Rathfarnham 5k

RayCun

Think Martin Fagan was the winner two years ago, took the course record

Timmaay

In fairness, top 60 all sub 17mins, its still probably has the highest standard of any 5k roadrace here! As Ecoli said, good few other big events on at the minute!

In terms of the registration problems that everyone had, I'd be confident that it can all be solved without too much problem, fair play to Rathfarnham for putting their hands up at the prizegiving and admitting they were overwhelmed!

In terms of the startline, last year there were problems also, I remember an Aircoach somehow ended up driving down in front of the startline, with everyone lined up 5mins before the race started! That sounds like the fault of the gardai in fairness, but its all about communication and setup before the race starts! Clubraces generally work very well without too much setup up to the point of 600 competitors in the race, above this the level of organization rockets up, in terms of traffic management plans/startline pins/registration etc! This is where I hope Rathfarnham can get it right (If you just look at how Raheny do it with their 5miler), or else just limit the competitor numbers to something they can definitely manage correctly, like 800 etc, because it certainly is one of the best 5k courses in the country! I'm far from having a dig at Rathfarnham here but just hope it might be some positive criticism.

Racman

Timmaay wrote: »

In terms of the startline, last year there were problems also, I remember an Aircoach somehow ended up driving down in front of the startline, with everyone lined up 5mins before the race started! That sounds like the fault of the gardai in fairness, but its all about communication and setup before the race starts!
I'm far from having a dig at Rathfarnham here but just hope it might be some positive criticism.

Although I am in the club, I don't speak for it and I was not involved in these aspects of the race. I think your points will be well received and the club always tries to put on a top quality race. In relation to traffic management, the club is heavily reliant on the goodwill of the Garda. The race start time is at the early time of 10.00am as part of the overall compromise that goes on and the Garda have been very co-operative. Part of the course (Templeogue Road) is a national primary route, the N81, and these roads are not supposed to be closed, so it would take only one person in the force to object to bring the whole thing to an end. To have any road closed officially requires going through a huge amount of bureaucracy and expense that would make the race unviable. (And that's a whole different topic that I won't get started on.)

pclaf

Many thanks for your comments on the race. As one of the race organizers I fully agree with the chaos in the registration hall beforehand. If we were doing it again the next day we would do it differently and resolve to do it better next time. Between 8.30 and 9.30 before the race we had nearly 500 picking up their numbers and over 100 more entering on the day. To cap it all we ran out of chipped numbers, hence the wait for some of you. With 720 finishers in 2011 and 1020 in 2012, along with 150 no shows it was a busy few days. Thanks again for your support and see you all in 2013.