Dublin city marathon

Marathon_Man

?

trotter_inc

what about it?

p.pete

trotter_inc wrote:

what about it?

It's on Monday - not exactly a discussion starter though...

I was meant to be running but due to injuries / circumstances haven't managed to get the training in :mad:

Will have to find one to do in March / April, means I'll have to get out running through the Winter again

Good luck to anyone running

trotter_inc

p.pete wrote:

It's on Monday - not exactly a discussion starter though...

I was meant to be running but due to injuries / circumstances haven't managed to get the training in :mad:

Will have to find one to do in March / April, means I'll have to get out running through the Winter again

Good luck to anyone running

Whats your best time Pete?

p.pete

trotter_inc wrote:

Whats your best time Pete?

My best time, as in pressuming I had done several marathons? My only time is just under 5hrs so plenty of room for improvement (reckon 3:30 is achievable and build from there). I ran that with an ITB injury and the time includes 6/7 km of limping, that was in Paris earlier this year

Genghis

Are you running Trotter?

I am astounded at the poor organisation. I have received nothing except a couple of e-mails, and certainly nothing to say that I must go along to pick up my number at the RDS. I imagine there will be a lot of confusion, especially among people taking part for the first time.

Does anyone know if they sorted out chips for this year?

tunney

And being the cheap f*&ks that they are no chips.

p.pete

I was amazed how long it took them to get a route map also. Most marathons have it available a year in advance and Dublin have it up only a few weeks.

My cousin will be running and he's stressing over his number also. There was an email yesterday saying to bring along a copy of the email he recieved confirming his race number - don't think he's got that email...

trotter_inc

Genghis wrote:

Are you running Trotter?

I am astounded at the poor organisation. I have received nothing except a couple of e-mails, and certainly nothing to say that I must go along to pick up my number at the RDS. I imagine there will be a lot of confusion, especially among people taking part for the first time.

Does anyone know if they sorted out chips for this year?

No - not running - might do it next year - I do a lot of running myself just as a hobbie - always meant to try run a marathon - I just never heard anything about the Dublin one coming up - was going to start extra training when I knew when it was going to be on!

Ah well - always next year - plenty of time to train!

Genghis

It is embarassing, to be honest.

If you have a look over at the forums in runnersworld.co.uk you will quickly see that many UK runners, and ruinners from other parts of the world hold the event in great esteem - it is kind of a London, New York or Paris marathon without the qualification. Also, many runners who fail to get into one of these settle for Dublin as their next best option.

Also, it holds a a very good spot in the international calendar - you have the full summer and 6 months of long evenings before your taper begins.

With 10,000 runners all paying an average of €60 each, together with sponsorship etc, the Dublin Marathon a is €1m event. Surely it is nottoo much to expect a small bit of communication and bog-standard chip timers that you find in every other major marathon.

daveirl

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Aisling Ni Dhio

I am just starting to get geared up for training for the Belfast city marathon. Anyone run that one? Is it well organised? Are there chips?

Always in black

Anyone know any good links to running clubs or training clubs to start for next years marathon

tunney

Head into easons and buy a copy of Irish Runner.

Its a bit early to be training for next years marathon - aim for the connemara half marathon in april and then start marathon training for dublin from then

Genghis

All round yesterday was a very good day for the marathon. While I could mention one or two things that could be improved, overall I would say that most participants and supporters would rate the day as a success:

- Perfect Marathon weather (little wind, mild conditions, no rain)
- Huge field of runners (10,500 I believe)
- Huge support (4-5 times more than last year, I reckon)
- Good atmosphere, especially at the end (really great)
- Well marshalled

And, for the record, there were chips this year.

Some of the things they could improve:

- Offering 'free massage' when you have 10,000 participants is never going to work - standing in line for 30-45 minutes after a marathon must do you more damage than not having the rub. Unless you can muster up say 500 physios, then charge a reasonable fee and let people who need physio get it.

- Next time you want gatorade to sponsor the sports drinks at your event, make them give out little bottles (like the water bottles) - lose the scabby, awkward and impossible to drink plastic cups!

- Most chip-based marathons have the results available almost immediately - why is it taking 24-30 hours for Dublin to get theirs on line?

- Do something about the walkers at the start, please - it really is very difficult to find your speed until 3-4 miles in unless you are at the very front.

Nonetheless, I think I would have to say "well done" to the organisers.

daveirl

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Genghis

It is insane, if they can't segregate the walkers by start time, then they could trya 'walking lane' as far as O'Connell Street, the roads are wide enough.

In fairness, i don't think you can blame the walkers, I certainly felt like barking at a few of them as I eventually barged past, but they are only doing their own race. It is the organisation that needs to change.

I wouldn't mind so much but on the race information sheet there was a plan to break the field down by expected finish time - on the day itself it became a free-for-all.

p.pete

I've only ran one marathon a few shorter races so I don't have too many ideas as to seperating the people of differing speeds. I can only imagine it would be a logistical nightmare to try to forcibly get 10,000 people correctly into 5 or 6 different starting bands.

The only thing I would expect is to have well highlighted marker runners for people to aim to keep up with. For example teams of experienced runners who will complete the race in 3hrs, 3 30, 4hrs, 4 30 etc. Each team wearing a distinct colour and carrying coloured baloons or something distinctive.

Then get people to give an estimated finish time when filling entry forms and allocate race numbers based on the bracket they fall into. If you could also colour code the race numbers to match up with the colours of the guide runners this would psychologicly give the less experienced runners more impetus to start nearer the back with their guides.

I didn't collect my race number for Monday and I wasn't at the race / start line so I don't know how much of that was in place but by the sounds of it, very little.

daveirl

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p.pete

daveirl wrote:

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Hmm, do they actively direct people to different groups on the day? My experience of starting the Paris marathon was from quite near the back so I guess people didn't really care where I was but to back you up I didn't see any problems with how they were organising things - even from where we started(within sight of the 4 hours marker runners) there wasn't so many walkers that needed to be negotiated.

daveirl

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p.pete

They also wanted medical certification from those who had not run the distance in the last year (at least I think that was the circumstance) - neither myself or my cousin had run the distance anyway. I sent them the doctors note and my cousin didn't - didn't make a difference in the end.