Dublin Marathon to be sponsored by National Lottery

RayCun

It could be you!

rovers_runner

You forgot to mention that it's going to be live on RTE and RTE.ie


National Lottery Announced as Dublin Marathon Title Sponsor
posted by Unknown at 12:16PM, Wed, Mar 30, 2011
The National Lottery was today announced as the new title sponsor of the Dublin Marathon. This agreement also includes the Race Series, which takes place in the Phoenix Park in July, August and September 2011 in preparation for the main Marathon event.

This announcement was made earlier today by Dublin Marathon Race Director Jim Aughney, in the company of National Lottery Chief Executive, Dermot Griffin.

“We are delighted to have the National Lottery on board as our new title sponsor this year” said Aughney. “They share our vision and aims for the growth of the Dublin Marathon. It is a huge endorsement of what we have achieved to date, and strong support for our development plans, to have such a sponsor involved.”

It was also announced that the 2011 National Lottery Dublin Marathon will be broadcast live on RTÉ Two and streamed worldwide on RTÉ.ie, with an additional highlights package broadcast later that week.

“This is the first time in 20 years that the Dublin Marathon will go out live on television and the National Lottery support has been instrumental in bringing live coverage back. We are greatly appreciative of RTÉ’s commitment (to Dublin) and the ability this now gives us to showcase the National Lottery Dublin Marathon to a wider audience” said Jim Aughney.

Speaking at today’s launch, Dermot Griffin, Chief Executive of the National Lottery said:

‘Through our sponsorship of this year’s Dublin Marathon, we’re hoping to bring a little bit of magic to this event. For a start, we are delighted that our involvement will make it possible for everyone to watch the race live on RTÉ. We are also pleased to help promote this unique sporting event to as many people as possible in the coming months through the associated Race Series’, he finished.

Ryle Nugent, Group Head of Sport, RTÉ said: “As the national public service broadcaster RTÉ is delighted to be broadcasting the National Lottery Dublin Marathon to audiences in Ireland and worldwide with our coverage across television, radio, online and news. With thousands of runners and athletes from both home and abroad competing in the event, this year’s marathon will showcase the athletes’ achievements on both a personal and elite level.”

Last year, a record 13,500 people participated in the Dublin Marathon, and over 20,000 people took part in the Race Series. The economic value of the Dublin Marathon to the city of Dublin over the Bank Holiday weekend is estimated at over €10 million. Aughney says it is impossible to put a value on the benefit to Irish and International charities.

“A huge percentage of the 13,000-plus runners, joggers and walkers who take part in Dublin do so on behalf of a charity” added Aughney. “In times like these, events like the National Lottery Dublin Marathon become even more valuable as a potential fund raiser for charities and good causes around the country”.

The National Lottery Dublin Marathon takes place on Bank Holiday Monday, 31 October 2011.

http://dublinmarathon.ie/news.php?article=342

RayCun

Cool. (I just saw the one-liner on facebook)

nerraw1111

It could be you: the glory or bitter tears of defeat.






Great news though. Should be another record year of entrants

itsalltrue

thats great news.

however i will now have to try harder so i don't look as bad at the end in case the camera gets a quick shot of me.

MaroonTam

So do we get winning tickets in our goodie bags?

Great news to have such a high profile sponsor.

ManFromAtlantis

great news.

TheRoadRunner

Good to see the great hidden tax of the poor and idiotic being invested into something worth while.

tunguska

About time too. Setantas coverage was a bit of a joke.

Krusty_Clown

I wonder how some of the Island's other large marathons are going to react. Cork City Marathon for example, would also be a suitable recipient for National Lottery funding/sponsorship. Dublin is still the national title though, right?

Dotcomdolly

RayCun wrote: »

Cool. (I just saw the one-liner on facebook)

Great that it will be televised, saves me going out to watch
Bring your own jellies luv

TheRoadRunner

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I wonder how some of the Island's other large marathons are going to react. Cork City Marathon for example, would also be a suitable recipient for National Lottery funding/sponsorship. Dublin is still the national title though, right?

Yeah but I think the Peoples Republic of Langers is a separate entity from the Republic of Ireland

Cabaal

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Good to see the great hidden tax of the poor and idiotic being invested into something worth while.

Except its not a tax

To tax (from the Latin taxo; "I estimate") is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.

Last I checked the Lotto is not a requirement of any sort, if people are idiots and want to part with their money who are we to argue?

Anyway to go back on topic, great to see this being on the TV! Lets see I can see myself later :pac:

Hard Worker

The National Lottery Dublin Marathon will have a later start time this year of 10am. This is to facilitate the live coverage of 4 hours ( 9.30am to 1.30pm ).
There will also be a 1 hour highlights programme shown within 7 days.

nerraw1111

I'm sure that postman is feeling like a right idiot.

10am start? Ah crap, I've to meet a friend at 11.03.58. That's me out.

TheRoadRunner

Cabaal wrote: »

Except its not a tax

Thanks for the latin lesson, I feel enlightened. I'll must remember to add inverted commas and rolly eyes for the pedantic.

nerraw1111 wrote: »

I'm sure that postman is feeling like a right idiot.

No probably like the luckiest postman on the planet.

tunguska

Hard Worker wrote: »

The National Lottery Dublin Marathon will have a later start time this year of 10am.

An extra hour in the scratcher..........Im liking this TV thing already.

Cabaal

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Thanks for the latin lesson, I feel enlightened. I'll must remember to add inverted commas and rolly eyes for the pedantic.

No problem, at least you'll know in future sure :P
:pac::pac:

village runner

Hard Worker wrote: »

The National Lottery Dublin Marathon will have a later start time this year of 10am. This is to facilitate the live coverage of 4 hours ( 9.30am to 1.30pm ).
There will also be a 1 hour highlights programme shown within 7 days.

Great for us culchies who travel up on the day.

RacoonQueen

Hard Worker wrote: »

The National Lottery Dublin Marathon will have a later start time this year of 10am.

An hour less in the pub after. Must run an hour faster next year!

AJCOT

Replacing the water stations with complimentary scratch cards seems a bit extreme.

Hard Worker

I forgot to mention that there will be three wave starts.

donothoponpop

Well done on getting live coverage- long anticipated, and will add a lot to the day [size=-5](please no fawning over "celebrities" though RTE!)[/size]

Hard Worker wrote: »

I forgot to mention that there will be three wave starts.

How will this operate/what are the wave times?

Hard Worker

donothoponpop wrote: »

Well done on getting live coverage- long anticipated, and will add a lot to the day [size=-5](please no fawning over "celebrities" though RTE!)[/size]



How will this operate/what are the wave times?

The wave times will probably be in line with the three colour coded start zones last year ( I think sub 3.15, 3.15 to 4 and 4 hours plus ).

The idea of the 1 hour highlights programme will be to show all asects of the event. I'm sure RTE will do a good job.

myflipflops

Great news.

It would be great if they spent some money to get some of our best runners to compete.

It would be brilliant to see Fagan or Cragg or Kenneally or Sweeney (or all 4!) running in Dublin.


Edit: I've just realised that the live RTE coverage will almost certainly mean Jerry Kiernan will be commentating on it. That's 2 and a half hours of him ad libbing on live TV. It has the postential to be classic!

ManFromAtlantis

i always like listening to jerry kiernan. think hes interesting and does'nt sit on the fence.
actually he reminds me of mick dowling (boxing) in his commentary style.

average_runner

Be great if RTE do a big build up like the BBC do for the London Marathon.

ecoli

myflipflops wrote: »

Edit: I've just realised that the live RTE coverage will almost certainly mean Jerry Kiernan will be commentating on it. That's 2 and a half hours of him ad libbing on live TV. It has the postential to be classic!

This will mean some great publicity for ultra running as no doubt he will reckon the winner doesn't have the speed to compete at that level and should look to stepping up in distance in the future.

christeb

RacoonQueen wrote: »

An hour less in the pub after. Must run an hour faster next year!

I recall being the last Oirish left in the bar in Barcelona...... :rolleyes:

menoscemo

christeb wrote: »

I recall being the last Oirish left in the bar in Barcelona...... :rolleyes:

I tried, but I failed
well done cristeb, i'll get you next time.

plodder

AJCOT wrote: »

Replacing the water stations with complimentary scratch cards seems a bit extreme.

Isn't it the case also that games supported by the lottery can't involve tests of skill? They'll just have to pull the winner's number out of a hat. :pac:

Seriously though it's great news. I heard Ian O'Riordan talking about it yesterday. They seem to think 20,000 entrants could be achievable before long.

ManFromAtlantis

ya i'd say numbers will be well up with the advertising the lottery will no doubt be doing.

with a waves start, whats the normal time between starts ? 10 mins? or ?

TheRoadRunner

This is all great news.

Just wondering about the wave start. This may seem a little silly but will there be wave specific clocks on the course?

Most newbies or runners who are doing a marathon as a once off thing like to get a photo of themselves running under the finish line with their time above their head! If wave 3 starts 20 minutes after wave 1 this will obviously distort their photo. I know it's not significant in the grand scale of things but just wondered!

menoscemo

ManFromAtlantis wrote: »

ya i'd say numbers will be well up with the advertising the lottery will no doubt be doing.

with a waves start, whats the normal time between starts ? 10 mins? or ?

I was pacing the Dublin half last year (2hrs) and there were a few minutes between each wave. It was great because we got a nice clear run for a few miles before hitting traffic (started from the front of the third wave). I'd say it will seriously improve the first mile congestion we normally get in DCM.

nerraw1111

From the marathon website.

Looks like everyone with a target of 3.30 starts at the same time. This ever been done elsewhere?

Entrants pick one of three time zones when registering. Runners will start according to their allocated Time Zone. This is to ensure that there is less congestion in the early part of the race and all competitors achieve a smooth and prompt start. The wave system has been tried and tested over the last 3 years in our Race Series and successfully blends participants in mutually competitive groupings.

Under 3 hours 30 minutes (Orange Race number) starting at 10:00am.

3 hrs 30 mins to 4 hrs 15 mins (Green Race number) starting at 10:10am.

Over 4 hours 15 minutes (Blue Race number) starting at 10:20am

itsalltrue

i think it would be a good thing. Last year when we came down Kildare street we were stopped completely at the side entrace to trinity trying to get around the corner. It might ease traffic a small bit to make it easier.

As i hope to break 3:30 will the pacers be at the back of wave 1 or the front of wave 2

RayCun

Last year, the sub 3.30 pacers were at the very front of the 3.30-4.15 pen, but I suppose that may need to be re-examined this year if there's going to be a 10 minute gap between waves.
(I think this year there will be 4.15 pacers too, who will have a similar dilemma)

menoscemo

RayCun wrote: »

Last year, the sub 3.30 pacers were at the very front of the 3.30-4.15 pen, but I suppose that may need to be re-examined this year if there's going to be a 10 minute gap between waves.
(I think this year there will be 4.15 pacers too, who will have a similar dilemma)

Sorry to correct you there Ray, last year the 3:30 pacers were at the back of wave 1.

RayCun

menoscemo wrote: »

Sorry to correct you there Ray, last year the 3:30 pacers were at the back of wave 1.

No problem - I was going from an old post, they were miles away from me!

Krusty_Clown

In NYC marathon there is 30 mins between waves and it works great. Sure you don't get your photo with an accurate finish clock, but you are more than compensated by the fact that you have a bit of space to run on the route (though they are dealing with 48 thousand+ finishers). You don't even enter the corrals before you're assigned time.

TFBubendorfer

menoscemo wrote: »

Sorry to correct you there Ray, last year the 3:30 pacers were at the back of wave 1.

That's correct, we were right at the back of the first corral. But since that was about 2 meters in front of the start of the second corral, that was largely immaterial.

As we were trying to get people under 3:30, if there is a wave start I expect the 3:30 pacers would be starting at the end of wave 1, but that's up to the organisers.

menoscemo

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

As we were trying to get people under 3:30, if there is a wave start I expect the 3:30 pacers would be starting at the end of wave 1, but that's up to the organisers.

Normally I would have agreed, however when i was pacing the Dublin half, i was a bit surprised when they wanted us to start from the Front of Wave 3 (2hrs +).
In fact it worked out much better than going to the back of wave 2 (1.45-2hrs) as we were able to get a much smoother start and only started passing slower runners from the second wave :rolleyes: after a mile or two ( the crowd was much more spread out). That of course should be negated by the fact that people will be assigned start pens and coloured number for the Full based on the their prediction times.

Either way I think the waved start is a great idea.

TFBubendorfer

menoscemo wrote: »

In fact it worked out much better than going to the back of wave 2 (1.45-2hrs) as we were able to get a much smoother start

That's fair enough, I didn't think of that. It's not a deal breaker, though. We lost about 20 seconds in the first mile due to congestion and made that up gradually over the next 4 miles.

As I said, it's up to the organisers. If they wanted you to start at the front of the slower wave in the half I guess they would want the same again for the full.

brownian

nerraw1111 wrote: »

From the marathon website.

Looks like everyone with a target of 3.30 starts at the same time. This ever been done elsewhere?

Entrants pick one of three time zones when registering. Runners will start according to their allocated Time Zone. This is to ensure that there is less congestion in the early part of the race and all competitors achieve a smooth and prompt start. The wave system has been tried and tested over the last 3 years in our Race Series and successfully blends participants in mutually competitive groupings.

Under 3 hours 30 minutes (Orange Race number) starting at 10:00am.

3 hrs 30 mins to 4 hrs 15 mins (Green Race number) starting at 10:10am.

Over 4 hours 15 minutes (Blue Race number) starting at 10:20am

A sub-3 start would be kinda nice - there's a lot of sub 3:30 folks, and people aiming for 2:xx need all the help they can get. I think the category was sub-3:15 when last I ran (2009) and that worked out reasonably, with no major congestion issues.

donothoponpop

menoscemo wrote: »

Normally I would have agreed, however when i was pacing the Dublin half, i was a bit surprised when they wanted us to start from the Front of Wave 3 (2hrs +).
In fact it worked out much better than going to the back of wave 2 (1.45-2hrs) as we were able to get a much smoother start and only started passing slower runners from the second wave :rolleyes: after a mile or two ( the crowd was much more spread out). That of course should be negated by the fact that people will be assigned start pens and coloured number for the Full based on the their prediction times.

Either way I think the waved start is a great idea.

I've been in touch with the organizers over the past couple of days. So, once again, we will be organizing the pacers from these parts, and we'll start lists from about four months out. It will be hard to beat the pacing job from last year, which was excellent, but we'll try and match it at least. There'll be a couple of different things this year, as mentioned above, but we'll deal with them closer the day. As menoscemo says, pacing from the front of the 3:30 wave might be the way to go (nothing decided yet). Also, the new route changes might pose certain challenges, but nothing we can't prepare for in good time.

Looking forward to it now!

Krusty_Clown

New route changes?

donothoponpop

They've condensed the route, using both sides of the road in places (out and back loop in one section). I presume this is a TV thing to increase the number of cheering spectators, although it worked really well for runners when I ran something similar in Rotterdam- you get to see the lead runners go by one side of the road when you run another.

They sent me a new route map, I'll put it up here in a bit.

donothoponpop

[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_oEcvTzEYVmA/TZV7zeFjUlI/AAAAAAAAAXI/LHmjgbahdRI/s640/maramapfinal.jpg" height="640" width="391"[/IMG]

Brianderunner

So are they gonna rename it the UCD marathon now while they're at it. Horrible route.

Its gotta be an april fools day joke.

donothoponpop

Brianderunner wrote: »

So are they gonna rename it the UCD marathon now while they're at it. Horrible route.

But there are long sections through the Park, and along the Crumlin Road, that are very poorly supported in therms of spectators, especially if its a cold and wet October day. I can see the point in wanting to give a larger crowd more to cheer about, especially not that it will be covered on TV and Dublin broadcast to the world etc.

rovers_runner

[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_oEcvTzEYVmA/TZV7zeFjUlI/AAAAAAAAAXI/LHmjgbahdRI/s640/maramapfinal.jpg" height="640" width="391"[/IMG]

Poor wind up, going through a golf course at 7 miles would have been fun though.