Date 4/6/2023

Introduction

On May 17th 2023 at 4:30 am Julie nudged me in the bed in our apartment in Rathmines Dublin. She says “I think it’s time to go into the hospital”. I jumped out of bed like I was starting a road race. I knew this part was going to be the marathon at the of the end of the race series, our son had rang the starting gun and we were off.. Much like the Cork Marathon 2023 Julie and I planned our son’s arrival within an inch of its life. I dressed and grabbed the small hospital bag (one of three - the other two were in the car with the car seat and a full tank of Diesel) and off we went to Holles Street.

Like the Cork Marathon 10k race we were back home early. Yes Julie was in labour but we were early in the process but we hadn’t crossed the half marathon threshold yet. Back home for about 8:30 am we waited or more accurately Julie laboured. Just after 2 pm as we got to mile 20 of this marathon the intensity really ramped. At 4pm we left again for Holles Street and 7:25 pm life changed for ever as Edward Arthur Burns gave his triumphant roar at the finish line. Now could I carry him over the finish line at the Cork Marathon? I’d been dreaming about it for months. This time he was too young but the good news is Edward will be around for a long and happy life and the Cork Marathon is going from strength to strength. They’ll get together and finish a race very soon.

10k Race | Prelude

The introduction of the new 10k race was a brave and bold decision. The relay has been a massive success over the years. Almost everyone in Cork has a story of being roped into a leg of the Cork Marathon relay the night before. The more serious athletes had clocked up unmercifully team performances and the local club rivalry was fierce. That being said the Cork Marathon has been undergoing an evolution in the last number few years. The half marathon participation has grown steadily but logistics had left a good day out with a sour taste. The facts are that moving thousands of people to separate relay points and a far off half marathon start point was too large a job on a tight schedule. Moving the half marathon start point close to headquarters was a blessing. It reduced the movement of people via bus by a few thousand but the relay remained popular even if it was logistical hard to pull off.

Introducing the 10k race was a tricky task. It was bound to sting the casual participant who loved the cameraderie of completing a marathon as a team. That being said the shortest leg of the relay was 4.2 miles (6.75 km) not exactly beyond the bounds of possibility that this participant would reach 10k in a race. And if they could do 10k? Could they reach a half marathon next year? And then bring home a marathon a year after that? I could feel people eyeing up an adventure in Cork year on year. It felt brilliant to think that people would start at 10k and move up to the glory of a full marathon in my hometown.

Even if you didn’t progress you could still run every year and take in the electric atmosphere. This was exactly where I was this year. I couldn’t pace a half marathon because I wasn’t in that kind of shape and I was waiting for a newborn. Edward could have been born seven days or five weeks prior to the Cork Marathon. I wanted to bring my newborn son home to Cork. Doing something was viable and this 10k was the right option for me.

Julie and I met the Race Director Eamon at registration on Friday and he told us that the Cork marathon was at record numbers. Eamon had wanted the 10k race in for years and this race was going to be the product of years of work. The Sanctuary Runners had started a campaign to get 10 People in your group of friends to run the 10k race. The relay spirit wasn’t dead it had spread like a wild prairie fire into the the 10k race. We were optimistic because we’d seen this before the Cork Marathon was in the last 10 minutes of the champions league final and everyone believed they were about to score the winner

Course

The course is super fast and flat. With an 11 meter elevation gain over 10k. I thought I was racing in Berlin. You can fly around this course. Go out hard and race from the gun. You only have to worry about the sun and that can be managed. The course designers get top marks for delivery on this course. After the disaster of the national 10k run in Phoenix park this was the polar opposite fast, flat, marshalled, sign posted, cleverly spaced within the other two races going on that day. There will be a case for the Cork Marathon 10k to take responsibility for hosting the national title race

Live A Little

The wooden compostable medal was a nice move in the direction of sustainability. I must have 100s of medals at home and I must have worn them for a combined total of no more than 30 mins which is a complete waste. Disposing of the compostable one will be a blessing. The race organisers allowed you the option of shirt or a donate to planting a tree. I went for the shirt because I get years of training out of a technical shirt not to mention the new sense of pride in my home county I feel as I race around Dublin.

The North Campus passage through UCC remains as beautiful as ever enjoy it but when you hit 8km just before the Brian Boru Bridge the sun will be directly in front of you as you gaze at the Port of Cork take in the view it’s not the same in the car especially when no one is cheering you onto a sprint finish.

At 6km on the contra flow out of Blackpool my cousin Aoife Dineen gave me an almighty roar. She has started her running journey and looked to be flying form. I found out later she finished in 66 mins for her first 10k. An excellent achievement on a hot day for a debut road racer.

At 7km I called out to Aine Murphy to say Hello. Aine was quick off the mark with ‘Well Done Dad’ I laughed and motored on.

At 8km the sun shone straight into my face. I joked with the girls next to me that it was too late to worry about the sunscreen on the back of my neck because we were about to turn around and head for home and the sun was beating down on top of us.

Successes

Sports bottle cap water thank god. This is something I’ve always found annoying you’re on a run and the race distributes water in cups. Sports bottle caps are designed precisely to solve this problem. I’ve also seen the reverse where you hand a runner a 500ml water bottle with a sports cap on it…what a waste. The Cork Marathon went deliberately smaller with the water bottles with sports caps. They got it logistically right. It might seem small but this is a win for the runner taking exactly how much they need, a win for sustainability because we used less water and plastic and a win for the volunteer cleaner who didn’t have to carry back a huge amount of water bottles after the race finished.

The organisation was sublime from the simplest communication all the way to handing out the medals. Hats off to the volunteers and staff.

The atmosphere has grown again this year. The electrifying start fully charged with solar energy from the sun powered the the sheer joy of the participants.

Conclusion

If you have an idea act on it. Don’t wait for approval from others. Professor Jane Ohlmeyer.

The Race Director and the Cork City Marathon have been acting on their ideas consistently for years. It’s such a turn around in fortune from a 2009 where they ran out of water or a 2016 half marathon that went the wrong way that is only explained by;

Luck is what you have left over after you give 100 percent. Langston Coleman

It’s glorious running the Cork Marathon as it grows from strength to strength.