10K Charity Run Through The Port Tunnel

darkman2

Sounds like you all had an enjoyable day. What was the tunnel like inside - big, small, long.......? Was it claustrophopic even?!? Must of been a pretty unique experience and a hard enough run at 10km's?:)

fletch

darkman2 wrote:

Sounds like you all had an enjoyable day. What was the tunnel like inside - big, small, long.......? Was it claustrophopic even?!? Must of been a pretty unique experience and a hard enough run at 10km's?:)

I don't know what I was expecting but at the end of the day it was just a tunnel! ....surprised at how short it seemed....like a car will pass through it and get to Santry very quickly.....
Other than that not much to say about it really.

Diamondmaker

I did not get to the start until 5 mins after the start. Discounting this I finished in 51 which for my 1st ever race from the above times seems pretty good.
All the slowers and walkers were a real pain, but to be expected and well within their rights to be there.

Perhaps the foot paths should have been designated "overtaking lanes" I did alot of my running hopping up and down on these.

The Km markers were a dissater. I did not notice one til 4k, it was an A4 sheet stuck to the wall !!

Had good fun all the same, Ill know to get right up the front next start time fro something similar.

Amazotheamazing

Great run, nice t-shirts too and well done to all involved.

Now for some minor criticisms, the kilometre markers could have been more noticeable, and crucially, where was the water? The water station seemed to be out of water when I ran (incredibly slowly) past. I hadn't really expected it to be so hot in there and by the time the water station came around I was soaked from sweat and dying of thirst. I know I should have anticipated the heat and if the run occurs again I'll have the preparation to bring some liquid with me.

Agree with the comments about the walkers, have a right to be there but would it kill them to wait just a few minutes until those of us who want to run it have started?

Novice aged 46

aburke wrote:

I'm sure where you're coming from with this question.

Why do you want to know?
Why do you think you should be informed?
Just curious?

As far as I'm concerned, the race is not mandatory, and if you aren't happy with the cost, you can vote with your wallet.

If Clonliffe Harriers make a packet from this [though I very much doubt it!], best of luck to them!

Just to clarify a couple of points.
No-one has yet answered my first question - how much from each entry fee goes to the nominated charity, "The Mansion House Fuel Fund"? I think that we should be told this - I have met several people who thought that the race was for charity (all proceeds) - which clearly it was not.

Secondly, I have no problem with organisers making a profit from a race, particularly if it goes back into the sport. I do think, however, that for a top of the range fee of €23 (plus booking charge), we were entitled to a top-quality race organisation and this does not appear to have been the case (unless the nominated charity got €10 or more out of every entry - but we don't know that!). The absence of clear distance markers was inexcusable - a basic requirement that is easily dealt with. But I can live with that. Overall it was OK.

fletch

Diamondmaker wrote:

The Km markers were a dissater. I did not notice one til 4k, it was an A4 sheet stuck to the wall !!

I never saw one! Made it quite difficult for judging when to put in more effort and when to conserve etc....Only distance marker I saw was the 3/4 mark on the overhead gantry.

Amazotheamazing

Novice aged 46 wrote:

Just to clarify a couple of points.
No-one has yet answered my first question - how much from each entry fee goes to the nominated charity, "The Mansion House Fuel Fund"? I think that we should be told this - I have met several people who thought that the race was for charity (all proceeds) - which clearly it was not.

Secondly, I have no problem with organisers making a profit from a race, particularly if it goes back into the sport. I do think, however, that for a top of the range fee of €23 (plus booking charge), we were entitled to a top-quality race organisation and this does not appear to have been the case (unless the nominated charity got €10 or more out of every entry - but we don't know that!). The absence of clear distance markers was inexcusable - a basic requirement that is easily dealt with. But I can live with that. Overall it was OK.

Well, the Lord Mayor seemed happy enough with the amount going to charity, and even if it isn't a majority percentage, the rest of the money will be going to supporting running in Dublin, and helping Clonliffe's athlete's compete at away events, I doubt any is going to buy new cars for the organisers or yachts for the stewards.

plodder

Novice aged 46 wrote:

Just to clarify a couple of points.
No-one has yet answered my first question - how much from each entry fee goes to the nominated charity, "The Mansion House Fuel Fund"? I think that we should be told this - I have met several people who thought that the race was for charity (all proceeds) - which clearly it was not.

Secondly, I have no problem with organisers making a profit from a race, particularly if it goes back into the sport. I do think, however, that for a top of the range fee of €23 (plus booking charge), we were entitled to a top-quality race organisation and this does not appear to have been the case (unless the nominated charity got €10 or more out of every entry - but we don't know that!). The absence of clear distance markers was inexcusable - a basic requirement that is easily dealt with. But I can live with that. Overall it was OK.

I doubt that the organisers were making any profit. I agree though, it would be nice to know exactly how much went to the charity. It would be absurd to think that it would all go to charity though. This was a once off event, with its own problems. Do you really need water for a 10k ??

I have to say though, I do have a beef with activeeurope.com. They seem to charge 10% of the basic entry fee for all events, which is a lot of money, particualrly for costly events like the Dublin Marathon.

DaveH

Novice aged 46
Why are you asking these questions on this forum? No one from the organising committe has made any posts on this forum(to my knowledge). The most amount of information on the race has came from myself! Again I will state I am not a member of Clonliffe Harriers, My out involvement in the race was running it.
If you are that interested why have you not contacted?
Clonliffe Harriers?
Dublin City Council
Dublin Port Company?

Speaking to an orgainsier, this race was far more difficult than a standard Road Race to organize. First instance is Dublin City Council and Dublin Port Co. Denied Any entry forms being handed out, thus entries were only accepted via activeeurope.com.

There were also restrictions on what could be placed in the tunnel.

johnnyrotten

Diamondmaker wrote:

The Km markers were a dissater. I did not notice one til 4k, it was an A4 sheet stuck to the wall !!

There are markers on the wall every 100 metres

aoa321

It sounds like the atmosphere on the run was magic, a real on-off, and that it was organised very well, one or two problems but it's difficult to get everything right. Now I don't wish to spoil an otherwise good thread by concentraing on the negative, but ....

DaveH wrote:

Novice aged 46
Why are you asking these questions on this forum?

Could I politely suggest that the reason he may have asked the question on this forum is that he thought someone that uses the forum might know the answers !! After all that's the point of the forum, to tap into a communal pool of knowledge. He could have gone and contacted the people listed but then again there are many other circumstances where posters could go and find out information for themselves. Surely part of the point of the forum is that we don't have to, and there are people out there who are generous enough to share thier knowledge of many subjects with other users.

I get the feeling that some people don't think he should even have the cheek to ask where the money has gone. Personally I don't care if it's gone to charity, The Clonliffe Harriers or whoever else, I still think Novice's question is fair enough.

If people don't know the answer no problem, but in my opinion it's a valid question and it's fair enough that he asks it on this forum. The only thing I could possibly fault him for is the fact that maybe he sould have started up a new thread on the subject.

aburke

Thanks for a great race, certainly a once off.

I even got a mention from the commentator at the start line!
I actually had a stinker of a race and finished outside 40 mins for the first time in about 5 races.

I guess everyone was surprised by how hot it was in the tunnel. I'd imagine you'd only know this after running through it.

Not everything was perfect, I didn't spot any KM markers either, but then again, it wasn't like they could stick them in the ditch!
Maybe the overhead displays could have been used better for this..

I was up at the business end of things [kind of!], so not too many complaints from me re Water, Handing out goodie bags, etc

I can only imagine it was mayhem later on, but I 'm glad that the numbers were as high as they could manage.
It would have been easy to limit numbers to about 2000, and run it better.
But we'd never hear the end of complaints of people who could't get in [I'd be the first to start bitchin'!]

For a once off effort, with such a short time for good preparation, it was very well done.
The first thing to do after organising a race is see how it could be improved for next time, but the organisers didn't have such an opportunity!

It is IMPOSSIBLE line people up as the start of any race more than 25 people, and give them all a fair start.
The organisers did make it clear that walkers should be nowhere near the front, for their own safety really.


Novice aged 46.
I've never seen any indication that all proceeds would go to charity.
The fee was a LONG LONG way from top of the line, [Dublin Marathon was circa € 50 ] More than most road races, sure, but not a huge amount more, and it was said that at least some of the fee would go to charity.

I had heard a rumour that the planned entry fee would be € 250, and that it would be nothing but a charity event, ie Not a road race really.

Be thankful for small mercies!

Pherekydes

Good to see it got a mention on the news last night (RTE, 9PM). A pity they couldn't even get the winner's name correct. It was Rob Connolly, not Donnelly.

He was finished before I reached halfway! :eek:

I'd just like to reiterate some of the points already made:

Well done and thanks to Clonliffe Harriers for organising the race. The KM markers were a bit hard to spot. It was very warm on the northbound leg. The fresh air was as cool and sweet as it could possibly be at the halfway turnaround! (I was born in Santry). The atmosphere was electric.

I didn't do a sufficient amount of training and paid for it, though it doesn't help being 50 lbs over your age 30 racing weight! I'm fairly stiff, especially the calves, though not as stiff as I thought last night.

Time to start preparing for the next one...



(I hope it's not a tunnel under the Irish Sea)

quozl

According to the rte 6 and 9 o'clock news the race raised over 50k for charity. That seems pretty good to me! Especially as I'd imagine insurance was sky-high.

I really enjoyed it. Only complaint would be the bloody walkers again, but that's nobody's fault but theirs. What are people in full hiking gear doing 10 meters from the starting line! At least once the road widened after the starting line I could leg it past them all and get into the tunnel ahead of them

The 2 big roars were amazing - sounded like an avalanche coming up behind me. It certainly didn't sound human with all the echoing distorting it. Magic.

Kudos to the organisers, I think they did a great job especially considering all the muppets who wouldn't obey instructions. They were even lining up on the wrong road at the start and ignoring the poor announcer who I thought was gonna have a heart attack )

Diamondmaker

johnnyrotten wrote:

There are markers on the wall every 100 metres

Reading all the other posts it seems that the dist markers were not noticed by any one else.

Also 100 metere marks are of little use when its that crowded you would lose count so easily with all the ducking and diving.

How hard would a sapnning piec of rope evry Km over head with a clear sign of been.

Absolutley my only complaint from the day, I had a great time. Legs are not half as bad as I thought. I really put in some work on my trade mark hill climb. I wish all races finished like that I really make ground on them!

Redfraggle

Hey All,

I really enjoyed the run. I missed the 1st km marker but spotted the rest of them easily enough. I think the reason why I found it easy to see them was I started near the front (1st 1000 I'd say) and the tunnel wasn't too crowded... Also I knew to look for them every 4 mins or so. Saying that I can see how so many people missed them... A4 sheets of paper wasn't good enough really..

Still though hats off to the organisers for what must have been a logistical nightmare. The baggage area was perfect, far better than expected. We all knew beforehand that there would be a certain amount of hanging around beforehand so people can't really complain about the wait for the start. If you're told beforehand that you will have to wait 45 mins to start then you really shouldn't complain when thats exactly what happens. Anyway the starter let us off on time and even kept us entertained for the last 10 mins before the gun went off...:)

On the money issue I'm delighted that Clonliffe make some money out of this as it must have taken thousands of (unpaid) man hours to organise. Also these clubs in general are so underfunded that any initiative to raise money themselves instead of simply putting their hands out has to be applauded.

Overall delighted with the run - Got 38.28 which was under my target of 40 mins. Tshirt and medal look pretty nice as well so big thumbs up from me...

Red:D

SharkTale

Did the run myself, great day out as with the other comments,
The heat in the tunnel was unreal, no distance markings and the noise in the tunnel spooky.... always hard running with walkers.....but that is life, I always try and get up the front at the start of the race, learned my lesson after my last BUPA run, try dodging people walking with baby push chairs and oblivious to people running behind them....

sim2

Have to say I am very glad I did the race. However I knew I was going to have to walk so stayed near the back!
There were 10,000 people who entered the race and that was the limit that was to be allowed. So I would like to know why those who had done the 10k who were near the end, say the last 1,000, got different medals?
Overall great day, I would have loved to know where I was under as the tunnel goes under my road!

All in all, well done Clonliffe!:p

P.S: are all the pieces of clothing that were left behind going to be laundered and given to the homeless?

bullrunner

I enjoyed doing the race. I knew that there would be a crazy amount of people and that i wouldnt be doing any spectacular times...ended up running around 52 mins...split of 30 (!) and 22....just so many people at the first half that i couldnt get into a proper rythm for any length of time. I also found it very hot...but brought my own water so wasnt too bad. Felt they should posted the km markers on the overhead message boards..would have made more sense...

Overall it was good craic...atmosphere was terrific (a real once off). Only negatives (if at all) was that there were too many people there (which was known b4 hand) and that the km markers were too small/badly placed to see properly (not that it mattered too much coz we knew how far we were running anyway!)

poolboy

Have been reading posts on this site since i entered for the race but only registered today to say how dissapointed i am to see all the negative comments following the event. I want to say very well done to clonliffe for organising the third largest race in ireland that i can think of in such a short time in a location that was a complete unknown before this. It was only 10k if you need water for this distance your not properly prepared. Clonliffe cannot be blamed for peoples stupidity as regards walking from the front. If you cant afford the entry fee dont enter. One guy complained about the cold when between tunnels on the turn PLEASE. Thanks again Clonliffe members and all involved.

Mec-a-nic

Diamondmaker wrote:

How hard would a sapnning piec of rope evry Km over head with a clear sign of been.

Eh, quite hard, it's an underground tunnel with a lot of water outside it! I don't think they wanted to drill any holes for banners in case of more leaks!
Every connection through the wall had a square, steel plate with multiple bolts and seals behind it.

As a walker, I was looking out for the expected-time corrals at the start and tried to keep at the back. However by the time the race started I'm guessing there were 2000 people behind me, so sorry for that.

I couldn't get over the amount of discarded clothing on the first leg, but the return tunnel had the ventilation turbines on so was a bit cooler (as well as a tailwind).

Overall we had a great time at this race/run/walk, and it did seem pretty well organised considering the numbers of entrants and the awkward staging area (basically a motorway on-ramp).

There are some photos here: http://dublinblog.ie

cantswim

In fairness I think while most people (including myself) did reasonably point out things that could have been done better or where other people (such as walkers up at the front) could have been more considerate, they also did thank clonliffe on a job very well done. I think if it was an annual event clonliffe would appreciate this kind of feedback so the event could become even better.

But agree that mentioning the cold going between tunnels just after half way or expecting to have somewhere warm to wait before hand is stretching expectations for a voluntary organisation a tad far!

sim2

Poolboy,

you said in your reply that if you needed water for a 10K that you weren't properly prepared. That's all very well if you are going to do it in 30 minutes or so..sure then you don't need water cos you'll get it at the finish. But if you are going to take just a little bit longer and in the sauna-like conditions of the first tunnel, surely it is a good idea to take in liquids?
As I said previously I knew I had to walk the distance and I didn't actually see a water station!
But you soldier on...and as for complaining about the cold at the change over..just be grateful (1) you didn't have to run the whole thing in that cold and (2) that it wasn't raining!

ardmore02

Hi, I agree with a few of you regarding a well organised race and that you can't blame the organisers for walkers up the front. These 2 women were in the front row (before the elite athletes arrived) talking about being in a prime position for the photos at the start. Unbelieveble!!! Also there were alot of non elite athletes allowed to pass up to the front because there mates were stewarts.

poolboy wrote:

It was only 10k if you need water for this distance your not properly prepared.

Poolboy, I was very well prepared, having completed two marathons this year, and continue long milage training, but I have to disagree with you here. I was dying for a drink and actually grabbed 2 cups as I do in the marathon. I wasn't aware that they were going to run out of water which I was shocked at seeing as they new how many athletes were taking part.
And I'm sure a lot of people weren't well prepared. Afterall it was a fun run wasn't it and I think it was many peoples first 10km.

Well done to the Clonliffe and whoever actually thought of the idea. Great day.

TimG

Well done clonliffe, well organized. I was frozen alive from standing around before the race, but am glad i only had a singlet on during the race, it was great to have a warm summers day alike race in the middle of this crap winter. I didn't notice any of the 1k markers! that my only minor complant, but not worry, it wasn't ment to be a serious race anyway. I got over the walker problem by hopping in with the elite at the start, although I was a bit off their pace with 37mins. It was a brilliant day, and come on, make it an annual event!!!, It could easly be run on new years day, when there would be little or no traffic in the tunnel.

cantswim

It could easly be run on new years day

good idea. would be a great way for the city to kick off the new year. i'm sure a nominated charity wouldn't mind the funds raised either.

Diamondmaker

100% do it again!!

NYD is ideal Easter Sunday or the like.

Amazotheamazing

On the water, usually I wouldn't need water on a 10k, but the heat in there was literally incredible, the 9 people I knew running it all felt it quite strongly.

TimG

Is there any chance of results going online, although its probably too soon to expect conliffe to have got all 10,000 results together! Hopefully they managed to get the top few hundred results accurate enough.

John_C

Well done to everyone who helped organise it. It was a unique experience.

I found the hills a killer. There was something unnatural about running for 2 miles up a uniform slope like that. I'm not out of shape (I did the marathon last month) but between the hills and the heat (which I was completly unprepared for, I had a long sleved base layer with a cotton t-shirt over it stupidly thinking it would be cold) I was completly shatterd at the end. It was like going on a warm weather training run and I really enjoyed the unexpected challenge.

If I may make some constructive suggestions for if the race is run annualy (which I hope it is):

Maybe ask walkers and joggers to keep to the left hand lane. That's standard motorway etiquette and I think that it should be possible to move 10,000 people along a 2 laned road.

Start the race 100 yards into the tunnel so as we have a roof over our heads before we start.