It is after the Running in Cork site probably the second largest running related website in Munster at present.
Some of the newcomers to the site might be curious as to how this site got started and how it got so large?
Back in late 2006, I started the Running in Cork site as more of a personal website to track my own training and also to find out how blogs worked. Almost straight away, it became obvious that a lot of the results of local races couldn't be found online so I then started writing about races....dates, locations, previews, results and so on.
It was also obvious from early on that no good race calendar existed. There were plenty of club websites with their own versions but between mistakes and lack of maintenance, the quality of information was poor. So, I began a simple race calendar of Cork only events. As it evolved, it became obvious that a race calendar based on one county was very limited. It was fine for people living in say Cork City and that were not interested in traveling but what about people in East Cork, North Cork, West Cork? As a result, I then started to include events in West Waterford, South Limerick and Kerry and of course the results of those races as well. All of this additional 'spillover' meant that another site was required and the Running in Munster site was started in June of 2008.
It might be nice to say it started with a well planned five year strategy laid out ahead but nothing could be further from the truth! ;o) While the Cork site was getting the main attention, the Munster site was only getting the occasional post and yet, the traffic began to grow.
As the traffic grew, the calendar on the site has evolved as well. It has gone from a list in the sidebar of the site to a spreadsheet on another site to the current format where both sites have an identical copy of the same calendar. As this has improved, it has made it easier to keep track of what races were on and as a result, more and more results went up on the site and this has resulted in more traffic to the site.
Fast forward to 2013 and the Running in Cork and Running in Munster sites are now probably the two largest running related sites in the province. While the Cork site is still the primary one and contains a lot of running related news, the Running in Munster site now serves the following main functions.....
1) Calendar......Have the most detailed and an up to date calendar in the province showing all events ....from serious road races to fun runs.
2) Results.......Put up results or links to results for all events in the province. This means that results can actually be found by people instead of them having to look across a load of different websites, blogs and Facebook pages.
3) Race feedback......Some races are poorly planned and people like to air their grievances when things go wrong, especially if they are after paying a lot to enter. This along with the good feedback helps others to decide which are the best events to enter.
While the traffic to the site continues to grow, it also has an associated Facebook page which helps people keep track of the results as they go up. If you are on Facebook then just visit the page and hit the 'Like' button.
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