Crone Wood (University Championships)
Forum Messages
| Author | Date | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Shea O'Lee | Jan 31 2008, 11:35am | Another trail race. Ah well. |
| Sean O hEigeartaigh | Jan 31 2008, 12:08pm | Because there's just so many of them on the winter calendar. Gerry Brady et al clearly wanted to pick a beginner-friendly course for the universities, because many of the people making up the teams for the colleges will be beginners on the mountains, and it takes a while to get the hang of the really rugged mountain stuff. Seems fair enough. Besides, what's wrong with a little variety? Many people enjoy both the more european-stype, trail type mountain courses and the really rugged stuff. Well, I guess it's not possible to please all of the people all of the time, especially those people who post under fake names/have never run a hill race (I notice your name doesn't appear on the IMRA register Mr. O'Lee). |
| Jim Fitzharris | Jan 31 2008, 12:20pm | I agree with Sean. Gerry showed some of us this route on New Year's Day and while it is not that "rugged", all I will say is that it is some "trail" race and should put a smile on most runners' faces. You should try it sunshine. Cheers, Jim. |
| Justin Keatinge | Jan 31 2008, 2:47pm | In fairness to Mr O'Lee, he is a highly prolific and positive contributor to the forum under his real name. His attempt at anonymity appears to be a momentary lack of judgement, as was his oversight in posting from his place of work, which has 2 or 3 hill-runners but only one of his running ability and stength of view. |
| Tim Grummell | Jan 31 2008, 3:12pm | I'd agree that a we need a "nice" course for this, I've had trouble getting athletes out for this before, alot of the more serious athletes are put off because of the risk of injury. If they enjoy this hopefully they'll be back for more. Sean, are you going get a trinners team out this year? |
| Sean O hEigeartaigh | Jan 31 2008, 4:08pm | Wow, the infamous electronic paper trail... bit scary, isn't it? Tim, with any luck there'll be a team, we've been a poor show for the last few teams. Getting a team together tends to be problematic due to the coach here being vehemently anti-hillrunning due to Steve McArthur spraining his ankle in a race a few years ago, or some other such rubbish. That said, I've sent round some emails, and have got a few 'interested' replies, so here's hoping. I'm also trying to engender a bit of 'Trinity orienteers vs runners' rivalry for the race, so we'll see how that goes! |
| Tim Grummell | Jan 31 2008, 7:24pm | I've the same probs here in ucd, a bit of scaremongering by one person usually fecks up the team. All going well the both of us will have teams out and bring some colours rivalry to the race. |
| Niall Sherlock | Feb 3 2008, 8:57pm | I know im not a regular hill runner but cutting the distance and severity of the climb is a great idea. Most college athletes are afraid to tackle a mountain race because of the risk of injury, having the race after the varsity cross country might help entice a few more runners too. Its worked for me, I wouldnt have fancied runninf it a week after the cross country if it was the race it used to be but Ill certainly run it now all going well. See you there Sean. |
| Jonathan McCloy | Feb 6 2008, 2:16pm | There is a reason this race is called the Irish University MOUNTAIN Running Championships... it is aimed at finding a mountain running champion from those who do the sport within Irish Universities.... just to clear that up. I believe cutting length and height is the worst thing you can do to this race. It is not my intention to get at the organiser here, as I am aware that this race is run by IMRA and is not organised in the same format as most Intervarsities where it rotates around the universities. To be honest, last years race wasn't much of a mountain race... it was just cold, and going by what the discussion is so far... this years isn't going to be either. From a personal perspective, I am a keen mountain runner. Mountain running in Ireland is of a rugged nature and I believe it is totally wrong that you should remove this element from our sport to accommodate those who prefer a different style of running. We require balance, strong legs and ankles and the mindset which goes with the sport; it is part of our training to develop these things in order to succeed. To change a course to accommodate those who?s first sport is not mountain running and do not put time and effort into these is a disgrace. With regards to the Queen?s University Orienteering Club, we have a team of mountain runners. Most of whom would not do overly well in any trail run, including myself. We train for mountain running as it is also a big part of our club. To think that we train for these specific outdoor events, only to travel to our national event which presents an inadequate, non-challenging course is an insult. I have a feeling that to be formal, a team captain or mountain running representitive from each university should meet and agree upon a constitution which would determine the distance, climb, team format for this race for future reference. I am sure this sort of guideline could be agreed with IMRA, NIMRA, CUSAI and possibly IOSA. |
| Sean O hEigeartaigh | Feb 6 2008, 5:27pm | Do you have an email address Niall? Long time no talkie. |
| gerry brady | Feb 6 2008, 11:36pm | Thanks for your posting Jonathan, I have made a few points below in response. At the moment, the college race is held as part of a Winter league race. This diminishes its importance but there are not currently sufficient numbers of students to hold a separate race. My personal preference would be to have this race organised by the Irish Universities Athletics Association (IUAA, see http://www.iuaa.org/ ). They already organise cross-country and road/track events. The course this year is just over 6 km. Junior cross-country races are held over 4 km for women and 6 km for men. You can see the profile for this year?s European championships on the IMRA web page for that event. The colleges and European men?s races have a 6% climb but the Europeans are over 8 km. The European junior women?s race is also 6% but over 4 km. So the college race falls between both European junior races and has a broadly similar surface quality, and has much more climb and descent than a cross-country race. We currently have a broad series of schools events (provincial, all Ireland, British & Irish, and World Youths challenge). The next step-up from that are open races. There are many open mountain races with long climbs and descents but these can be formidable and inappropriate for young athletes in their first mountain race. A pathway between both of these levels is needed, and the Universities race has the potential to be part of that pathway. It would be great to see a parallel event to the British & Irish schools mountain race introduced at college level. The old chestnut of fell running versus the continental style of mountain running has relevance here. What I am looking for is a race that will attract more college women?s and men?s teams into the race, and that some of those runners will continue in the sport and run at junior and senior level in international races. This year?s race will be fast but I expect that no college runners will be able to avoid walking part of the tough climb! You were 2nd last year and I hope you go one better this year and bring QUB teams down with you. |
| Jonathan McCloy | Feb 7 2008, 3:12pm | Gerry, I hear your point about encouraging people into the sport, it is the best thing for development. However, take any other intervarsity event, there will be lower class events or ?fresher? events running alongside the main event, the main event will always be one which is adequate and testing for the athletes who normally do the sport. I feel the point of heights and distance is one which has to be discussed. I feel for a one off championship race in the year, this race would not provide the challenge required. I will reiterate the point that this race decides the universities champion, it is not meant to be an introductory race. For example, in my opinion this is like setting an easy orienteering course for the senior male, like an orange course, the fast runner will do well, not necessarily the orienteer. This is why we set a standard which is tough and specific to our individual sports. If you take the British and Irish Juniors which I co-organised two years ago, the U18 male course was of approximately the same distance and height as this race. That race was designed to test the ability of the U18 males, it was within the guidelines set out by the FRA. The European Champs is practically double what this race is, so the stepping stone effect really isn?t happening here. The age group is open to debate, however, effectively it is an open race as there is no upper limit on age. And being an open race it should be treated like a championship race like any other, designed to be testing. I have no doubt that there may be steep sections and would agree the percentage of climb may be an adequate baseline, however I feel the current length will not provide a race which is likely to be won in less than 30 minutes. This is something which I and my team mates are not to keen to go all the way to Wicklow for. With regards to terrain... if it?s on trails, it?s a trail race. I have contacted Ian Taylor for his opinion on this race?s suitability and it will be put forward to NIMRA, as this is something which effects mountain runners both in Queen?s and in the University of Ulster. PS, I doubt I'll be on the podium, I'm in preparations for an expedition :)... maybe Next Year ;) |
| Sean O hEigeartaigh | Feb 7 2008, 5:27pm | Good to have so much input from the universities. A few points in response to Jonathan. 1. I don't get the trail thing. This internet forum seems to be the only place in the world where a race on trails up and down a mountain can't be considered a 'mountain race'. I'm not proposing all races be on trails, but a mixture of surfaces surely would be ok. 2. It's true that a 25 minute winning time race won't really prepare you for a 1hr winning time Euro championship, but are we being realistic here? Very few of the people trying to make worlds/europeans teams are in college/at the universities race. Off the top of my head, I can think of Martin Bradshaw and Vinny O'Sullivan. Let the 'stepping stones' be the irish championship/trial races/ european gp races coming up to the major champoinships. The practical situation: College turnout at this race is very poor. Gerry et al are trying something new(ish) to remedy this. Good for them. This event can't be compared to university cross-country/orienteering championships, where every major college has a cross-country/orienteering club. No college that I know of has a mountain-running club, and there is only one college mountain race on the calender. Hence, you can't exactly throw everyone in at the deep end like in cross/orienteering. How about this: Let this be a race where many college runners get their first taste of the mountains. Those who like it have a world of tougher stuff to get stuck into. If over time standards and participation rise, and a mountain-running tradition develops in the colleges, the difficulty of the courses can be ramped up. I'd be willing to bet money that you'd have the same winner over a 25min/300m climb course and a 50 min 600m climb course anyway. Experience says the stronger mountain runner always wins. This makes a lot more sense than having a 'Big Serious Intervarsity Championship' for the half-a-dozen serious mountain runners in Irish colleges. Sean P.S. Just to be annoying: if you want it as a stepping stone for the europeans, that usually means it has to be on euro type terrain, i.e. trails! |
| gb | Feb 7 2008, 6:12pm | Profile map is on race web page, it is distorted because scale starts at 500 feet rather than sea level, so don't be put off by those vertical bits! |
| Vincent O' Sullivan | Feb 8 2008, 7:57pm | Very much agree with Sean on the course. When I was at UCD, Keith Daly, Darren Burke, Aoife Murray, myself and many others always tried to get a team out for the Mountain Running Intervarsity. Always great fun. Moving the race to March is a good idea. The year I was captain of UCD, the ladies? captain and myself had to organise teams for Mountain Running Intervarsity, Colours XC, Intervarsity Indoors (which has since moved) and Intervarsity Cross Country - all in the space of about four or five weeks. It was just too much. A lot of runners and their coaches were very reluctant to run on the mountains before the Intervarsity Cross, the National Intermediate and National Senior Cross. The old date usually clashed with Raheny. The new date is a great idea. In any case, very few of the top runners in the club would run due to lack of interest or perceived risk of injury. If one of your aims in holding the event is to draw in top class cross country runners, a more general awareness/education campaign might help. The races were always good fun but perhaps lacked the same atmosphere as the IUAA intervarsity events. The IUAA runs fantastic events because it is run for students by students. Giving one university the job of organising a night out after the race might be a good start. Remember we?re talking about students here! Perhaps forming a sub-committee or appointing a university development/liason officer to work more closely with the university clubs might help in future years. Sean??? Keith??? Niall??? Ps If you are going to the event, don?t let Keith Daly book the transport unless you want to hitch-hike home. (Sorry Keith, I couldn?t resist bringing that up! No doubt you will bring up the fact that my team selection resulted in the B Team beating the A team) |
| Rene Borg | Feb 9 2008, 6:50pm | More details on the race day have now been added to this event, as has an Information Sheet. College representatives are advised to download and familiarise themselves with this information sheet. |
| Niall Sherlock | Feb 10 2008, 1:58pm | Yeah Sean its twigsherlock@gmail.com |
| Rene Borg | Mar 6 2008, 4:23pm | There'll be a recce of this route from 10am Saturday morning. |
| Tim Grummell | Mar 7 2008, 12:06pm | Hi Rene, I'll probably join you's if I'm fit to run 2moro morning! |
| Rene Borg | Mar 7 2008, 12:32pm | Sounds good Tim, my number is 0851214541 in case you don't see us there. Rene |
| gb | Mar 13 2008, 10:22pm | Hopefully the stormy weather has not done any damage to the course for Saturday! The race will start at 11:00 sharp. Registration will open at 9:45 and close at 10:45 to allow us time to pack away registration equipment before the start, allow the helpers who are running the race to get ready for it, allow the race entries to be entered into the laptop, and to allow us to get ready for the start. A few narrow ditches have to be crossed on the descent so keep your eyes open for them, and make sure that you step over them and not into them. As we are very short on volunteers, please arrive early so as to ensure that we can register you before 10:45, and everyone can enjoy the race. Prize-giving will be in the Powerscourt Arms hotel in Enniskerry. All college runners need to be listed on the college entry sheets at registration to facilitate calculation of college results. |
| Rene Borg | Mar 15 2008, 3:08pm | Thanks to Gerry for a very different hill race, quite enjoyable (in hindsight as always). For the number crunchers, this race was a lot steeper on average than most WL and LL races with a 13.5% avg. grade (135 m up for every 1k moved). It went as high as 46.5% in places (to find this spot go back and find your hand marks in the dirt!). |
| Mick Hanney | Mar 15 2008, 5:52pm | Gerry, your name was taken in vain a lot I expect on that final grassy hill. If anyone managed to jog up that hill they have my respect. Great route though. Really enjoyable and great to see so many out despite the conditions, as well as some new faces who hopefully will have whetted their appetite to do other imra races. |
| Pat D | Mar 16 2008, 12:49am | Any pictures from this race? Where could i find them? thanks |
| Rene Borg | Mar 16 2008, 8:38am | We're currently experiencing trouble with the FTP-upload provider that we use for our photo-upload. Because of this there'll be a delay in getting up the photos from Carrick Mountain and the Crone Wood race. |
| Pat D | Mar 16 2008, 2:27pm | Thanks |
| Orla Ni Mhuircheartaigh | Mar 16 2008, 4:42pm | Are your legs meant to hurt this much after a mountain run??? :( |
| Rene Borg | Mar 16 2008, 5:03pm | Hey Orla, if it's any consolation a lot of leg pain from hill runs is from a nasty substance called CPK that is only released during descents. Good news is you grow more resistant to that as you get used to descending lots. Let's not talk of the ascent... |
| Jonathan McCloy | Mar 17 2008, 11:26am | Congratulations Ciaran! Glad to see the UU boys made the journey well worth while. As I wasn't at the race I don't know if there were any discussions about the future of the race. I would propose that it be held in the North next year, and I would be glad to organise it. I would be very keen to formalise standards for the race and create an A-class race. Although I see the comments of a tight uphill section, the reality is that the race was won in under 30 minutes and was mostly on trails. Personally I would not agree that this is an acceptable standard for a senior championship race. Again I would use the Orienteering Intervarsities as example, this year?s course was said to be one of the longest courses and the course with the most controls to be set in Ireland. Orienteering is a relatively small sport in Irish Universities, but this does not stop the fore-runners having the challenge which is required. The point will for sure be reiterated about introducing new people to the sport. I agree that this is essential for the development of the sport; however, a championship race is not the place to do it unless provisions are made, ie, A & B classes. Pre-empting this, mountain running enthusiasts should be encouraging development of the sport at lesser events initially. Personally I recommend the Hill and Dale series to any newcomers in the north, as these courses are generally well marked, marshaled and have varying difficulties and technical requirements. I would also like to point out that I have heard opinions on this from competitors from other universities with similar views... they just aint as mouthy :P |
| Rene Borg | Mar 17 2008, 12:09pm | I think it's an interesting discussion to be had, but I think a few dimensions need to be added: Shorter doesn't mean easier, just faster. Winning a 6k hill race takes a different sort of runner than a 12k hill race. Some runners are so good they'd win both, but then again you would also have runners who consider any hill race less than 20k too short. What is considered hard depends on your genetic make-up and race specific preparation. This year it was a stated goal to provide a course that could potentially have a winning time as low as 25 min, this building on a philosophy to encourage speed as the UC is mainly for younger runners. From the work I have seen Gerry Brady do (Gerry please correct me if I'm misinterpreting it), the strategy for High Performance in Ireland is based on younger runners developing speed and competitiveness first, endurance and long-distance durability later. Having had my own first exposure to X-country last year, this type of course felt much more like racing one of those races than your regular hill race. Personally, I felt the two longer and rougher races at Trooperstown and Carrick where much more "pleasant" to run, but this was a welcome variation. So I wouldn't suggest starting a discussion around "acceptable standard" based on the winning time alone. The discussion should be on whether or not the UC should be run in a X-country style format on a short fast course or not. I happen to agree with this strategy, as I think the top university runners have plenty of opportunity to prove themselves in the Irish and Leinster Championship races. I believe the UC is considered a stepping stone towards those championships, not on par with them. My opinion is really moot as I am way past being able to race for a university myself, but I feel shorter speedier courses are coming under undeserved flack on the forum at the moment. I'll hold my hand up and say I prefer a 12k any day, but shorter speedier courses have an important role to play in the development of this sport, so when the discussion takes place, I hope this will be factored in. |
| Jonathan McCloy | Mar 18 2008, 10:00am | I think the main difference of opinion here is that people see this race as being a 'stepping stone' rather than a championship. If the title of the race was just as a University Meet or whatever I would accept that it could be of a lower standard. However, this is not the case, it is called a championship race and the age group is senior, therefore it should be of an acceptable senior standard. Again, in my opinion, the real solution to this is to organise a meet with two courses |
| Turlough Conway | Mar 18 2008, 2:23pm | Just in response to Orla's Query about the soreness from mountain races: You dont get this soreness after every mountain run but you do after your first! The soreness is caused by muscle damage occurs with hard downhill running because of the eccentric contractions that occur. (This muscle damage can occur in normal hard running but not to same extent) The good news is this makes you stronger and will give you protection from similar soreness for up to 8 weeks and will not re-occur indefinately if you run races/downhills every 6-8 weeks. A full explanation can be found towards the end of the excellent article "Uphill Running" by John Harding located in the "Reading Room" on this site. |
| Orla Ni Mhuircheartaigh | Mar 19 2008, 12:14am | Thanks for the info guys... thought my legs were broken!! :( all good again now... but god damn that was sore!! "eccentric contractions" they even sound painfull!! |
| Stuart Scott | Mar 19 2008, 11:04pm | Must say I did enjoy the race last Sat, despite my misgivings. There was a good turnout, the terrain on the first half was much rougher than I had expected and the weather played its part! I would enjoy seeing a few more races use that route. Having said that, I agree with Jonathan. It isn't really deserving of a 'mountain running championship' race, especially since more than half the race was on a road. While I'm not going to pretend I'm any good at running, I definitely think I'd have finished a few places higher if there had been more off-road sections. It really suited a road runner. Surely good mountain runners should be better at (and train for) technical descents (as well as steep gradients)? I can't see why the race couldn't be split into 2 classes. A shorter, easier, trail type race for newcomers and a normal, 10k mountain race. It shouldn't give the organisers too much more work, except maybe some extra route marking (which by the way was excellent!). Maybe call the shorter race the 'university trail championships' or something to make winning it just as prestigious. Either way, I think the race organisation should be given directly to the colleges (overseen by IMRA), like in orienteering. It doesn't always have to be held in Crone Wood! Why not make a weekend out of it, with a big dinner and night out after the race? That would be the best way to attract students in my opinion. While I'm at it, I'd also like to see an Autumn League of races. The best time to attract students is when they first start the college year. If they attend an informal race before they get bogged down with college work, and find they enjoy it, then they'll be more likely to make an effort to turn up for the main championship race. Anyways, thanks to Gerry Brady and co for a very enjoyable winter league race! Stuart. |
| Sean O hEigeartaigh | Mar 20 2008, 12:06pm | Stuart your ideas are good but you were there on saturday. You saw the poor university turnout. It's been this way for several years. We have to be realistic. Once this is a well-supported event, you could have a tougher race, or two alternative races. However, for the moment, that would just dilute an already shallow pool (imagine saturday - half a dozen people in one race, a few in the other!). The reality is that at the moment in universities mountain running is a fringe sport, which very few people do, and the imra committee want to get more people involved. An idea, by the way, for increasing numbers - target the university orienteering clubs in a big way - a mountain race would suit many of them well! |
