Tallaght AC 5k 5th May

ecoli

Change in distance and time of year for this race (used to be a 5 miler)

Last years Thread

http://www.activeglobal.com/images/uploads/FileLib/187682_0322213604.jpg

Course is to be finalized but I am pretty sure its going to be roughly 1 lap of the 5 mile route

(Should give you an idea)
http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/53256796/?open_ive_done=1&new_route=1

blockic

Wise decision by the AC to organise it when meno won't be around. :pac:

chrissymc

Why has it changed to 5k? I liked it being 5 mile, theres too few of them around and i got 2nd in my age group last year, was hoping to better it this year. I'll still enter it though.

davemcmahon

have signed up for this. I grew up just off the Greenhills Road so looking forward to the chance to run it.

ecoli

ecoli wrote: »

Course is to be finalized but I am pretty sure its going to be roughly 1 lap of the 5 mile route

(Should give you an idea)
http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/53256796/?open_ive_done=1&new_route=1

Looks like the course will start on the Airton Road and come down to the club and then be one lap of the five mile meaning should be very fast for the first 2 mile with a drag on the last mile up the Greenhills Road

Birdie Num Num

Would love to give this one a try particularly as it's a club organised race but away that weekend. Got some good runners at the 5 miler last year too.

Donore Harriers

Tallaght AC 5K on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/events/450962421649004/?ref=22

pad-cam

great club race thanks to everyone from tallaght

chrissymc

I really enjoyed the race, stewards were excellent, always a good atmosphere at the Tallaght races, thanks for a great race day. and i went better this year too i got a 1st!! so not so bad it changed from a 5mile to 5k!

epo addict

Well organised race. Great work by all at Tallaght AC

It annoys me that runners don't support the club races.

Any money made from club road races goes back into the running of the clubs, helping Irish Athletics.

Corporate races, mickey mouse events and fun runs are killing the club races.

Lucan 5k, Terenure 5, Raheny 5, Rathfarnham 5k, Tallaght 5k, Jingle bells and BHAA races are where our entries should be going.

Not Samsung, Bupa, Rock n Roll, Bay runs, Docklands

CLUBS NEED OUR SUPPORT

tunguska

epo addict wrote: »

Well organised race. Great work by all at Tallaght AC

It annoys me that runners don't support the club races.

Any money made from club road races goes back into the running of the clubs, helping Irish Athletics.

Corporate races, mickey mouse events and fun runs are killing the club races.

Lucan 5k, Terenure 5, Raheny 5, Rathfarnham 5k, Tallaght 5k, Jingle bells and BHAA races are where our entries should be going.

Not Samsung, Bupa, Rock n Roll, Bay runs, Docklands

CLUBS NEED OUR SUPPORT

+1. Race calender is nuts at the moment. Clubs need to support each other, its the only way a club race can survive in the current climate.

Timmaay

epo addict wrote: »

Lucan 5k, Terenure 5, Raheny 5, Rathfarnham 5k, Tallaght 5k, Jingle bells

You've rattled off 6 big races that I think would make an excellent Dublin Road race league, each which would help eachothers numbers as athletes would want to complete in more of them to finish the league. Combining efforts in terms of promotion (ie one league poster, that all the clubs distribute, instead of 6 clubs pushing 6 different posters) would allow the league to compete against the likes of the big corporate races such as the GIR/rock and roll etc.

Krusty_Clown

Timmaay wrote: »

You've rattled off 6 big races that I think would make an excellent Dublin Road race league, each which would help eachothers numbers as athletes would want to complete in more of them to finish the league. Combining efforts in terms of promotion (ie one league poster, that all the clubs distribute, instead of 6 clubs pushing 6 different posters) would allow the league to compete against the likes of the big corporate races such as the GIR/rock and roll etc.

Was just thinking that very same thing. A league among the club 5k races seems the best solution to bring numbers back. Club 5k races are also competing with the Park runs these days though. Over the weekend, Marlay Park had 349 runners and Malahide had 508 runners. Shortly Griffeen Park will be starting up and you can expect a further 250-300 runners weekly. That's 1,000+ potential runners out of the system. I know the target profile isn't exactly the same, but still, it's hard to compete with 'free'.

Instead of having 6+ 5k club races in close proximity, may make more sense to have some of them re-focus on other distances, like 3k, 4 mile, 5 mile.

tunguska

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Was just thinking that very same thing. A league among the club 5k races seems the best solution to bring numbers back. Club 5k races are also competing with the Park runs these days though. Over the weekend, Marlay Park had 349 runners and Malahide had 508 runners. Shortly Griffeen Park will be starting up and you can expect a further 250-300 runners weekly. That's 1,000+ potential runners out of the system. I know the target profile isn't exactly the same, but still, it's hard to compete with 'free'.

Instead of having 6+ 5k club races in close proximity, may make more sense to have some of them re-focus on other distances, like 3k, 4 mile, 5 mile.

I think a league is the way to go, I mean they do it very successfully down the country. The meath series is top class. I know the idea has been proposed before, phil from sportworld was trying to get it going a while back, think the response was poor from clubs for whatever reason.

TRR

There is an effort of some sort to go this way. The lucan race is actually apart of it see the website here http://www.rundublin.ie/

NiallG4

epo addict wrote: »

Well organised race. Great work by all at Tallaght AC

It annoys me that runners don't support the club races.

Any money made from club road races goes back into the running of the clubs, helping Irish Athletics.

Corporate races, mickey mouse events and fun runs are killing the club races.

Lucan 5k, Terenure 5, Raheny 5, Rathfarnham 5k, Tallaght 5k, Jingle bells and BHAA races are where our entries should be going.

Not Samsung, Bupa, Rock n Roll, Bay runs, Docklands

CLUBS NEED OUR SUPPORT

Could not agree more. We have been debating this for the past year. Up our way in Dundalk, there is nearly a race or 2 every weekend. The commercial races fill up straight away at €20+ and the club races at €12-€15 struggle. Not sure what the solution is. The reality is that some of the commercial races offer a decent package (good course, decent field, t-shirt and extras) and it does attract the club runners. A starting point is for each club to encourage its members to support their fellow local clubs races.

Timmaay

TRR wrote: »

There is an effort of some sort to go this way. The lucan race is actually apart of it see the website here http://www.rundublin.ie/

No offence if you are involved with the above races, but the only one that appears to be a club race is the lucan race.

I can see why the clubs would be slow enough to go with a league, Anyone who is involved with clubs knows the amount of unpaid hours that go into clubs and club races in particular can be stressful times for all involved, incorporating a league would involve an extra workload the 1st few years, and possible headaches if it is not done correctly. Having the likes of the Dublin Athletics board involved in helping co-ordinate would be a start, I'll admit however that they appear to under pressure in regards resources and effort as they are a voluntarily committee also.

TRR

Timmaay wrote: »

No offence if you are involved with the above races, but the only one that appears to be a club race is the lucan race.

I can see why the clubs would be slow enough to go with a league, Anyone who is involved with clubs knows the amount of unpaid hours that go into clubs and club races in particular can be stressful times for all involved, incorporating a league would involve an extra workload the 1st few years, and possible headaches if it is not done correctly. Having the likes of the Dublin Athletics board involved in helping co-ordinate would be a start, I'll admit however that they appear to under pressure in regards resources and effort as they are a voluntarily committee also.

None taken and I'm involved in any of them but good point. I bet though that this will help Lucan's number this year though. I've seen lots of ladies out jogging in the tee shirts that accompany this series.

I realsie we are dragging the Tallaght race threat slightly off topic but I ran it myself, it's organised by my club and if I'm honest I don't think advertising was a good as it could have been.

However I was out Sunday night and was chatting to a few of my wife's friends who are mad into running/jogging since the turn of the year. They've ran the "run with ray 5k", a couple of parkruns, the samsung nightrun. They also plan on doing the docklands and rock 'n' roll half when I asked why they hadn't run the Tallaght race they gave the usual answer that it was a club race and they would have been last etc. That's the biggest stumbling block in my opinion. Even if club runners had of came out and supported the Tallaght race it would have only brought the field up to about 200 or so at best. If you want to get up to 500 you need to do things like Le Cheile's 5k race and be famous for a good post race spread etc.

Don't worry I'll be passing on my comments to the club committee, although not too vigorously or I'll end up race director next year

emerald007

Timmaay wrote: »

No offence if you are involved with the above races, but the only one that appears to be a club race is the lucan race.

I would say 6 of the seven are club races - see the sites below

Lucan 5k - http://www.lucanharriers.com/
Terenure 5 - http://www.sportsworld-terenure.ie/
Raheny 5 - http://www.rahenyshamrock.ie/
Rathfarnham 5k - http://www.athleticsrathfarnham.ie/
Tallaght 5k - http://www.tallaghtac.ie/
Jingle bells - http://www.donoreharriers.com/home.php

TRR

emerald007 wrote: »

I would say 6 of the seven are club races - see the sites below

Lucan 5k - http://www.lucanharriers.com/
Terenure 5 - http://www.sportsworld-terenure.ie/
Raheny 5 - http://www.rahenyshamrock.ie/
Rathfarnham 5k - http://www.athleticsrathfarnham.ie/
Tallaght 5k - http://www.tallaghtac.ie/
Jingle bells - http://www.donoreharriers.com/home.php

I think he was referring to the link I put up for rundublin.ie

pconn062

One problem I think now is that people expect so much more from a race. An accurate course with good competition and a cup of tea afterwards is now good enough anymore. Now you seem to need t-shirts, goodie bags full of crap, multiple waterstops (in a 10k??), medals and all that stuff. In order to pay for all these things these commercial races drive up the price with 25-30 euro normal for a 10k. Clubs cannot compete with this as they usually charge much less without all that nonsense and that puts off the non club runners (as well as the standard as TRR said). So should the clubs adapt and start including all these things and jack up the price?

We had our first committee meeting the other night for our road race (The Dunleer AC 4 mile) and discussed whether we should increase the price and include t-shirts or keep the same price and leave them out. In the end we decided to do without the t-shirts and keep the same reasonable price for which you get a good accurate course, water and something to eat at the finish and then all you eat afterwards in the pavillion centre as well as the full range of prizes in all age groups and teams. But who knows if we've made the right decision, maybe t-shirts is the way to go to attract the more casual runner? Or will this new fad in commercial races and running boom die away soon?

Timmaay

emerald, I was talking about the rundublin.ie league.

TRR wrote: »

although not too vigorously or I'll end up race director next year

Ha I well know the feeling, found myself doing alot of race results for our league in Wicklow! Just on the whole "too fast for me" brigade, this is where careful enough promotion comes into play, our (Sli Cualanns) Co Wicklow Fit4Life league is so called to try and be as inclusive as possible. The actual club athletes know whats what anyways, so the name for us is fairly irrelevant.

Just on the Tallaght 5k, were you's disappointed with the turnout? Changing the time of year, and distance probably threw quite a few people (me for one I'll admit), the likes of rathfarmham could do zero promotion and still get 500 athletes to its 5k every year, consistency and reputation are the easiest and cheapest way to promote a race.

Timmaay

pconn062 wrote: »

So should the clubs adapt and start including all these things and jack up the price?

Arghhhhhh NO NO NO :P. If anything, just jack up the fecking price, without giving out the rubbish medals etc, take the hit in numbers but you's will be bringing in more profit per athlete! (Having said that, if the parkruns continue growing, the above would be an utter non runner)

TRR

Timmaay wrote: »

Just on the Tallaght 5k, were you's disappointed with the turnout? Changing the time of year, and distance probably threw quite a few people (me for one I'll admit), the likes of rathfarmham could do zero promotion and still get 500 athletes to its 5k every year, consistency and reputation are the easiest and cheapest way to promote a race.

Yes, I wasn't involved in organising the race but I'd say they would be doing well to break even. I agree the change in time of year and distance may have been an issue but I myself didn't know the route until the Wednesday before the race and only because I asked on our club facebook page.

The point you make about the Sli Cualann races is a good one and something I noted before. I do think the parkruns may be having a slight effect as well. For your causal runner why would you pay 15-20 quid to run a 5k when you can do one for free and be 100% sure you won't be out of your depth. Our 5k was 20 euro, a bit too expensive in my opinion. On the flip side the prizes were very good with 3 prized for each category, senior, 35+,40+,45+ etc and one team prize for men and women.

Rathfarnham and Raheny have a good tradition and are ahead of the running boom curve so advertising isn't a major issue for them. I mentioned before that I'm amazed the MSB 5k race only gets 1000 runners. I think that suffers from the fact it hasn't got the historical base the other 2 have. Compare it with the Samsung night gimmick and my head is just wrecked. 6000 vs 1000 runners, I just can't understand it!

Birdsong

TRR wrote: »

There is an effort of some sort to go this way. The lucan race is actually apart of it see the website here http://www.rundublin.ie/

Lucan Harriers are using this website to gather entries for the Lucan 5K, nothing else.

chrissymc

I am an average make up the numbers runner heres my tuppence worth.I dont give a damn about t shirts or medals in races, i have tons of them by now, all i want is a well organised race chip timed preferably and a cup of tea and water or sandwich at finish. I was in a lot of the high priced races and stopped entering them, there was no chat or well done at the finish, so i prefer the club races now and for the last 3 years ive entered all the club races mentioned and this year i'm doing more further afield.

RacoonQueen

epo addict wrote: »

Well organised race. Great work by all at Tallaght AC

It annoys me that runners don't support the club races.

Any money made from club road races goes back into the running of the clubs, helping Irish Athletics.

Corporate races, mickey mouse events and fun runs are killing the club races.

Lucan 5k, Terenure 5, Raheny 5, Rathfarnham 5k, Tallaght 5k, Jingle bells and BHAA races are where our entries should be going.

Not Samsung, Bupa, Rock n Roll, Bay runs, Docklands

CLUBS NEED OUR SUPPORT

To be honest, I wasn't surprised to see the Tallaght race had low numbers, disappointed but not surprised. With Le Cheile, Boyne and the Novice Road Race the same weekend there was 4 races that would attract club runners in one weekend not so far from Dublin.

Would be great to have a club organised 10K, not in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. I'm not sure why Tallaght changed their distance, but maybe they could look at doing this a different date, don't think there's enough space in the calendar for a second 5k on the May Bank Holiday Weekend.

On the subject of a league. Kildare clubs have one with Cellbridge, Le Cheile, St Cocas and Donadea - http://www.celbridgeac.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=544:kildare-road-race-series

Be good to have something similar in Dublin with team prizes in every race or an overall team win or something. Doesn't even have to be all the same disatance or over a short period. It could start with Raheny in January and end with Jingle Bells in December. Include 6 races and you have to field teams in 4 races or something to have a chance of winning the overall prize. Be hard to figure out the format but once thats done you'd be grand. If you could get the Dublin Athletics board to support it, even better.

plodder

Made the same point on another thread. I agree with the poster above about advertising. A facebook page isn't enough. It's very good for attracting attention, and general chat, but you have to direct people to a website where people can get all the basic info about the race in as friendly a format as possible - especially for a race that's not well established. On parkrun, I know some people see it as competition for races like this, but we push parkrun itself as more of a timed training run rather than a race, and many regular parkrunners enter lots of real races. Also a lot of the recent increase at parkrun is down to women training for the mini-marathon in my opinion.

geld

Where can we see the results of this? Nothing on http://www.tallaghtac.ie/

TRR

geld wrote: »

Where can we see the results of this? Nothing on http://www.tallaghtac.ie/

http://www.precisiontiming.net/result/racetimer

Timmaay

Owch, I see what ya mean by the turnout!