A/R Awards 2021

Thanks for setting this up again B. I'm gonna need some refreshing on a couple of those.

As for my own running highlight...There's a few...

Starting out with a new coach was a new experience and was interesting to see a different approach.

My first official race in god knows how long when I ran Banna 10k. That was a joy to be back.

Finally...........new shoes.............so many deals....so many runners..........ah......bliss.

Would you not do your own mankini line while you’re at it? 😱

Jaypers, there are more nearly more awards than there are active boardsies at the moment, but I like the Hall of Fame idea. Might as well reward departed posters as well as the rest. 😉

I’ll never be able to unsee that mental image. 🙈

Touché!

Ah, I didn’t have much of a race but certainly Donore H have put Jingle Bells in the frame for race of the year. Big success.

I think it would be great if people could refresh memories - I need it to be honest! Especially with some of the categories like Post of the year, race reports, performances.

Not sure about TbL although he is definitely running (reached 400 consecutive days yesterday). I think the new format is the problem for him!

Shotgun had some injury woes and is up the walls with work, college, kids so I think he has less time for logging these days.

Some performances stand out for me too but i fear im missing some big ones;

Murphs HM, Laineys Manchester, AMK's 5k at the weekend, your marathon. I'm sure there were some TT's that have slipped my memory. I'm sure TbL had a big 5k performance at some point. I feel like i'm forgetting something from Lambay too.

For comebacks - I cant recall if TbL came back last year or this year!

Cant think of any big posts - healys post Manchester one stands out for me.

Race reports - AMK and laineyfrecks stand out but i know im missing ones here too.

Sadly - my thread of the year is probably the what shoes are you wearing!

TBL definitely did a crackin 5k at some stage during the Summer.

Singer is another possibility for come back artist.

Throwing out a few things to revive some memories;

Scott's 5k recently in Tallaght (sub 17) for Most improved.

Djembas post on JK was amazing.

Healys log for the training - the consistency and then facing into the abyss when it went awry.

Lainey - for her enthusiasm and training.

TBL's 5k - comeback of the year??

Murphs training was fantastic and very eloquently elucidated on here - as was his results.

Arianas 34min PB is another standout.

Jezbuz beating Mick C must also be up there for performance of the year.

Hall of Fame is a great idea - might even need anew thread for that one. Krusty / Dublin Runner / Meno / KielyUnusual /

My own year was good for training, poor for Racing but it did hammer home the mental side of racing for me and how important this is. Taking ownership and responsibility for my pwn training again and going back to the principles that work for me is my 'main thing' this year. The Jingle Bells 5k is a validation of that.

Poster of the Year

A lot of early candidates but not many have gone the distance this year. Swashbuckler has done more than most to post insightful stuff and comment on most of the logs, so he'll probably get my vote.

Log of the Year

A few candidates here - AMK; Lainey; Swashbuckler again (maybe a shoo-in if it had been started earlier); Dubh Geannain; ReeReeG - anyone who kept their log going through the 'software update' deserves credit for the perseverance

Thread of the Year

It would have to be one (or all) of Shotgun's challenge threads, which kept things moving during the most difficult part of the year.

Newcomer of the Year

I don't think anyone stands out yet. A lot of the early newcomers didn't make it through to the end of the year. With so little racing, few newcomer performances stand out. Marathon2022 is a possibility with great potential, but it's too early to tell!

Most Improved Runner of the Year

scotindublin? A great run in Tallaght is proof of the pudding.

Race Report of the Year(Real or Virtual)

Jebuz put together a formidable series of reports when racing resumed. Both Lainey and TbL put together memorable accounts of the Antrim Coast event. Ariana's Galway marathon account, as someone pointed out, had all the information you don't get from Strava. And of course AMK has tried harder than most to land the prize.😉 There are several more candidates despite the lack of racing action.

Race of the Year (Real or Virtual).

Jingle Bells felt almost like things were normal again. The Kilbeggan 10 was excellent too, but nowhere near the same scale.

Post of the Year

Yep, I agree with the above - djemba djemba for the eloquent tribute to Jerry Kiernan.

Comeback Lady/Man of the Year.

TbL ain't no lady, and his comeback, while it lasted, was thrilling to behold. A pity the aul luddite couldn't have stuck around to tell us about the descent back into the depths.

Performance of the Year

I'd agree with AMK that jebuz taking down MC was very notable, even if Mick was a bit crocked! There were a few more too. My clubmate MisterDrak had some great results. Scot's aforementioned Tallaght 5k.

Hall of Fame

A lot of candidates for this. All mentioned so far are worthy. I'd throw RayCun into the mix. A real authority on all aspects of the sport in Ireland. Full of insight on club politics, juvenile coaching, and lots more. A great man for deflating a controversial argument with common sense, rational contributions. Excellent runner too!

To reply to your second post, this year was a big year for me personally.

I struggled in 2020, only thing I did of note was that 4//4/48 challenge to keep me ticking over. So in 2021, with no races I decided to try and set some PBs on my own. So in April I ran a 10k and set a new PB, 42:33. Was from 2019 so delighted really. In that same TT, I set a 5k PB of 20:40, first time going sub 21. In September then I ran an actual 5k race and set a new PB again, 20:22. Over the moon. In November I had signed up to the Marathon Mind event, ran by Bressie. Set a new Marathon PB, 3:41. It was a 2 minute PB from 2015 which I had tried to break a few times. Not gonna lie, I was pretty emotional.

So this year was a great year for me, set PBs at the 5k, 10k and Marathon distance.

That's some year all right, well done. It would be good to know more about these sort of performances, otherwise all the nominees tend to be the usual suspects. I'm not familiar with your log, if you have one (the search function in the new Boards is shyte), but really that's how most of us get to know the ins and outs of people's running histories.

I do not have one lads. Ill be honest, I dont really post at all, I just read. Thats my bad though. And part of the reason the forum isnt as busy so if everyoe was as bad as more, it'd die. From next year I will try to do a bit more around posting.

I still dont feel like a 'runner' though and have it in my head I need to go sub 20, sub 40 and sub 3:30 before I can call myself a proper runner.

That used to be my tactic too but it's far less effective on the 'new and disimproved' site, whether you're on a phone or laptop. Too much scrolling and clicking required!

That post from djemba djemba on Jerry was something special.

Totally agree with all the praise for both Shotgun (who is an exceptionally sound lad IRL, as well as a great poster) and Djemba Djemba's post.

I popped in to nominate ED.... (not sure if I got the correct number of dots) for performance of the year. The only problem being he has two awesome performances to choose from. Firstly he went and broke the record for running the length of Ireland, from Mizzen head to Malin head. I know how hard a target he set himself there, and he really put in everything to get the result. So a Guinness world record achieved there.

Then he went and won the Irish 24-hour running championship in less than ideal conditions up in Belfast in October. But he didn't just win it. He destroyed the field and smashed through the 250km barrier to annihilate the Irish record and place himself a step above all his predecessor record holders. He moved the standard of Irish ultrarunning up a notch with that performance.

I find it hard to pick between the 2. They were both tremendous. He's definitely Irish ultrarunner of the year.

My own highlight this year was my whole summer Spine race experience. The first race back after a long gap. Feeling like I had a good body of training done without really knowing how it would apply in reality. The sheer excitement of travelling for a big race (The hugely exotic experience of a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Manchester 😀 )! I was determined to enjoy the experience of running the course in the summer as opposed to battling it in winter. And the weather mostly played ball thankfully. Ended up breaking all my targets and setting a new course record, whilst thoroughly enjoying the entire experience. Just that week alone was enough to make this year a successful one from my own POV. One for the highlights reel for sure.

I'm slow to pick up on this, just had a breakthrough. Just noticed if you click on the poster's icon/picture (as opposed to the username), there's an area showing how many COMMENTS they've made, and if you click on that, it shows you all their recent posts. Looks slightly different on phone vs laptop, but the link is there either way. This is a bit more indirect than it used to be, but not as awkward as I thought. This is the way I keep track of my own posts, for example.

Duh! Everyone probably knew this already. Although the guidance on how to transition to the new way of doing things has been poor.

Agree with all that. It's still two or three clicks replacing the previous one though. That's enough to lose a huge amount of people. From a techology point of view, the capability and features are there, but not the usability. It's a crucial difference.

I'm not having the issue you are with 'up to date' threads, interestingly enough. The experience is probably different across platforms, devices, operating systems. Still a lot to iron out I think.

You got mine yeah?

I've been meaning to put some thought into this but the forum hurts my eyes a little. Lol.

My shouts would certainly include shotguns challenges at start of year. ( post/event/poster of the year). One of my enduring disappointments will forever be the migration deleting the poll on strava art before results were shared.

As ReeRee said return to parkrun has also been nice (sorta!).

Personally, bit of an up and down year. I seemed to spend most of the year trying to keep the wheels on a wobbly wagon. First year since 2012 where I haven’t done a race. I enjoyed my flirtations with 80/20 training plan and will defo return to it.

My main highlight would probably be the February elevation challenge attempt. Running up 3 rock at first light before work was actually a really really nice experience as well as a pretty good work out.

After the events of October, I’ve also been somewhat chuffed to be out on the road at all in the last few weeks, but that’s more of a general feeling than a ‘highlight’ per se.