"Many hands make light work".............John Heywood

Saturday morning March 5th witnessed the latest offering on the BHAA calendar.  288 participants toed the line at the our BHAA race. An Garda Siochana has a proud tradition of hosting BHAA races reaching back to 1992 when we held our very first BHAA race in the Phoenix Park.  2012 will be our 20th anniversary.  2011 was without doubt a huge success thanks to all of the club members who gave generously of their time and sweat.  We have had some fantastic feedback on the BHAA website concerning our race.  www.bhaa.ie. So thanks to The OPW for their co-operation, St. John's Ambulance for their expertise, St. Raphaels Garda Credit Union and Runways for their kind sponsorship, The Garda Boat Club for the use of their facilities, the BHAA Committee for all their helpful assistance and to Damian, Brian, Declan, Anthony, Adrian, Paul, Jim, Mick, Kevin, Joe, Mick, Jason, Jer, Leona, John, Eamon, John Jnr, Karl, Bridget, Mick, Declan, Hugh, John Snr, Ollie, Ian, Tom, Ronan, and John, thanks a million.  

 

As for the race itself, the weather was kind to us and despite the Ballycotton 10 mile race scheduled for the next day a total turn out of 288 was excellent.  A quick glance at the results of our race and the Ballycotton ones, revealed that we lost at least 30 regular BHAA racers to what is Ireland's premier 10 mile event.  Despite this we still had the largest field of the cross country season by a considerable margin.  As is usual when organising a race very few Gardai raced in our own race.  Jason Miley who is engrossed in some very intense training at present elected to run after his chores in the GBC were completed.  He ran a stormer finishing in 15th place with a time of 22:22.  Ian Redican also decided to run and he posted 25:34 for 84th place.  We also had a few debutant's who toiled diligently.  Nathan Burke finished in 100th position clocking 26:24.  A fine time in his first ever outing.  Gordon Woulfe put in a barnstorming finish down the home stretch picking of a group of runners to place 197th in 31:11.  Another who made his maiden voyage on the BHAA ocean was Michael Gubbins, who came ashore in 34:41 and 220th overall.  Some of our senior members were delighted to spy Aidan Byrne, a retired member from Co. Cork who travelled up to Dublin to participate in our race.  Aidan ran a fine race placing 139th in 27:33.  Aidan was one of Ireland's top triathletes back in the day when triathlon was as popular as cricket.  Triathlon is now recognised as a beast of a sport and has mushroomed in popularity over the past decade.  As for the cricket, nearly as popular as the hurling these days.