Waterford...Results of the Marine Climb 6 mile race - Fri 3rd July 2015

The annual Marine Climb 6 mile race organised by West Waterford AC was held on Friday the 3rd of July 2015 and 104 runners took part. This was the lowest number ever for this event.

 Back in 2008, this race had 223 finishers so why the drop? It's a well organised race and the entry fee is only €5 so it's not the price.

There probably isn't any one answer but two possible answers might be as follows.

1) Looking at the results for 2008, about 46% of the finishers were members of West Waterford AC. Some of the other clubs prominent in the results were Waterford AC, Carrick Road Runners, St.Senans AC and Clonmel AC. Fast forward to the 104 finishers of 2015 and a lot of the other clubs are now missing with West Waterford AC making up a massive 70% of the field. Perhaps it may be due in part to the sheer volume of races on at the moment? Runners from these other clubs no longer feel the need to travel as they have plenty of races to choose from in their own area. In effect, it means that any race now has a smaller catchment area than it used to have.

2) Some of the races in Waterford seem to be doing well while others had their peaks a few years ago. There seems to be a general pattern...the harder the race then the peak was a few years back. The shorter and easier 5k races seem to be doing a lot better at the moment.

For example, the Butlerstown 10k peaked back in 2009. That race was down to 178 in 2014. By contrast, the Ballinroad 5k and the Touraneena 5k had their peaks in 2015.

It seems as if a lot of runners are now more interested in shorter easier races than was the case a few years back.

RACE RESULTS
1ST Niall Sheil St Killians AC 33.56
2ND Brian Murphy Carrick On Suir A.C. 34.34
3RD Raivis Zakis W.W.A.C 35.11
1ST Jackie Carty Kilmore A.C. 39.01
2ND Sandra Prendergast W.W.A.C. 43.07
3RD Liz Nyhan W.W.A.C. 44.52

CAT PRIZES
M 40 Peter Duggan St Josephs A.C. 38.57
M 45 Yevgeniy Chizhikov W.W.A.C. 38.58
M 50 Ray Hahesy W.W.A.C. 39.46
M 55 Walter Keane Waterford A.C. 40.15
M JN Jamie Mc Carthy Waterford A.C. 39.23
F 35 Patricia Daly Youghal A.C. 59.30
F 40 Catriona Kiely W.W.A.C. 51.41
F 45 Libby Mc Ginn Murphy ind 49.53
F 50 Margaret Conway W.W.A.C. 57.25

The full results can be seen HERE