By Race Director Michael Cunningham

The 2017 Sportsworld Terenure 5 mile race is nearly over apart from a few small jobs, accounts completed and signs to be taken down. The feedback so far on the race has been brilliant and there has been nothing but praise for all the Sportsworld members. There are more improvements we can make on the race for next year but there was 11 people behind the success of this year’s race. A huge amount of hours were put in over the past 7 months on the race on evenings, weekends and days off.

Race Director Michael with a balloonless 35min Pacer Paul O’Connell 

We had Liam Lenehan a new club member who got Bill Sheehan on as a new sponsor and worked closely with all the race sponsors.

Liam with Sponsor & Sportsworld member Mark Heffernan of South Dublin Vets

Catriona Duffy who with Liam got a huge amount of spot prizes from companies in Terenure and got Thorntons waste recycling on board and the Bretzl bakery.

Catriona Duffy, finish line photographer Patricia Fitzmaurice and Kate Kelly

Adrian Lannigan organised all the club entries and Tweeter and boards.ie accounts.

Adrian was tweeting from Spain for us on race day

Crona Brady who got our Elite runners together and commentator for the start.

Crona at the pre-race set up

Aggie Buckely who got Glenisk yogurt, Forfill bars, Brodrick bars and Nature valley bars.

Catherine and Aggie setting up the stage

Joe Byrne who took control of the finish area, collected the water, bars and got race starter signs made.

Joe Byrne on the finish line

Will Greensmyth who got Erdinger on board which was a brilliant success and even paced the race.

Will getting in the zone for pacing

Sandra Gowran who kept the peace and set up the race registration in the club.

Sandra at last years race. As she missed this years race day she’s agreed to bake for all future committee meetings

Maria Finnegan who got all the cheques and money on track and is doing all the accounts.

Maria with Terenure 5 Lead car driver Conor Kenny at the annual Sportsworld Summer BBQ

Catherine Mulleady Elliot who got all the trophies, designed  sponsor board (with Nigel’s help) and redesigned the race flyer.

Evidence of Catherine working

Eoin O’Brien who with Catherine organised all the stewards, head stewards, people for the posters, registration and cone drop needed for the race and single handed did all the Facebook promotion for the race.  There is a question mark on if it’s his sense of humour that gets people to do so much work or the fear he holds over people that he can ruin their lives with one weekly email.

Stewards, lovely stewards working everywhere

We also had a huge amount of help from people in the club. Caroline Conway for getting the race water, Mark Heffernan for sponsoring the race, Conor Kenny for doing the lead car, Cormac Garvey and Anthony Gillian for getting the PA systems and Anthony for doing a brilliant job as the course director.

Course Director Anthony

  • Louise Jackman for being the finish area Doctor.
  • Michael O Grady and Justin McGeever for doing a marathon 3 hours of free sports massages.
  • Natalia O’Grady for her contact with the Bretzel Bakery.
  • Patricia, Lucia and Olivier for taking some amazing race photos.
  • Aileen Melody for organising the pacer T shirts.
  • Laurence and Niamh for setting up and organising the post race refreshments.
  • Jose Chapa for getting the gantry engineer sign off,
  • Gareth Murran for doing a post race video,
  • Denis McCaul for doing race website,
  • Carmel Noleen for getting 1500 Hi Vis bibs,
  • Sean O Byrne for doing the health and safety statement and DCC permit,
  • Ann Marie and Ronan for getting transport vans,
  • Nigel Elliot for organising the lead cyclists,
  • Deidre O Connell for getting driving range free vouchers,
  • Sandra Armstrong for getting the Scouts for the water,
  • Myles and Cormac for moving a 2 tonne van off the finish,
  • Olivier, John and Mark for putting out and taking up all the traffic cones,
  • Sean Donnegan for giving spot prize of Cold play tickets,
  • all the pacers,
  • and finally Mick and Emily Dowling for setting up the race in 1985.

I am sure there are loads of people I am forgetting to thank but its clear from the above that it takes a huge amount of people to put the race on and we are very lucky in Sportsworld to have so many people who volunteer their time for the club.

In the next couple of weeks we will have the race accounts finished and we will be able to announce the donation to the PWSAI and also the money raised for the club to buy new equipment, put on club BBQ, pay for transport to races and maybe the ice cream machine everyone wants.

So if you enjoyed the race and you want to get more involved in the race we need new race committee members with new ideas each year ( we tend to burn a few out each year). So when the 2018 race is announced make sure you put your name forward.

The planning/baking sessions

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