Irish Mountain
Running Association

Planning ahead - Internationals 2023

AuthorDateMessage
Miriam MaherOct 7 2022, 8:59pmFollowing up on our post about the pending World Championships in Thailand, we want to highlight the possibilities on the International Front for 2023

This year IMRA invested in sending teams to these International events: Trail de Guerlédan, U18 Youth Cup, European Athletics Off Road Mountain Running Championships, Snowdon and the British & Irish Junior Mountain Running Championships. Most years that would be the extent of the internationals that we would support. As you know we have also decided to support the sending of a small team to Thailand as this was an event we had originally decided to support last year.

Supported by Team Manager and IMRA’s High Performance Officer, Leo Mahon, Sarah McCormack, Zak Hanna and Paddy O’Leary will travel towards the end of October over to Thailand and we wish them every success in the championships

But... looking ahead to next year, we now want to look at putting in place a development squad for 2023’s International Events.

There are 5 international events on the horizon:

U18 Youth Cup - Annecy, France - May
Trail de Guerlédan - Brittany, France - June
World Championships, Austria - June
Snowdon, Wales - July
British & Irish Junior Mountain Running Champions, Scotland - September

We are inviting anyone interested in being part of a development squad for any of these events to email any of the following:

Leo Mahon - leo.mahon@imra.ie
Miriam Maher - miriam.maher@imra.ie
Robbie Williams - robbie.williams@imra.ie

We intend to add all interested parties to a WhatsApp group which we will use for updates on development workshops, training plans, international trial dates and all related updates.

Looking at the performances across the internationals and the master championships this year we know we have a wide pool of talented runners with great potential for development. Our aim is to be in a position to send full junior and senior teams to the Worlds in June, along with all the other international events.

The incoming committee for 2023 will make the decisions on budget and final team selections for these events. What we want to do at this stage is get these events on the radar for those interested in aiming towards the internationals in 2023. We will work with mountain running coaches like Sarah McCormick, local club and regional coaches across Ireland and the IMRA membership to make sure that the development squad gets the opportunity to be part of a connected network for support and training in advance of these events.

Exciting times ahead next year! Contact Leo, Robbie or Miriam if you would like to be part of this update group. We will of course post about trial dates etc on the forum in the usual way.
Robbie WilliamsDec 22 2022, 9:53amHi everyone

We had our first meeting of the new committee last Tuesday night, so we had an opportunity to agree some details about the HP trials for next year and the development plans for this group.

Trial dates - 2023
We’ve agreed the following with the committee for the trials for the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, which will be held in Innsbruck, Austria next June 2023.

The trials for the long-distance races – marathon and ultra – will be held as part of the Maurice Mullins Ultra event on March 25th, 2023. On that date, runners taking part in the 50k will be trialling for the WMRA marathon distance, with a longer distance of 80k planned for those trialling for the WMRA ultra distance. The trials for the Uphill only and the classic distance races (junior and senior) will be held in Ballyhoura, Co Limerick, on either 29th or 30th April, date to be confirmed.
The MMU and Ballyhoura races will be the basis for our selections of teams to represent at the Worlds in June. We are considering the selection of teams for the Trail de Guerlédan (May 27th) and the Snowdon race (July 15th) too. However, we consider these to be development events and therefore it anticipated that those selected for these races will not have been selected for the Worlds teams. We will update you soon on what way we will approach selection for those events.

Elizabeth Wheeler, our new junior development officer, is working on the details for the trial races for the U18 Youth Cup, to be held in Anncey in France in late May and the B&I Champs to be held in Peebles, Scotland in September and will update on them separately.

So, get the above dates in your diaries now! We are actively working on the all-important details regarding routes, maps, selection criteria etc and will have that ready to share with you as soon as possible. Bear with us on this, with Christmas coming up, it’s going to take a little bit more time to get all those details finalised and ready to share.

We’re delighted to see the interest in the HP Development group which we have been building up since we posted about it on this thread in October. If anyone, not on this group already, is interested in being added to the WhatsApp group for specific updates about training plans, training days and more information about the international events, please contact me - Robbie.williams@imra.ie.

Looking forward to great year of training, development, and racing!

Thanks, Robbie.