Dublin Half Marathon 2016

Report by Sandra Kelly

Photos by Peter Knaggs

Full Sportsworld results below – 34 finishers!

Race reporter Sandra and Denise Kilkenny

As 9000 runners descended on the Phoenix Park for last Saturday’s Dublin race series Half Marathon, I was feeling more optimistic than I was for the last half I ran in Clontarf a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been in training since then and was interested to see what kind of time I could dig up despite the rain and wintery conditions.

The atmosphere was electric and all looking very organised until the end when I tried to retrieve my bag (more about that later ……)

I knew there was a good contingent from Sportsworld running and I first bumped into Peter Knaggs who told me he was planning on taking it easy (Yeah right Peter, check out his time below :))

I walked towards the start line and saw Denise Kilkenny ready to go so jumped in beside her.

And we were off ….. my plan was to start steady and try to quicken up for the second half of the race but as often happens, I got carried away with the crowd and ended up running faster than originally planned. As I got to the 10k mark, I was hoping I could continue at the same pace for the next 11kms or so and thankfully I did. For me it was a nice course with downhill’s and some uphill’s but all in all a good challenging route which took in Farmleigh and most of the park.

I saw a few Sportsworld vests during the race and everyone was looking first class.

Thanks to Paddy, Myles and Emily who all shouted some encouragement and were positioned towards the end when you most need the support.

I came in at 1:49:34 which was a whole 10 minutes faster than Clontarf so was delighted. My glass of white wine obviously did me no harm on Friday evening ……..

A few of us gathered after the race to swap notes and take a few customary photos as we wouldn’t dare leave without some evidence of being there!!!

Then the real fun began ….. the bag drop tent. I’m not exaggerating when I say the queue was 20 people deep and nothing moving. A few of us joked that there was more chance of picking up a Dublin bus than our bag at the rate it was moving. We were hanging around almost as long as it took to run the race. I managed to shout over to a kind man who was standing near my bag and retrieved it for me. After which, the barrier came down and it was like a first class mill to grab your belongings.

Congrats to all the club runners for a great weekend’s running, partying and celebrating …….

Sportsworld Results

Kevin Curran 01:19:34
Justin McKeever 01:22:35
James Brady 01:23:20
Jim Manning 01:25:21
Sean Duffy 01:25:22

Paul Brady 01:30:16
Damien Geraghty 01:30:32
Noel Tobin 01:33:32
Peter Knaggs 01:37:15
Johnny Dwyer 01:39:30

Padraic Moran 01:40:32
Alan Hynes 01:43:13
Eileen Rowland 01:43:21
Patricia Fitzmaurice 01:44:08
Denise Kilkenny 01:44:39

Paul Cassidy 01:47:44
Stephen Willoughby 01:47:57
Sandra Kelly 01:49:34
Kevin Kelly 01:52:24
Thomas Kinsella 01:53:37

Katie Nugent 01:54:29
Cathy Coyle 01:54:52
Ray Carpenter 01:55:05
Caroline Lynch 01:56:42
Siobhan Clarke 01:58:10

Tara Murphy 02:00:12
Catherine Gilmore 02:02:06
Lorcan Feerick 02:02:18
Philip Kerr 02:02:36
Audrai O’Driscoll 02:04:34

Ian Cairns 02:07:04
Derrick Long 02:08:15
Sean O’Byrne 02:08:15
Louise Kearney 02:19:22