- St.Brendan’s AC Virtual 5K
St.Brendan's AC invited all runners and walkers to take part in their inaugural St Brendan’s AC Virtual 5K run which was held on the weekend of Friday January 15th -17th. We asked everyone to Run or walk 5k in their own locality, where they added their results to MyRunResults between Friday to Sunday through a results portal.
Entry Fee was 10 euros per entry with Optional Purchase of custom designed T-Shirt and medal. Family Entry Options were also available for 2 adults and 2 children.
As the athletic club caters for all ages from Juveniles to Masters. St. Brendan's AC also has a Fit 4 Life group which is very active on a weekly basis.
Due to the year that it was, the club were unable to hold their Annual Banna 5k/10k Run in August 2020. As this is the only fundraiser for the year by St.Brendan's AC, support to help raise much needed funds was needed to enable us to provide training and development of all our athletes, through this virtual event. The idea to progress with organising this event came about, when training for our Fit4Life group continued throughout the year virtually and was a huge success within the club, creating great banter and laughter amongst the members. When we could, according to covid guidelines and athletic Ireland guidelines, we also continued training for the juveniles and masters in groups, which we found very beneficial for everyone. We then decided that a Virtual Race was the best way to demonstrate the benefits of the training sessions.
Under the guidance of David Butler (Race Director of the event), the virtual 5k event became a huge success. We were hoping for at least over 100 entries but received a total tally of 250 entries by the end of the weekend. This was absolutely phenomenal support to receive. The entries covered not only local people, but people in other counties such as Limerick, Cork and afar. It was also great to see so many juveniles taking part also and families out enjoying the event.
All this created a great atmosphere amongst the club and everyone who shared their experience with us, a virtual online party was held.
This support will help us with training, new training facilities and development of our athletes when normal times resume.
Great feedback was received which started our year off on a very positive note and we hope that we can meet everyone again in August for our Annual Banna 5k/10k road race.
But in the meantime we would like to thank everyone for their support and we are delighted that everyone who has received our custom designed T-shirts and medals are very happy with them.
Everyone seems to be happy which is sending positive vibes to the club. We would like to thank everyone again for their support of our event
- The athletic community received sad news of the passing of the Late Jerry Kiernan. Jerry being a native of Listowel and Dublin had a very successful athletic career which led to the Olympics. He will be sorely missed amongst the athletic community. Ar dheist dé go raibh a anam dílis.
(not) parkrun
In the absence of Saturday parkrun, parkrun Ireland have commenced (not) parkrun. This allows parkrunners to still do their 5k, but this time within their own area, and at a time and day to suit themselves. You are allowed to record one (not) parkrun each day with your fastest time being recorded on the weekly total. If you’re new to (not) parkrun, don’t be shy. You can register on the following link: https://www.parkrun.ie/register and log your 5k time. Please include St. Brendan’s A.C. as your home club.
Over the past few weeks the following members have been actively recording their (not) parkrun:
Juveniles - Katie Butler, Zach Walshe, Aaron Horgan, Kevin Horgan.
Adults - Ursula Barrett, Moira Horgan, David Butler, Paudie Dineen, Peter Jackson,
David Kissane, Artur Nowak, Dan Pierse, Pat Sheehy.
- Membership for 2021:
A change for the club this year (2021) has seen St. Brendan’s AC moved to use a wholly online membership system from athlete through to registrar. The system we are using is hosted by Athletics Ireland and allows key self service functions like applying to join the club and membership renewal. The online system can accessed via this link https://membership.athleticsireland.ie/clubpage/St.%20Brendan's%20A.C.%20(Kerry)
Further information on club membership and benefits of the same are available on the club’s blog on this link.
http://stbrendansac.blogspot.com/p/forms.html
Juvenile membership (U8-U18) is priced @ 30 euro
Senior membership (over 18+) is priced @ 40 euro
The club offers a range of family discounts, for example:
Two juveniles memberships @ 50 euro
Three juveniles memberships @ 70 euro
One senior and one juvenile membership @ 60 euro
Athletic competition starts at the U9 age category (from the age of 8 upwards)
All club members from 2020 should have received a link for renewing their membership via email. If you have any issues with this process or have not received the mail please get in contact with the club and we are more than happy to assist.
For any queries on club membership or family discounts please contact club secretary Irene Butler or club registrar David Butler @ 0877985557.
St.Brendan's AC would also like to give a very warm welcome to all new members who have joined the club recently. We are looking forward to sharing the roads with you all in the near future, when restrictions lift.
- Training news
Strength and conditioning virtual sessions:
Restrictions mean no competition but it's the ideal time to run strength and conditioning sessions for our athletes. It is the staple of every winter season and at St. Brendan's A.C. we are continuing this element of the programme through virtual sessions on Zoom.
The sessions focus on improving performance and preventing injury by strengthening stabilising muscles and improving mobility and balance. Athletes are also working on their cardiovascular fitness with a few pulse raiser exercises thrown in. The social side of training together has always been important and there is still a bit of banter and story telling when members catch their breath.
So every Thursday coaches Kenneth and Ursula run the juveniles session for the athletes at U13 and older from 7-8pm and from 8pm the seniors and masters athletes are put through their paces by coach Ursula. There's no need to worry about the weather as the sessions are beamed straight to member's homes to the phone, tablet or laptop so all that is needed is some device with internet connection, a little space and plenty of energy. The sessions are free for members so anyone who wants to join the club for the year to join in can do so here. The sessions cater for all abilities and all exercises are demonstrated and explained so are suitable for everyone.
- 50K Ultra training group
For the last number of weeks, a group of a dozen club members started training with the aim to complete a 50km run on the weekend of 15/16 May by taking part in Kerry 50K Ultra or complete a Virtual run in Ardfert if the Tralee event is not able to go ahead. The 16 weeks training plan prepared by Artur Nowak, Athletics Ireland Level 2 Endurance Coach is free to registered club members and includes individual running sessions, mobility and strength and conditioning Zoom sessions. For most club members in this group this will be the first time that they go beyond marathon distance but they all have experience in long distance running and looking forward to the challenge and it’s great to see both genders are equally represented.
Some members will be fundraising for different local and national causes and we will post more information when this is confirmed.
Meet the coaches
Ursula Barrett is an Athletics Ireland Level 2 Jumps coach and also a masters athlete competing in sprints and long jump. She also has a degree in sports science and masters in motor development and works as a lecturer in the health and leisure department of Munster Technological University. Ursula has been running the strength and conditioning winter sessions as well as coordinating the Fit4life programme for the past few years but is planning to help out more with the juveniles over the coming year.
As a competing athlete herself, Ursula's favourite event is Long jump and she is looking forward to the planned facilities in Ardfert which include sprint lanes as well as a high jump and long jump area.
"I am looking forward to working with the younger athletes, especially in long jump, and having our own long jump pit in Ardfert will be a game changer allowing regular technical training on our doorstep". Ursula has had to move much of her coaching online over the past year setting virtual challenges for the Fit4life group as well as delivering classes through Zoom since Christmas.
- Blast from the past
- May 1971 - David Kissane finished second in the North Munster Schools senior 5000m in 17:30 (inside Neil Cusack's record).
- May 2007 - After 10 years St.Brendan’s AC is crowned again as Kerry Track & Field Champions.
- GPS in running world
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is used in modern running watches and smart phones for displaying various data like: distance, elevation, speed. GNSS is using GPS, GLONASS and/or Galileo systems.There are several differences between them like the number of satellites each system has in its constellation and positional accuracy, but the key difference is the country of origin of the GNSS. GPS is owned by the United States, GLONASS is owned by Russia and Galileo is the EU's project.
GPS or Global Positioning System is a satellite navigation system owned by the United States. The satellite constellation was first launched in 1978, which makes it the oldest navigation system ever. And that’s perhaps the main reason why it is so widely used everywhere around the world. The positional accuracy of GPS is up to 5 meters under the open sky, which is pretty good.
GLONASS stands for GLObal NAvigation Satellite System, and it is owned by Russia. In many ways GPS and GLONASS are practically the same thing. The one thing that you might benefit from is the fact that GLONASS satellites offer a precision accuracy range of 4.5 to 7 meters.In practical use, people usually find GLONASS to be slightly less accurate than GPS.
Galileo is the youngest of all of these navigation systems and it is a project being developed by the European Union. The main purpose of Galileo is to provide a high-precision position system independent of GPS and GLONASS, so that European nations don’t have to rely on US or Russian satellites. Also, Galileo satellites are supposed to offer better accuracy than both GLONASS and GPS – it is estimated that civilian users can expect accurate positioning up to 1 meter, which is quite impressive.European satellites also offer better positioning services at higher latitudes compared to both GPS and GLONASS, which is one of their main advantages. Additionally, Galileo is actually more reliable in urban environments, where tall buildings can easily block satellite signals. Using a combination of GPS and Galileo is great for getting around unknown cities, especially in Europe.
What Is The Benefit Of Using More Than One GNSS?
When you are using just GPS, your device can choose between 30 different satellites to pinpoint your signal. But when you use GPS with GLONASS or with Galileo, that number of visible satellites is almost double. This does mean that the device is able to pinpoint your exact location faster, and in some cases even the positional accuracy is improved. Keep in mind that your receiver needs to connect to four satellites to determine your location – when you’ve enabled both GPS and GLONASS or Galileo, the device simply has more satellites to choose from, allowing it to be faster and more precise. GLONASS is generally more precise in mountainous regions, while Galileo offers better accuracy in urban environments. When you combine either of these two systems with GPS, your receiver will usually be dead on about your location.
Most watches will be using minimum 2 of these GNSS systems for better accuracy but this never be absolutely precise when measure a distance - your watch or smartphone is calculating distance from data it is receiving from satellites using an algorithm. 2 people running side by side with 2 different watches could have up to 5% difference in distance covered. One study found that errors could be as much as 9% on shorter distances and another study conducted on 56km distance found up to 1.9% difference.
GPS accuracy and power saving
In some watches you can define the GPS fix interval using the GPS accuracy setting - the shorter the interval, the better the accuracy during exercise. By increasing the interval and lowering the accuracy, you can extend the battery life.
Example of the Suunto watch setting below.
GPS accuracy options are:
Best: ~ 1 sec fix interval, highest power consumption
Good: ~ 5 sec fix interval, moderate power consumption
OK: ~ 60 sec fix interval, lowest power consumption
Off: no GPS fix
