing times encountered a herd of deer. I was told that nothing was harmed, and I didn't see anyone strap a stag to the bonnet after the race, but as I chomped through the sambos I began to wonder what meat was used all the same.

Btw nice spread afterwards. I thought the overall number of entrants looked encouraging: there may need to be over a hundred t-shirts printed for the 3-race mini-series.

ArgieExile · 23-06-2015 11:47pm

Yep, a decent night out... Could have done without the flies and midges as the evening wore on... Maybe if I ran faster I wouldn't get attacked so much.... Mildly disappointed with my time, as I was around 30 seconds slower than I would expect on a road run, but those tree routes on the stretch along Chesterfield Ave, twice, delivered a slower run there to avoid becoming a cropper - Still, managed to pick up a Team Prize, which is always a good thing....

Chartsengrafs · 24-06-2015 10:38am

Nice race last night, though I was stopped dead by a large herd of deer at 2km as they were crossing the course at speed. Lost maybe 10/15 seconds, never ideal stopping, especially in a 5k. My team won 1st B prize so I made a tidy profit of a fiver! Looking forward to the next one. Great value as always.

macinalli · 24-06-2015 11:05am

Basster wrote: »

Nice race last night, though I was stopped dead by a large herd of deer at 2km as they were crossing the course at speed. Lost maybe 10/15 seconds, never ideal stopping, especially in a 5k. My team won 1st B prize so I made a tidy profit of a fiver! Looking forward to the next one. Great value as always.

In the race series 10 miler a couple of years ago, I saw a deer take out a guy at about the 9.8 mile mark. That was just 1 deer - you were right to give way to them!

glacial_pace71 · 14-07-2015 8:37pm

I think we can be reassured that tomorrow there'll be no deer on the course at Irishtown stadium or in the adjacent park.

The course is a lap of the track, three circuits of the park, then a lap of the track to finish:

http://bhaa.ie/events/dublin-city-council-5km-2015/

Ok, so no doe a deer, a female deer etc but I'm sure we could have the sub-20 min athletes sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", or those being lapped could strike up a few bars of "So Long, Farewell". Hmm, if the new track hasn't been laid properly and is a bit lumpy we could do a verse of "Climb Every Mountain" etc. (Ok, had better stop before every prospective athlete plants my head in anything remotely looking like an edelweiss in the park).

Chartsengrafs · 15-07-2015 10:03pm

Nice opportunity to run on a brand new track

. Good race in excellent conditions. The grub disappeared pretty quickly afterwards!

hotmail.com · 15-07-2015 10:40pm

I was disappointed with the race tonight - the directions were poor and the park was packed. Because the course was so short, the faster runners kept lapping the slower ones and there was a lot of confusion. It said one lap on the site but it was 2 and a half laps on the track. I won't be returning to it next year.

rodneyTrotter. · 15-07-2015 11:42pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

I was disappointed with the race tonight - the directions were poor and the park was packed. Because the course was so short, the faster runners kept lapping the slower ones and there was a lot of confusion. It said one lap on the site but it was 2 and a half laps on the track. I won't be returning to it next year.

Other than that though did you enjoy it ?

glacial_pace71 · 20-07-2015 9:24pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

I was disappointed with the race tonight - the directions were poor and the park was packed. Because the course was so short, the faster runners kept lapping the slower ones and there was a lot of confusion. It said one lap on the site but it was 2 and a half laps on the track. I won't be returning to it next year.

Although organised by Dublin City Council, they couldn't evacuate the park, so it was going to be packed in that weather. There were stewards at each junction, so the directions weren't too bad, though I did hear of one or two complaints about crossing the car park from the track and entering a narrow chokepoint lane into the park via a hairpin bend, but I was back in the field and found that leg of the race to be relatively smooth. (I think the additional lap of the track at the start helped to thin out the field in order that there'd be less problems when the runners reached the approach to the park).

That young Jennings lad was a joy to watch. It took a long time for anyone to lap us after him, but the steady stream of athletes lapping others began to occur on the second lap of the park. However, it was not a prolonged experience, as most runners had started into their third lap by the time the leader and his trailing pack were leaving the park after their three laps, i.e. it was unlikely that many were lapped twice.

However, I can understand if people have a negative experience of a race, as it's unusual to have a track and path combination. Personally I prefer to have a route that takes in the park, as that freshly-laid track was a little too bouncy for me, and there would've been chaos to attempt anything more than 900 metres to 1k of the 5k on the track given the number of athletes involved.

The third race in this mini-series is this Sunday, a more traditional road race.

http://bhaa.ie/events/dublin-fire-brigade-5km-2015/

glacial_pace71 · 26-07-2015 9:31pm

Well the Fire Brigade didn't need to worry about hosing us down: plenty of rain and drizzle before, during and after the race.

I enjoyed it. The first 3/4 mile were uphill, so it gives one the [false] hope that it'll be downhill all the way for the rest of the race but that final 1/4 mile to the finish is an upward climb of the Malahide Road and venue grounds.

Glad to have seen someone actively stewarding at each junction: there were one or two drivers looking to get a bit abusive but the stewards seemed to hold their nerve and keep the traffic penned in well.

The t-shirt was grand: thought the writing/logo felt a bit scratchy but give it a wash and it'll be fine. Nice spread of food afterwards. Overall I hope it becomes an annual fixture on the calendar.

glacial_pace71 · 11-08-2015 10:05pm

Very sorry to hear of the death of Séamus Kilcullen, a BHAA stalwart.

http://rip.ie/showdn.php?dn=263461/Seamus%20(Shay)KILCULLEN/Walkinstown/Dublin

Bungy Girl · 11-08-2015 10:11pm

glacial_pace71 wrote: »

Very sorry to hear of the death of Séamus Kilcullen, a BHAA stalwart.

http://rip.ie/showdn.php?dn=263461/Seamus%20(Shay)KILCULLEN/Walkinstown/Dublin

Sad news. R.I.P. Seamus.

DubOnHoliday · 12-08-2015 9:43am

Very sad news, since getting into IMRA this year, I've met him a few times, as recently as last Wed at Glen of the Downs , where he cheerily waved on other runners. RIP.

Slogger Jogger · 12-08-2015 10:49am

I've become used to Seamus's encouragement in imra and bhaa events over the years. Very sad to hear of his passing. To think he just did his last imra race last Weds, in the lofty M70 category. Wouldn't be all be lucky to be active at that age. Thoughts are with him and his family.

BHAA 2015

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