Rathfarmham 5km 2015

Report by Michael Cunningham

Thanks to Anna Delaney for the cover photo and race photos also by Anna, Paddy and Gareth.

5km races are a chance for sprinters to wear their brightest colored runners and sun glasses during a race. An end of September 5km normally makes this difficult to justify but September 27th was like a glorious summers morning. The race starts at 10am but at 9.30 runners are like nervous rabbits unsure if they are allowed on the road and trying to bunch together for security.

At 9.50 mob rule takes over and the road gets blocked and people line up at the start telling each other 5km is not so bad. Suckers. 5km is horrendous and should come with a health warning. I successfully avoided this race since I started running even though it’s the closest race to me but this year I ran out of excuses and it was time to do my first Rathfarnham 5km.

So the first 1km is downhill and even the most novice runner knows this 1km is for free the other 4 you are going to have to pay for and your first 1km pace can determine the price.

You then pass the finish line before a left turn up to Terenure and you know you will feel different the next time you see the finish line. At the mile marker someone is calling out the mile times which is strange as doing math’s when running is like patting you head and rubbing your stomach, impossible.

You have a short sharp climb into Terenure and then left up Templeogue road past Eddie rockets( don’t think about onion rings, don’t think about onion rings). As I started to think about onion rings and chocolate milk shakes the long long drag up templeogue started. For some reason I also started to think about people running the Dublin marathon up this road and with 2 km left and 1 of them downhill things didn’t seem so bad.

As I turned the corner on to the last 1 km things started to feel bad and why instead of 800m to go do they not just be honest and just call it 2 laps of the track to go.

I pushed as hard as I could for the finish line telling myself there may be chocolate volcano’s at the finish line and finally I had done the Rathfarnham 5km. There was a large contingent from Sportsworld and the mutual support of Dublin Running Clubs for each other’s races seems to be continuing which is very important.

Precision timing has a full list of runners and times on the below website. There were 5 runners under 15 minutes with John Travers winning in 14.21 and Theresa Doherty from Finn Valley in first for the women in 16.27.

Sportsworld results:

Karol CRONIN 15:27
Justin MCKEEVER 17:06
Seán DUFFY 17:08
Derek SAVILLE 17:23
Ronan MASTERSON 17:39
Michael CUNNINGHAM 17:49
Martin KEENAN  17:55
Diarmaid O’SÚILLEABHÁIN 18:09
Conor KEATING 18:21
Aoife O’LEARY 18:26
Anthony GILLEN 18:40
Noel TOBIN 18:49
Jim BROWNE 19:06
Ruth KELLY  19:29
Patrick DEVANEY 19:32
Denis MCCAUL 19:33
Paul BRADY 20:13
John FLAHERTY 20:43
Eileen ROWLAND 21:54
Naoise WALDRON 22:04
Margaret CROWLEY 22:12
Conor KENNY 22:20
Stephen WILLOUGHBY 22:21
Breda BROWNE 22:40
Naula OCONNOR 23:05
Lucia PRIKODOVA 23:08
Anna CARRIGAN 23:39
Orlagh LAVERY 23:40
Valerie POWER 24:48

Full Results:  Rathfarnham 5km