Bray Head
Forum Messages
| Author | Date | Message |
|---|---|---|
| jason melvin | Apr 7 2010, 4:47pm | Hi, what time is registration for this event? Is it 7.30 or is that the time that the race begins. This will be my first event. best regards, Jason |
| Paul Brew Crew | Apr 7 2010, 11:49pm | Hi Guys, Just a little note to let you know that the Brew Crew will be at the Bray race next week - any suggestions for our service would be greatly appreciated. See you all next Wednesday. Kind regards, Paul. paul@brewcrewcafe.ie |
| Paul Morrissey | Apr 8 2010, 2:03pm | Hey Jason, the race kicks off at 7.30. Registration usually closes half an hour before. Its the first summer race so expect a queue with a lot of new/returning people signing up. Paul BC... bring better weather than was at the Naas duathlon last week... better for business :) Outside of that, the service rules! |
| Laura Flynn | Apr 8 2010, 9:42pm | The race starts at 7.30 and registration will close at 7.15 as it takes 10 mins or so for starter and other personnel to make their way to the start.I would hate to have to turn people away but I feel it's only fair to the people who come on time and are hanging around waiting to race that we start on time. |
| Derek Sanderson | Apr 11 2010, 9:16pm | Hi, myself and a few guys are going to join as imra members this week. Other than the €10 membership is there an additional cost for the bray race? |
| Des Kennedy | Apr 11 2010, 11:03pm | Hi, Myself and Niamh Garvey are available to volunteer at this race. We are not running the race. We do not have Myimra logins yet. |
| Eamonn Hodge | Apr 12 2010, 12:44am | The cost of the Bray race is 7 euro in addition to the annual registration. All IMRA races are 7 euro with the exception of the Wicklow Way Trail, Wicklow Way Ultra and I think Carrauntoohil might be 10 euro. I think it's 4 euro for students and senior citizens. I'm open to correction on all of the above by the way! |
| Edward Bateman | Apr 14 2010, 11:32am | I have just volunteered and see there are a lot who have already volunteered also, so if required i could take some photos? |
| Edward Bateman | Apr 14 2010, 11:44am | I have also just seen there are four "Bray Head" forum topics, if its possible it might be a good idea for an admin to put these together or people will probably miss information? |
| Eva Fairmaner | Apr 14 2010, 11:52am | I agree people might "miss" some detail about the Bray Head race with four topics currently running on this subject on the forum. Perhaps when people have a query they should check first is there a forum topic already "open" and if so, reply or put their comment there instead of initiating a new topic each time! |
| Mick Hanney | Apr 14 2010, 12:05pm | John Shiels tells me he'll be there to do photos. |
| laura flynn | Apr 14 2010, 3:55pm | Hi Eva-I agree totally with you and have to accept full responsibility for the fractured nature of the forum posts -please feel free to consolidate them if this is possible as unfortunatley my technological expertise is quite limited. |
| Paul Morrissey | Apr 14 2010, 9:58pm | Mmmm the pain.... The uncertainty on the steep downhill... The horrible realization that there's another uphill section... The feeling of muscles crying when you realize u started the final sprint too early... Arrgh flashbacks!!! Cheers Laura et al... Good to be back!!! |
| Jim Fitzharris | Apr 14 2010, 10:06pm | Hi all, I want to say thanks to Laura and her team for a customarily well-organised race this fresh spring evening. The marking in particular was excellent - take a bow Diarmuid & Jason! Anyone who got lost today really needs a trip to SpecSavers! A special thanks to Mary O'Colmain for taking good care of my beloved Charles Barrington t-shirt while I ran - it was badly needed for the post race cooldown. Two small points, one specific to this race and the other more general. I followed Tommy Galvin and touched the summit cross (as I always do) on the understanding that this was a mandatory part of the route. However, I noticed that other runners bypassed it on the left. Am I right or wrong? It would be worth clarifying in the future, especially given the number of new people turning up. It might be no harm to remind new IMRA members that in the summer league races you are expected to follow the marked route, and major deviations and short cuts are not permitted. The other point is headphones: I saw a runner wearing them but I thought that these were now banned in IMRA events. This is increasingly the norm: they have long been banned in triathlons and the BHAA disallowed their use last year. I personally favour banning them during organised races for safety reasons. Cheers, Jim. |
| Kevin O'Riordan | Apr 14 2010, 11:25pm | Provisional results are online now. There are a few omissions that I'll have to copy over from the manual finish sheets. Should have full results up over the next day or so. -Kevin. |
| Greg May | Apr 14 2010, 11:26pm | On the note of headphones, Totally 100% agree that they need to be banned. Within the first 100m of the race an individual wearing headphones switched across the group causing 3 people to stumble as he attempted to get a better position. He then promptly ran on without even a 'sorry folks' as he had no idea the people had nearly come down. The same person then also failed to realise that when you are running slowly on a steep trail, people will come up behind you and they will call at you to move over. This resulted in him nearly taking out faster descenders on the lower section. If you want to run with headphones, do it in training, not in a race. greg |
| diarmuid O'Colmain | Apr 15 2010, 9:04am | Thankfully it seems nobody got lost in the race last night. I have some suggestions for the committee to consider on the subject of marking this particular race in the future. I used up every single piece of marker (and part of a spare roll) in marking the route and Jason, Niamh and Caroline had the nuisance of removing all of these (many of them tied onto thorny bushes - sorry guys/gals!). I feel this may be entirely unnecessary by adopting a different approach as follows: Restrict marking to just 2 places on the route - the route from the second summit onto the main track, and the first 50 metres or so leading from the main track on to the path around the cross to left on the way back. Make these two segments (a few hundred metres in the first case and about 50 metres in the second case) mandatory; otherwise people can go up and down to the hill with the cross any way they like. The path towards the second hill is continuous and almost without junctions, so don't mark it at all, but have a marshall with a high vis jacket on top of this hill. Don't bother with a marshall at the cross - we trust people to pass this way. On Jim's point about touching the cross, I tend to be pretty scrupulous in this regard also (I even ran around the trig point to be sure of no shortcut), but, although I ran within a metre of the cross last night I didn't touch it. I think it is enough to instruct people to pass within a few metres of the cross. The numbers are so big now that insisting on everyone touching the cross would lead to the need for a queue! Possible objections to this approach are: 1. local knowledge may allow people to gain advantage on the route up to the cross. My experience is that it makes virtually no difference which way you go up (or down) - it takes the same time anyway. In the old days this was a free choice - or at least I always thought so! 2. There are lots of places on the path from the cross to the second peak where it is possible to cut corners. I think everybody know this is not permitted and nobody cut these corners last night. 3. A person could take a 'dangerous' route up to the cross. Last night I marked what I perceived to be the safest route, but I think there is an advantage in people making their own free choice - if they get hurt they only have themselves to blame. This suggestion is for the summer race route only. In the Christmas race (up and down to the cross) ascending and descending runners need to be separated so this race will need to be marked. If the suggestion was adopted, the event details fro the race would explain the approach and strongly recommend people to do a recce of the route. On Jim's other point about reminding people to follow the marked route, I did actually make that point last night in my brief briefing, and it could be argued that the markers bypassed the cross by a couple of metres |
| Eoin Keith | Apr 15 2010, 9:51am | Good points Diarmuid. I agree with you that races these days tend to be over-marked, if anything, and also agree that in general open route choice is a better way to organise the races, where it makes sense to do so (Routes like Howth and Scalp are dependant on their routes being mandatory). I also very much agree on the banning of headphones. Apart from the self-evident safety issues, anyone running in a hillrace with headphones simply doesn't get it, quite frankly. |
| laura flynn | Apr 15 2010, 12:30pm | I would like to thank all the volunteers who helped with last night's race.As it turned out ,the evening got very cold and I'm sure a lot of you might have thought it would have been easier to race. I agree with Diarmuid's points about marking the course in the future though would prefer to see people touch the cross and have a marshall there and at turn-around. |
| Ronan Hickey | Apr 15 2010, 2:40pm | I'm only an IMRA newbie but I think Bray should remain a very well marked route as for a lot of people Bray marks their first ever hill race and I think they should probably be given all the help we can give them in order not to scare them off! I agree with making people touch the cross or pass particular points though, obviously. Clouds of volcanic ash covering the skies, Four horses on the Bray route. Are these the last days?!? I hope I have time to get my requisite 7 races in.. Great race though, thanks to all the volunteers and organisers. Ronan |
| Niamh Garvey | Apr 15 2010, 2:53pm | Hi Laura, I'm very sorry but myself and Des Kennedy signed up as volunteers. We never heard back and thought we weren't needed. We've only just seen the other 3 forums today - we thought there was just one forum! Sorry again - I hope you had enough volunteers. Could you please invite us to be myIMRA members? Thanks a million, Niamh |
| Sean Broderick | Apr 15 2010, 4:54pm | Wholeheartedly agree with Ronan that Bray should be fully marked. It is a very good point that this is many people's first IMRA race and this should be taken into account. Everyone has to start somewhere! It's very easy for experienced mountain runners to forget that they once set out on mountains with no clue where they were headed bar following the person in front! |
| Rosalind Hussey | Apr 15 2010, 10:59pm | Hey, thanks for the great race. One point I'd like to add is that it's evident from previous results than the course was lengthened several years ago from the stated 5k. I think it'd be a good idea to update the distance, climb, and course profile on the course description. Cheers everyone! |
| Kevin O'Riordan | Apr 15 2010, 11:50pm | Finalised results are up. Let me know if there are any problems. Regards, Kevin. |
| Colm Hill | Apr 16 2010, 12:06am | Just in response to Roz's post about distance.. I've run many a race, be it orienteering, hill running or XC. The difference between the races mainly vary in how they post there distances. In orienteering they say the course is 12km (just for talk sake), how ever depending on the terrain you know very well that 12km is the extreme minimum that you could run, in reality it could be anything up to 16km!! In XC, the AAI claim that the courses are accurately measured, yet every race has been short. "10km" races have measured in at 7.1km, 8.9km and 9.2km... and these were all National Championships! However in hill running, the distances are bang on, which is works - but Bray just rocked! I got an extra 1.5km completely free, I was delighted :) (its probably my orienteering background) Good hussle IMRA, I wish the AAI played it ye'r way for the XC's |
| Turlough Conway | Apr 16 2010, 11:13am | Well done to all the runners in Bray especially the new runners. Its a great race to start with although tough and with a few stings. Just to reassure the new runners about Diarmuids marking plan in that all the roads that arent marked all lead to the same places. Eg all the routes going up to the summit get you near the cross and after the first 100m or so all the routes down on the final descent get you to the steps at the bottom. It also means that congestion can be avoided, marking is simplified and would be a little safer too. I agree with the ban on the headphones. You have to be away of other runners around you in any race particularly hill races. Well done to Eoin on an excellent win. Tristan in second, I know is no slouch but Bray is often decided in the last quarter and no better man to put himself in a winning position when it mattered. |
| caitlin bent | Apr 16 2010, 8:12pm | 2 lonely fold-up tables left behind at The Strand Hotel in Bray can be retrieved at Howth by contacting CaitlÃn or Conor Bent next Wednesday. CaitlÃn. |
| Jason Kehoe | Apr 20 2010, 3:59pm | Report on summit times and positions in the reports tab on the Bray event page. Cheers, Jason |
