November 2013
Congratulations to everyone in the county who took part in this year’s Dublin marathon. Hopefully it went well for you! If you were in such pain at the finish that you were saying ‘’Never again!’’ it’s probable that at a remove of a few days during which you have recovered you are already planning your next one!
Staying on the subject of running, one of the fastest- growing sporting events worldwide is the parkrun phenomenon.
Parkrun is the name given to the collection of weekly (usually Saturday) 5km running events that take place in several countries. The runs are all on park trails, paths and tracks and aren’t full cross-country runs.
All are free and run entirely by volunteers. Runners just need to register online in advance and this gives them their unique athlete number, which can be used at any parkrun event worldwide.
Registered runners get emailed a link from which they can download their own barcode. This is brought to the race and exchanged for a finishing token that runners get when they cross the line. Scanning both of these allows the runner’s exact time to be uploaded to the parkrun website. Each event has its own website that is generic but specific to the particular event.
The first parkrun was in England in 2004 and currently there are parkruns staged weekly in Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, England, Poland, South Africa, USA and even Afghanistan (at Camp Bastion).
There are park runs in Dublin (Malahide Castle, St Anne’s in Raheny, Marlay Park and Griffeen in Lucan), Mayo (Westport) and Cork (Castle Demense). This number is expected to keep rising as more volunteer groups set up parkruns in their areas. Wicklow could join in here, as there are a number of venues that could be considered. How about Glendalough for one? Or Killruddery? Or Avondale House? At first there might appear to be a conflict between the use of a facility for a running event and its main function as a public amenity, but this has been overcome in other venues, most notably in Cardiff where similar conflict has arisen.
Parkrun volunteers ensure there is a complete clean-up of the venue after each event and the numbers participating – Malahide regularly gets upwards of 300 –ensure there is a monetary spin-off for the area as runners stay for refreshments after the run.
