#32 Player 3 Has Entered The Game

 

The Display outside Raheny Shamrocks

Raheny Shamrocks said goodbye this week to Pat Hooper and some of the footage from the funeral was evidence of their wonderful tribute to the man. 

However they are not finished yet. Raheny Shamrocks know that Pat was a big fan of parkrun and St Annes in particular and they thought a fitting tribute would be to get some (not) parkruns logged to honour Pat. 

St Anne's numbers are way over double their normal average and it is wonderful to see it. However you may have seen our post about how to complete and log a (not) parkrun run? This was because we received a number of queries on how to log a run and how to view the scoreboard. Both Tralee and ourselves are only too aware that once people become aware that if there is a bit of a competition going it has a habit of generating momentum. Hopefully we will see St Annes grow in numbers from this weeks big leap. We are reminded of the movie quote by Admiral Yamamoto in the movie Tora Tora Tora:

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. 

The War Room

As we write the report the numbers are as follows

Tralee have a commanding lead which may be due to the fabulous weather they had yesterday. Tony Higgins was out in Tralee park yesterday and snapped a few people around the park including the picture below of Malachy and Triona. Some people may recognise Malachy who has juggled around quite a number of parkruns both here and abroad. 

River Valley still has a chance to take the top spot on the number of runs and we know people intend to get out today. Tralee sent the weather on and it is beautiful out there in Swords this morning.

Overall Dublin continues to lead but not by a huge amount. Malahide numbers would seem to be down this week and may climb up as the day progresses.

The Results

Our first finisher this week was fittingly Raheny Shamrock member Luke Murphy. In fact two of the three first finishers were Shamrocks with Brian McWeeney coming over the line third. Spoiling the party was female first finisher Cecile.

First junior finisher was Sean McCarthy with a new PB. Sean was not alone with the PB as we had no less than 16 people record new personal bests. Well done to all of you:

Tomas ENRIGHT, Marian O'HERLIHY, Sinead DAVY, Sean MCCARTHY, Liam OCONNOR, Ciara CURRAN, Fintan CURRAN, Slawomir GLAZ, Terry MURPHY, Linda LEONARD, Rachel BYRNE, Phyllis DUNNE, Leanne KINSELLA, Eugene MURPHY, Trish BERMINGHAM, Mabel BOGERABATYO.

We reserve the biggest shout out to our first timers and this week we had no less than 10 first timers. Where do we keep finding them? Well for at least two and possibly three our shout out last week was obviously heard and they changed from Malahide to River Valley. We are not mentioning any names Alan, Padraig or Karen 😂

Well done all the first timers!!

Colm MCNALLY, Edel MAGUIRE, Michael CROWLEY, Padraig SCANLON, Raymond GILLEN, Aland MOEN, Karen STEELE, Mandisa NOZULU, Jack BLAKE, Claire MANSFIELD

Well done all the folks that got out the virtual Great Pink Run that is raising funds for Breast Cancer research. Pictures above from Áine and Audrey.

Parkrunner Profile - Siobhán Kearney

We love our rivalry with Tralee but it is very important to remember it is just friendly rivalry and we remain great friends with every one in Tralee. In that vein we have a special parkrun profile this week with the wonderful Siobhán Kearney who is the event director in Tralee. Basically she is their Bryan.

Over to you Siobhán.

Pete asked me to write up a few words  for his weekly River Valley parkrun chronicles so here goes. 

Since the parkrun pause back in March Saturday mornings became a little strange. 
I’ve pretty much been at a parkrun every week for the last five years with my Saturday morning 5k becoming like a religion and no matter the weather, what country I was in , or any other prevailing factors I’d find myself at a parkrun start line somewhere  come hell or high water. 

Along the way I’ve had  some exciting adventures,  met lots of people , made new friends, travelled to new places,  got fitter and ate lots of cake. 
I have managed to rope my family in too. My three boys have taken up running, dappled in volunteering,  clocked up  parkruns and (not) parkruns,  and gained the countless benefits to be got from running. My long suffering husband Kevin  had   been a runner long before the rest of us but he enjoys the challenge of running a parkrun  as fast as he can in the hope of a new pb. I think becoming first finisher at Darndale parkrun a few years ago ( en route to the airport for our summer holiday .. who me obsessed? Hmm.. maybe )  has to be a highlight for him. 

My siblings have  taken up parkrun in Letterkenny, Buncrana and the UK and they have joined me on Tpot  Trips (that’s Tralee parkrunners on tour to the uninitiated) around Ireland and beyond ( hello Berlin, Copenhagen, Sweden  and London ). Mum who is now 85, has joined in  a couple of times while Dad comes along afterwards for a  cuppa. 

So  a huge Saturday morning vacuum appeared on the horizon back in March when parkrun abruptly came to an end. 

For the first couple of months  I tuned into The Big parkrun Quiz with Vassos every Saturday at 9am and it somehow kind of  filled the void and parkun being paused  wasn’t all bad though .. Oisin was pleasantly surprised to finally have the luxury of a Saturday morning lie in for the first time since he was 11. 

Lock down lessened and I ventured a bit further afield. I began sea  swimming on Saturday mornings in Fenit and since the water has  got a bit chilly again and still no parkrun I have  had the fun of trail running with Tralee Triathlon Club in the gorgeous   Glanageenty Woods not far from my home . 
Saturday mornings are still not the same though.

 
The familiar friendly faces that I  greet  normally at a parkrun are missing and the thrill of running a parkrun with family and friends around me is still sadly lacking. 
However, some time back  in May along came (not)parkrun. An opportunity to participate in a virtual type of parkrun. The best part for me has been seeing people’s names on the Tralee (not)parkrun results table and knowing that our guys are still getting out there.. crawling, walking, jogging and running. 

From the beginning Tralee parkrunners embraced it well and without too much cajoling   we tipped along nicely with a good number participating. Back then we were carefree and innocent. Of all the parkruns in Ireland we found ourselves at the top of the table in terms of numbers participating.  Life was good. 
Then one week along came River Valley parkrun  and knocked us off our number one spot. I didn’t think too much about it at the time when one of our core team flashed a screen shot of our All Ireland second place position in a Whatsapp group. 

It’s Ok I said to myself,  it’s a a run not a race…  right?  Eeeehh… wrong! As it turns out we love a bit of healthy competition and none more so than with our now arch enemies at River Valley parkrun . 
It’s a tight contest every week but along the way we have both picked up (not)parkrun first timers as well as lots of our folk logging multiple 5ks during the week.  

With encouragement from our new friends at River Valley parkrun word is spreading around The Kingdom and parkrunners at Inch Beach, Killarney House  and Listowel have taken up the gauntlet and began logging their (not)parkrun  times. It’s a slow trickle at the moment but I am confident it will gain momentum and in the war of Kerry Versus Dublin we can take an over all lead!

I’ve never been to River Valley parkrun but now that we are officially twinned I am pretty sure it will be a top destination for us Tpoters when  Covid is finally defeated and we look forward to the day when they can safely visit us here in The Kingdom but in the meantime .. c’mon River Valley parkrunners get your game on and show us what you got.. it ain’t over till it’s over  😁

Siobhan Kearney, Tralee parkrun. 

WhatsApp and the Virtual Coffee

We have had a relatively quiet week and most of the activity has been around the Great Pink run. We did have one question crop up which was how do you align your Garmin with a threadmill as poor Katie had 5km completed according to the threadmill but her Garmin was telling her she had done 2.5km. We think she should have kept going but that is just us 😈

During the virtual coffee yesterday the discussion turned to Halloween. Bryan was adamant that he was not trick or treating with Lily which is sound. However there is no excuse for not getting the deccies up!!

Bryan had his phone on mute but one of our eagle eyed participants noticed some activity that we had to highlight. Goaded into getting his act together Bryan got himself into the attic to get his Halloween decorations down. We will be going around to inspect his handy work during the week.

The Grove Show

Brian Tucker put out another Grove show this week on Near FM. Brian was telling us that one of the ladies who works on producing the show with him had gotten a new tattoo. The problem is that it was to be done in two parts. The first part was no problem but no sign of getting the second part done because of the new Covid restrictions. Pete is a little fearful that his appointment in two weeks for a new tattoo may well be in jeopardy.

Anyways do give the Grove Show a listen and get Brian and the team up the charts!

https://www.mixcloud.com/bjtucker/the-grove-show-16-oct-20-gerry-daly-playlist/

Congratulations to Matt Shields

parkrun country manager for Ireland, Matt Shields, was recognised for his contribution to sport in the Queens birthday honours with the awarding Medallist of the Order of the British Empire (BEM). 

Many of you will recognise Matt who has been one of favourite visitors on a number of occasions. We held off congratulating Matt last week when we heard about the award as we thought the Queen might realise her mistake and give the award to Matt's wife, the wonderful Ruth.

All joking aside we think they both deserve it for all the hard work they put into parkrun in Ireland, north and south and all points east and west.

The All Weather Pitch 

The more attentive among you may well have noticed that work has started on the "all weather" pitch. The initial work is an archaeological dig and the chances of them finding something interesting are above average as we do know that the army of Brian Boru camped in the area before the Battle of Clontarf and also after the battle as they tended their wounded and buried their dead. (Where is Sidi Barrani when you need him?)

Hopefully the work will progress and we can look forward to it being completed and we can assess if there is an impact on our course. We don't think there will be but there may be disruption during the works which may take some time to complete. Hopefully the stars align and the work is completed before we return but not at the expense of the return itself.

.............and finally

We have been playing around with the results and were thinking about our next battle. 

It was a relatively simple task to list out the parkruns Dublin and divide them up into Northside vs Southside. So firstly it is a very uneven contest but that is only in the number of parkruns. We have yet to go into the details of the total number of average attendees but the simple truth of the Northside vs Southside is that the inequalities seldom matter.

Yep! The Northside is absolutely destroying the Southside!!!

Have a great week folks! Still time to get a (not) in today and get it logged. See you all soon!