Mens Mini Marathon 4th May 2009 (10km)

milligank

http://www.activeeurope.com/Events/index.cfm?AC=EventDetails_V2&E=73980

Hey all,

The ARC Men's Mini Marathon

10km in the Phoenix Park on

4th May 2009

See you all there for a sub 40mins.

Only 22 euro all going to charity...

Rusty Cogs 08

Ah, t'is a bank holiday, nows I understand.

RacoonQueen

Sexism.

shels4ever

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

Ah, t'is a bank holiday, nows I understand.

May bank holiday I'll have other fish to fry this day....

So is it a men only race the?

rainbow kirby

Ooh, ooh, can I wear a tux and run it in drag? :pac:

RacoonQueen

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Ooh, ooh, can I wear a tux and run it in drag? :pac:

I'm tempted. Don't the men always hijack the womens mini marathon?

Running Bing

Why dont they call it the ARC 10k?


I hope this mini-marathon ****e doesnt cath on:rolleyes:

robinph

Got handed a flyer for that the other week, couldn't find anything on the sheet to suggest what distance it was though. Just called itself a "mini-marathon" as if that meant something.

I'm impressed if they are actually going to try and counteract that wimins one that they have through the city centre though so may be tempted to turn out for this one to make up the numbers.

MCOS

I don't care if its Men's or Women's I hate the term 'mini-marathon'. Even though people I love have done them and kudos to anyone for getting off their @rse and doing the 7,10, 5, or whatever km it is on the day. The association with Marathon just grates me like nails scraping down a blackboard :mad:

tunney

MCOS wrote: »

I don't care if its Men's or Women's I hate the term 'mini-marathon'. Even though people I love have done them and kudos to anyone for getting off their @rse and doing the 7,10, 5, or whatever km it is on the day. The association with Marathon just grates me like nails scraping down a blackboard :mad:

"I did a marathon too"
"Oh really, I didn't know you ran, what time did you do?"
"1:10"
"Oh......right......... you did a 10k....."

Peckham

Think we may need to face the fact that "mini marathon" is now an accepted term for many people. The activeeurope link doesn't specify how long the race is, nor does the link to the organisers.

I guess people will just enter this not knowing how long the race is, but that it is an achievable distance for many.

Am of the same opinion as others - great that it gets people active (and many of them will be bitten by the running bug and build on it), but lets not get confused between a quarter marathon and a full marathon!

rovers_runner

Not running in this joke because of their misuse of the word marathon.

Who wants to stop women running a properly organised race anyhow just because a bunch of fat birds walk a 10k on a bank holiday in the summer for charidee?

Any female athletes worth their salt anyhow would laugh at this mini-marathon ****e.

cfitz

rovers_runner wrote: »

Not running in this joke because of their misuse of the word marathon.

Who wants to stop women running a properly organised race anyhow just because a bunch of fat birds walk a 10k on a bank holiday in the summer for charidee?

Any female athletes worth their salt anyhow would laugh at this mini-marathon ****e.

The womens mini-marathon is generally won in under 36 minutes. Sonia O'Sullivan won it at least twice, Catherina McKiernan won it at least 4 times. I reckon they're worth their salt.

Clum

Real men don't run mini marathons. 10k races, sure, but not mini marathons.

plodder

mp1972 wrote: »

Sexism.

Sounds a bit like this ...



I'd be surprised if the organisers rejected any entries from women.

I don't have a problem at all with the term mini-marathon. But, like Tunney, I've heard a lot of people "forgetting" the "mini" part and that gets up my nose a bit.

thirtyfoot

Its hard to reconcile the general disdain this board has for the term 'mini-marathon' with the board's outrage foisted on Cfitz yesterday for his back-slapping rant yesterday. Are we all not here to encourage running no matter what level or guise its under??:D

MCOS

Tingle wrote: »

Its hard to reconcile the general disdain this board has for the term 'mini-marathon' with the board's outrage foisted on Cfitz yesterday for his back-slapping rant yesterday. Are we all not here to encourage running no matter what level or guise its under??:D

Of course we are You will understand the frustration when you have run a Marathon (ahem... the 26.2 version that is)

shels4ever

MCOS wrote: »

Of course we are You will understand the frustration when you have run a Marathon (ahem... the 26.2 version that is)

We should just rename the 400m to the micro marathon then too
i'll do 10 sets of micro marathon tonight in training

thirtyfoot

MCOS wrote: »

You will understand the frustration when you have run a Marathon (ahem... the 26.2 version that is)

Typical 'real' marathon elitism

thirtyfoot

shels4ever wrote: »

We should just rename the 400m to the micro marathon then too

I get inverse marathon racism all the time ....

"Yeah, I'm an athlete, like a runner"

"So how many marathons have you run"

"Ahhh, none, I do short stuff on a track, like"

"Ok" and they usually lose interest then.

shels4ever

Tingle wrote: »

I get inverse marathon racism all the time ....

"Yeah, I'm an athlete, like a runner"

"So how many marathons have you run"

"Ahhh, none, I do short stuff on a track, like"

"Ok" and they usually lose interest then.

I did find that I was giving reason why I wasn't doing marathons last year. For some reason I still think of myself as a track/XC runner..

thirtyfoot

shels4ever wrote: »

For some reason I still think of myself as a track/XC runner..

And don't let anyone change that no matter how many Ron Hill tights or vizzy vests you own.

rovers_runner

cfitz wrote: »

The womens mini-marathon is generally won in under 36 minutes. Sonia O'Sullivan won it at least twice, Catherina McKiernan won it at least 4 times. I reckon they're worth their salt.

cFitz,
based on the pbs of Sonia and Catherina over 10k it's safe to say it was treated as a training run by both.

MCOS

Tingle wrote: »

Typical 'real' marathon elitism

Cool, if thats how you wish to percieve it. Ask someone who has done an Ironman how they would feel about rebranding novice sprint triathlons as Mini-Ironman Crap comparison!

I'm with Tunney on his point above

I wouldn't tell someone I've done the hurdles if I went out and jogged 25m down the track and hopped over 2 short hurdles while chatting to my mate. Another crap comparison I know!

thirtyfoot

MCOS wrote: »

Cool, if thats how you wish to percieve it.

I was only joking, should have included smilie.

MCOS

:P cool

cfitz

rovers_runner wrote: »

cFitz,
based on the pbs of Sonia and Catherina over 10k it's safe to say it was treated as a training run by both.

Sonia O'Sullivan's PB for 10,000m is 30:47. She won the mini-marathon in 31:28.

Rusty Cogs 08

TBH the term 'mini-marathon' annoys me as well. Esp as per Tunney's ' I've ran a (mini) marathon too '. But more so the fact that the term is an oxymoron. A marathon means more than just the distance, for most it represents a serious life altering commitment of time and effort in pursuit of a well recognised standard of running achievement. To corrupt the term with 'mini' is like saying.

'Oh, I'm a doctor too, well it's a mini-Phd, ya know, a diploma'

'Oh, you've a baby ? me too, well actually it's a cat'.

thirtyfoot

cfitz wrote: »

She won the mini-marathon in 31:28.

Christ thats some time. Had a quick look and only 10 women have gone under 31 on the road, Sonia being one of them with a 30:59 in Milan in 2000. Puts a 31:28 in perspective, McKiernan's lifetime best was 31:21.

robinph

cfitz wrote: »

Sonia O'Sullivan's PB for 10,000m is 30:47. She won the mini-marathon10k in 31:28.

FYP

plodder

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

TBH the term 'mini-marathon' annoys me as well. Esp as per Tunney's ' I've ran a (mini) marathon too '. But more so the fact that the term is an oxymoron. A marathon means more than just the distance, for most it represents a serious life altering commitment of time and effort in pursuit of a well recognised standard of running achievement. To corrupt the term with 'mini' is like saying.

'Oh, I'm a doctor too, well it's a mini-Phd, you know, a diploma'

'Oh, you've a baby ? me too, well actually it's a cat'.

Good points. Though if you check a dictionary the word marathon doesn't just mean a 26.2 mile run, eg. a "dance marathon". It can mean any test of physical endurance, and arguably it's all relative as to what a test of endurance means for different people.

Though I agree, the mini-marathon crowd owe some of their (considerable) success to hijacking the word in a running context. But so long as they don't forget the "mini" bit, it doesn't bother me.

hunnymonster

Tingle wrote: »

Christ thats some time. Had a quick look and only 10 women have gone under 31 on the road, Sonia being one of them with a 30:59 in Milan in 2000. Puts a 31:28 in perspective, McKiernan's lifetime best was 31:21.

and if I remember correctly, she then "jogged" back the course in reverse to encourage other people along.



i don't like the whole title "women's mini-marathon". Feminists up and down the country would be screaming blue murder if women were discriminated against, but they feel it's fine to have a race exclusively for women. I don't buy the line that it gets women moving who otherwise wouldn't if men were around. If that is the case then we have much greater problems with women's confidence that need to be addressed outside the sporting arena.

The "mini-marathon" part of the name gets to me on two levels. Firstly it's technically wrong (and I'm a nerdy scientist) and secondly, as tunney described, many people equate the effort of walking 10 km with that of running 26.2 miles. That's not to say, walking 10 km is not a great achievement for many people and I'm all for them doing that but it's not the same. Not better, not worse, just not the same and using "marathon" in the title does equate them in people's minds on some level.

Stark

shels4ever wrote: »

We should just rename the 400m to the micro marathon then too

And have a bunch of hippy chicks turning up to the front of the start and linking arms around the course. It would be hillarious.

shelfs4ever wrote: »

i'll do 10 sets of micro marathon tonight in training

I walked the micro-marathon on the way to the coffee machine this morning.

Stupid_Private

I hold the mini marathon directly responsible for a girl finding it oh so funny that during the 2006 marathon I hit the wall and had to walk/shuffle the last few miles. I have also been asked on occasion "who are you raising money for?" when I tell someone that I'm heading home early as I've a 10k race in the morning.

jlang

I was out supporting family members at the ladies mini-marathon (almost-a-quarter-marathon, whatever you're having yourself) last year and it was definitely a serious race for the frontrunners, many of whom were going for PBs at 10km or stepping on to bigger and/or better things. (entry for this year opens tomorrow, btw)

Further back, it was a fun day out and generally seen as such. A sister was annoyed that she didn't get a clear run until the last few km, but she hadn't planned on running the whole thing anyway. It was an irritation for me to see that hundreds of ladies started walking up to half an hour early or joined the route a few corners down because they didn't want to queue up at the start - behaviour I would consider cheating, but they weren't chipped, they're never going to care about or quote their time and they enjoyed their day, many of them putting in more exercise preparing for it than they would any other time of the year. It is the biggest womens only event in the world, and that can't be bad.

Will the men's event in May be like this? I doubt it.

Was also run in May 2003, it seems : http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=4803

Rusty Cogs 08

While the brain is running.

The marathon by definition equals 26.2 miles. You can have a half marathon or even a quarter marathon but not a mini-marathon. i.e. you can have a donut, and a mini donut is still a donut, just smaller. You can have a chocolate egg, a mini chocolate egg is still a chocolate egg. But you can't have a mini marathon because then it's no longer a marathon as (in running terms) a marathon is totally defined by it's length rather than it's properties. Similarly, you can't have a mini giant, a mini long jump, or a mini OAP (as in 15.48 yo rather than a small old person).

It simply makes no literal sense.

OK rant over.

thirtyfoot

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

While the brain is running.

The marathon by definition equals 26.2 miles. You can have a half marathon or even a quarter marathon but not a mini-marathon. i.e. you can have a donut, and a mini donut is still a donut, just smaller. You can have a chocolate egg, a mini chocolate egg is still a chocolate egg. But you can't have a mini marathon because then it's no longer a marathon as (in running terms) a marathon is totally defined by it's length rather than it's properties. Similarly, you can't have a mini giant, a mini long jump, or a mini OAP (as in 15.48 yo rather than a small old person).

It simply makes no literal sense.

OK rant over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_marathon

If we had the real purists here they would be saying that mass participation has corrupted the marathon concept in that a plodder or slogger who finishes a marathon in 4 or 5 hours cannot be considered a marathoner but that would be them being elitist and probably unfair. Remember that Ian O' Riordan article that caused such a cafuffle a while back.

tunney

Tingle wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_marathon

If we had the real purists here they would be saying that mass participation has corrupted the marathon concept in that a plodder or slogger who finishes a marathon in 4 or 5 hours cannot be considered a marathoner but that would be them being elitist and probably unfair. Remember that Ian O' Riordan article that caused such a cafuffle a while back.

Some would argue that 3 hours is the slowest that a "runner" should do. Had an interesting discussion with a proponent of this theory a while back.

plodder

It sounds a bit like the debate we had with the 15 year old daughter recently.

"What's that you're wearing ???"
"It is a skirt, a mini-skirt"

"That's not a skirt !!!! It's a handkerchief !!!"

So, I guess there's always room for debate on the meaning of words.

shels4ever

tunney wrote: »

Some would argue that 3 hours is the slowest that a "runner" should do. Had an interesting discussion with a proponent of this theory a while back.

Just wondering what what his/her view on the ironman then , was it along the same lines?

Rusty Cogs 08

tunney wrote: »

Some would argue that 3 hours is the slowest that a "runner" should do. Had an interesting discussion with a proponent of this theory a while back.

So I'm picketing the women's 10k with the 'stop calling it a marathon' banner while you can head up to the DCM finish line after 3 hours with the sign, 'you're not runners'.

How popular would we be

tunney

shels4ever wrote: »

Just wondering what what his/her view on the ironman then , was it along the same lines?

He isn't a big fan of them Never asked. Will email him now

tunney

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

So I'm picketing the women's 10k with the 'stop calling it a marathon' banner while you can head up to the DCM finish line after 3 hours with the sign, 'you're not runners'.

How popular would we be

Okay - it actually was a friend not "a friend".

rovers_runner

240 people out of 9300 finished the Dublin marathon in under 3:00hrs.
If <snippety, snip> like Ian O'Riordan had their way then marathons would be run by the elites and bitter little men who turn to the pen when they realised they couldn't cut it on the road.

Let him organise an elite marathon so sure and see how he gets on.

showry

tunney wrote: »

Some would argue that 3 hours is the slowest that a "runner" should do. Had an interesting discussion with a proponent of this theory a while back.

My uncle, a 2:30 marathoner in his day, was stewarding at the national championships a few years back. He was based around the half way point and went home after 90 minutes muttering something about "if they're not here by now they've no business doing it"

Racing Flat

I think you're all being a bit anal - who cares what it's called?

Marathon snobs the lot of you!




And HM - you might be being a bit kind to Sonia. When you refer to her jogginh back after the race to encourage others, this was because people had won a competition to have Sonia pace them in the race. when Sonia turned up at the start and realised that she would more than likely win (no Catherina, or Maria McCambridge who was on fire at the time, but was too late with her entry) decided to race instead. The competition winners had to struggle around pacemaker-less, so Sonia went to helpthem for the last mile or so. Not her greatest hour perhaps.

hunnymonster

Didn't realise that RF.

cfitz

That must have been a different year, coz Maria McCambridge was 3rd the year Sonia ran 31:28.

Stupid_Private

Racing Flat wrote: »

Maria McCambridge who was on fire at the time, but was too late with her entry

Isn't the race organised by her club? Surely they could have sorted out a late entry.

Racing Flat

cfitz wrote: »

That must have been a different year, coz Maria McCambridge was 3rd the year Sonia ran 31:28.

It would have been 2006 I think (or maybe 2005)? Pauline Curley was second anyway. It was not the year she ran 31.28. She was already semi-retired so agreed to this competition. The comp winners were hoping for between 45 and 50 mins I think and the idea was that having Sonia along side them keeping the pace right, they'd reach their goals, but when Sonia realsied she could win she decided to race instead (on the day). In her post-race interview she marvelled at the fact that she won despite the fact that she didn't have her normal gear on as she was not intending to run. She ran around 33mins high IIRC. In her defence she also argued that you couldn't pace someone to 45mins and others to 50mins, but this could have been pointed out beforehand perhaps.

Stupid_Private wrote: »

Isn't the race organised by her club? Surely they could have sorted out a late entry.

The rules were strictly adhered to. Nice to see tbh.

Rusty Cogs 08

showry wrote: »

My uncle, a 2:30 marathoner in his day, was stewarding at the national championships a few years back. He was based around the half way point and went home after 90 minutes muttering something about "if they're not here by now they've no business doing it"

He may of had a point though, should + 3 hr marathoners be competing in the nationals ? I honestly don't know how many run in this race and what their times are like but I imagine if + 3 is of 'national' standard then that's a bit depressing.

I'm not so much a marathon snob as the term itself making no sense. Our cleaning contractors at home are called 'Clean and Glean' which drives me a bit nuts, but that's because in that regard I am anal. Anyhoo :rolleyes: