ON THE RUN IN BRAY
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF DISCUSSED FAST TIMES AND LONG DISTANCES WITH THE ATHLETES OF BRAY RUNNERS, WHO MAKE THE MOST OF SHANGANAGH PARK
SHANGANAGH Park is a wonderful place, providing lavish and accessible green space for the intensively populated urban area in which it is located. Neatly mown grass, semi-wild woodland with the last of the year’s bluebells, paths for the dog walker and level ground for endless playing pitches – the park has them all.
Shanganagh on a fine summer’s evening is full of cheerful life, the base for so many soccer teams to train and play, a launch pad for hurling or football championship campaigns, a magnet for strollers and roller-bladers. The breeze is refreshing, the open areas a bracing contrast to the nearby housing estates, while the views through the fresh leaves on the sycamores up to the Lead Mines are a tonic.
No one extracts greater value from this marvellous facility than Bray Runners, the athletics club which has found a convenient home here in the absence of any more formal headquarters. You can tell the club’s runners to look at by their distinctive orange kit, and to talk to by their obsession with times and distances as they plot their training programmes. Your reporter idly asked club spokeswoman Ashling Smith how many acres (or hectares) there are in Shanganagh Park, an enquiry that was met with a passing frown of incomprehension.
Acres, it seems, are for farmers, a measurement in which the athletes have no interest whatsoever as they prefer a different reckoning, opting to gauge each field by the length of the path around its edge. Thus the first field offers an 800 metre circuit, the second a 700 metre circuit and so on, allowing club members to compile measured routes as they go from one to the other. Look carefully while wandering through the park and you may notice the spots on the tarmac where someone from BRAC with a white paint brush has marked off various kilometre marks.
‘We are really lucky to have this!’ exclaimed Ashling, extolling the virtues of Shanganagh as she led the way to the most convenient field of them all – the 1,000 metre field, perfect for an informal race. In fact those in charge are careful not to call them races at all but rather ‘ time trials’ providing everyone who finishes with a time, so that they can assess their own progress and fitness. Throughout the month of May, Bray Runners staged such races – oops, sorry, time trials - here each Tuesday evening, over distances varying from one kilometre up to four kilometres – exactly four laps of joyous summer running.
‘In winter we are confined to the schools so we need our own place. We want our own track,’ mused Ashling. She and the rest of the athletic community in Bray look with some degree of envy towards their friends in Greystones who have top notch facilities in Charlesland. Still, the lack of proper ‘tartan’ underfoot and of marked lanes and of floodlighting was not something to dwell upon when the evening weather was fine and the wide open spaces of Shanganagh were at their disposal.
At the side of the path, club secretary Jean O’Kennedy and social secretary Siobhan Butler were taking entries from approximately 20 competitors and dispensing race number cards for participants to pin to their singlets. Jean pointed out that, although the club does not have its own grounds, they do have use of a clubhouse ina terrace on the Vevay Road suitable for committee meetings and storing equipment.
Siobhan issued a reminder that they may be found in Shanganagh not only on Tuesdays but also on Thursdays, and on Sunday mornings: ‘ This is a fantastic place.’ Jean estimated that t there are around a hundred runners on the books and Siobhan chipped in with a reminder that there is always room for a few more. The number cards they handed out were just about the only formal part of the proceedings as it was abundantly evident that this was a gathering of friends.
The intense and self-centred rivalry of the Olympic Games and the athletics Grand Prix circuit is a world removed from the genuinely amateur version. The fact is that the runners in most Irish clubs are generally the most genial breed of sports folk on earth, all keen to do well for themselves but also unfailingly enthusiastic in supporting their fellows. Siobhan underlined that such camaraderie is not confined to the dry evenings: ‘We are not fair weather runners. We run in all weathers.’ Jean stressed that all degrees of competitiveness are catered for, from the casual keep-fit type along the spectrum to serious contenders.
‘I have been three years in the club,’ she revealed. ‘You get sucked in. The high standard runners have their own programmes but there are no prima donnas. It’s great to run here in Shangana
agh because all the fields are inter-linked. You can run in an out and clock up 20 kilometres no bother.’ At least two of her serious contenders were present this evening, both back in Bray after posting impressive performances abroad.
Neil Wiktorski ran a marathon in Frankfort where he rued missing out on the all-time Wicklow record for the classic distance by around 20 seconds. Also at the starting line was Garry Condon, fresh from an outing to the Netherlands where he posted a time of around 2:30 (that’s 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the Rotterdam Marathon. th In the aftermath of his draining efforts on theth Continent, he was not prepared to submit himself to a time trial but he was happy to turn up and act as starter – armed with a whistle ratherra than a pistol.
The participants mustered behind the faded startst line painted on the path, a fine mixture of agesa and gender. Garry blew his whistle, with Neil taking off at a great lick, to leave the rest of theth field immediately in his wake.
It appeared that he believed he was in a sprint but,b no, he maintained this busy pace for the duration, all but lapping one of the tail enders breaking the six minutes barrier – which was his target.
‘TWO kilometres is too short for me,’ he joked afterwards, revealing that his target will be more like 42 kilometres when he tackles the Berlin Marathon at the end of September. He came home in 2:25 in Frankfort and fells that he is capable ofo 2:22 if the 160 kilometres per week schedule he has planned bears fruit and brings him that countyco record.
‘Shanganagh Park is a great asset for the club, ththe heart of the club really,’ he suggested. ‘In winter tewinter we do cross-country in the back fields.’ After hhe had a quick word with the visiting journalist he took off once more after the last of the time triallists crossed the line amidst warm applause in a time a little over 12 minutes.
Neil, now aged 33, was formerly more of a soccer player than an athlete but his potential was spotted by the hugely respected Sean Clifford, who founded Bray Runners in 1984. Another legendary figure associated with the organisation is Gerry Curtis, once a man who packed a national reputation as ‘King of the Roads’ on the athletics scene.
‘We are very lucky to have him,’ remarked Ashling Smith. ‘ He comes from Dun Laoghaire but he has lived in Bray for the past 20 years or so and he is a level three coach.’ She commented that BRAC is a marathon club, insofar as it was born out of the marathon boom of the 1980s and for many of the members, completing the 26 mile classic is the ultimate.
She would like to see more attention being given to middle-distance and maybe even sprints in the future rather than the concentration on endurance to the virtual exclusion of all else.
Her own preferred distances are 800 and 1500 metres, competing at ‘Masters’ meets on the track. She revealed that her participation in the club, which she joined in 2014, marked a return to athletics for her as she was a member of Donore Harriers as a teenager. She used to train at Donore headquarters in Chapelizod with her father and did not fully realise how much she missed the sport until she hooked up with Bray Runners after a two decade break.
‘Your running club becomes your family,’ she observed, paying particular tribute to Richard Kavanagh. ‘He makes us all feel we are of equal value. He is the backbone of the club.’ Her desire to see a more varied athletic diet will happen in due course, if juvenile coach Richard Hourhihan has anything to do with it. On the same evening that the adults were pounding out their two kilometres in the far field, Richard had a large squad of children under his command close to the main entrance. They cover the shorter, more explosive events.
While waiting for them to make their mark in years to come, keep an ear to the ground in the meantime for results from the forthcoming masters event at Aarhus in Denmark in July when Bray will have a squad of four in action – Richard Kavanagh, Jean O’Kennedy, Tom Cavanagh and Ashling Smith.