10K Charity Run Through The Port Tunnel

fletch

John_C wrote:

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.

Never gona work in practice....drive down any motorway for a few hundred yards and you'll see idiots hogging the outside lane thinking they are Michael Schumacher....it's gona be the exact same with the walkers.

daymobrew

Redfraggle wrote:

I really enjoyed the run. I missed the 1st km marker but spotted the rest of them easily enough.

I wasn't near the front - took me 2:30 to cross the start line - and I spotted all but the 4km marker. I too kept a lookout every 4 mins, though I will admit that you could easily miss them.

The roars coming along the tunnel were freaky.

ardmore2 wrote:

Afterall it was a fun run wasn't it and I think it was many peoples first 10km.

As a runner it can be frustrating when non-runners get in the way, but, especially for this special race, one just has to accept that it will happen.

The surface was lovely and it was a fast race, especially the long downhill in the return tunnel.

pepsi

Hi

I had a brilliant time on Sunday, was persuaded to enter four weeks ago and so had only that time to train (only getting into this running business!). Did it in 1hr 8mins so delighted with self!

Noticed a lot of photograhers - especially towards the end - any know where we can look at the photos?

Alma

Re "Noticed a lot of photograhers - especially towards the end - any know where we can look at the photos?"

......asiphoto.net usually show photo's from sporting events. They may take about a week to be posted though

jlang

Really enjoyed it myself. Just under the hour for my first ever run under race conditions, which I was happy with. I started near the middle (2mins on clock at line) and ran the whole way out, turned at 28mins, but then I did have to slow to a walk a couple of times on the way back - I presume I'm not one of the evil walkers that are getting such abuse up the thread?

I didn't see any race-related distance markers, but I was tracking myself by the road traffic signs anyway. Each bore has yellow signs for "4km to end", "3km to end" etc on the left wall - they're obvious if you know/think to look for them, but it seems many didn't notice them.

Anyway, well done to the organisers!

(Apart from the water stop, although I was glad I didn't need any - why bother having one if you're going to run out of water halfway through and make hundreds of those who do get there in time queue to get a cup filled. The only people who got a smooth cup of water seem to have been the quickest guys at the front who shouldn't have needed it.)

Now to pick out another race in a couple of months so I'll have some target to aim for.

Hard Worker

I am a member of Clonliffe Harriers and I can respond to a few points - although not necessarily on behalf of the Club.
It is understandable that people will ask "where is all the money going?". It is also obvious that people do not realise what is involved in organising an event of this size. To the best of my knowledge, the Lord Mayor's charity will get approx €50000 from the proceeds of the entry fees. Some of the large bills would be for toilets, communications system, T shirts, medal, insurance, post and packing, printing, stewards equipment, security and safety and many more that I just can't list. We also had 50 people working on Saturday preparing the whole area. These people deserved the cup of tea and sandwich, as did the 300 volunteers who worked a full Sunday. Some professional people gave their free time in order to keep costs down so that the charity would at least get the hoped for €50000. I'm not sure what money will be left when all the bills are paid but it is likely that Clonliffe Harriers will get something. I won't make any apologies to anyone if they do. Clonliffe is one of the biggest clubs in the country and if you come along any Tuesday or Thursday evening to Morton Stadium you will see the 150 kids that we are keeping off the streets. Any money left over will help to make sure that we can coach these to the best of their abilities and give them a healthy lifestyle. It will also help our senior mens team compete against the best in Europe at the European Clubs Championship.
On the race itself, I'm delighted that most people had a great day. Obviously, not everything was perfect, but we were going into new ground and the race had to be organised in such a short period. That is one of the reasons for using activeeurope.com. There was no way that we could have processed 10000 postal entries. ActiveEurope are the best at online entries and it made our admin a lot easier. We could have made the event more jazzy and put more money into it, however, we were mindful that the Lord Mayor's charity had to be well looked after.
We learned a lot from the event and would do a better job the next time. However, there won't be a next time, unfortunately.

DaveH

Well said Hard Worker.
On the track I might not like your singlet but there is not doubt that Clonliffe Harriers did an excellent job.
One of the brightest points I saw was Killian Longergan and Cian McLoughlin stewarting. I do know both lads and know they are very nice people. I was happy to see them helping out because
Killian was third in the national long course, and cian won the national marathon. The major majority of the crowd wouldnt know either of them, but they gave up their time proving it was a day for everyone, one of the days when sport crosses all barriers.
Also I saw the wider dublin athletic comunity at work. I saw members of DSD, Raheny Shamrock, Rathfarnham, Liffey Valley and DCH helping out. Which was a very nice touch.
Clonliffe deserve all the credit here. I know the work that goes into the Raheny 5, which takes 2,000 people and we advertise nearly 2 months in advance. The work that goes into orgainising a one off race with 5 times the crowd can not be understated.


VERY WELL DONE!

daymobrew

Well said, well done Hard Worker.
The logistics in something of this size is immense. (I was recently helping with stuffing 8000 single sheet letters into envelopes - it's extremely time consuming!!)

We were unlucky with the cold gale force wind outside. Many people, myself included, dressed for the 1 hour pre-race wait and were quite warm inside the tunnel, but a 10k is a relatively short distance.

The medal looks good. The t-shirt too. Thanks for all your work.
It's such a lovely fast course I'd love to have been able to properly race it, but I accepted beforehand that that was not going to be possible and just enjoyed the uniqueness of it.

sim2

Hardworker, you live up to your name after last Sunday!
I think I have an idea why the walkers got mixed up with runners. About 10-15 minutes from the start, some of the runners (who were real authentic competitive runners) were trying to get up near the front by walking up the grass verge. But they were being ushered off the grass verge, for Health & Safety, into the crowd halfway down. At that stage they couldn't move up the field, while on the road. I know that I spoke to the guy standing behind me and he said he was running and we were down at the FM104 van. So I moved back down the field. After my toilet stop at the first Portaloo in the tunnel, I was at the very end of the field!!!!

Could you answer my previous question about the difference in medals?

Overall though it was a part of Dublin history and it was great to be a part of it!

WELL DONE!

Amazotheamazing

So, there's no chance of this becoming an annual thing?

Pity, it seems to be a great way to raise money for the Lord Mayor's charity.

ZiggyStardust

Hi,
The photos from the tunnel run are ready on ASIPHOTO.

http://www.asiphoto.net/recent_events+M55001e27b22.html

Dave

ChickenTikka

Not sure if this question has been asked/answered already ... is it planned to have the full or partial results of the race available. I know that with 10000 people in it, its not easy to get results up. But maybe the first 500 or 1000 would be possible?

Thought the race was an enjoyable experience - probably wouldn't describe it as an interesting run though, I'd prefer to have a bit of view when running, but the experience was unique. I made sure to get a good starting position and didn't experience much delay at the start (downside of this was that it meant standing around for 90 minutes before the race but it was worth it to get close to the front - about 10 rows of people back from the actual start). So when I got into the first 2k of the tunnel, the runners were well scattered - 1 or 2 runners every 10 metres or so. As a result, I didn't notice anything at all with the heat - it seemed normal enough to me, neither warm or cold. But I can understand if there were plenty of people around me, it would be warmer, less air circulating and maybe claustraphobic.

I loved the finish of the race - really testing. Feeling a little sadistic now saying this as it was a painful finish. But some of the photos on www.asiphoto.net are great as a result. The finish gave new meaning to the phrase "light of at the of the tunnel".

Well done to the organisers and I think it would be nice to have it as an annual event. When you think about it, its possibly the only race in the country where you can guarantee that the race conditions are going to be pretty much identical each year. So it would be a nice one to measure progress year on year. (provided of course you get up into the front few hundred runners so as not to get blocked in!)

I didn't notice any of the KM markers. While I didn't take water at the water station, I only noticed 1 station at around 7k or so and thought maybe it should have been a little earlier. Maybe at the turnaround at the far side of the tunnel.

So well done Clonliffe, and please try to get partial results onto the Web.

plodder

Anyone know what's happened about the results? The info page
on clonliffeharriers.com said they would be posted there and also
on the dublinporttunnel.ie, but I don't see anything.