The Brendan Early Two Mile League is an annual event for the club which takes place over 4 weeks, usually in May. Each week participants predict their time and the person with the most accurate predictions is crowned the winner. Participants must have taken place in 3 runs to be eligible. Anyone who runs 4 times will have their worst prediction dropped.

It’s a great event because it’s not about who’s the fastest, but who can most accurately predict what they’re going to run.

This year 66 members took part over the 4 weeks. 27 people ran at least 3 times and were therefore eligible to win.

The Winners!

It was very tight at the top of the league table but the overall winner was Brid Ryan, with only 17 seconds between her predicted and actual times. Well done Brid!

Only 2 seconds separated her and Keith Farrell who took second place with 19 seconds.

Then it was joint third for Vincent O’Neill and Aislinn Ahern on 22 seconds. Paul O’Neill and Paul Foran were also tied on 4th with 29 seconds, followed by Ken Byrne was fifth with 30 seconds.

How accurate were the predictions?

It was really interesting to see how good people are at predicting their times. Basically – you’re all faster than you think!

The predictions in week one were generally way off but got better as the weeks went on. The average difference between predicted and actual times in week one was 1:08 but went down to only 20 seconds by week four.

Two people – John Murphy and Niall Heylin – predicted their exact time, both of them doing it week three. The worst prediction was in week one where somebody’s actual time was 4:42 faster then their predicted time.

Everyone was very cautious with their predictions in week one with all bar one person predicting a slower time than they actually ran. But this trend changed as the weeks went on and confidence levels rose.

In week two 12 out of 46 runners’ predicted time was faster than their actual time. In week three it was 18 out of 44. People lost the run of themselves completely in week four when half of the runners (8/16) predicted a faster time than they actually ran. However the shocking weather conditions in the final may have been a contributory factor.

It turns out that men are better at predicting their times – there was an average of 31 seconds difference between the mens’ predicted and actual times over the 4 weeks. This was 1:13 for the women. However…men seem to have greater confidence in their ability and as the weeks went on were more likely to predict a faster time than they actually ran.

The fastest times

Bookies favourite Eoin Devlin recorded the fastest time over the course of the event. In week two he ran a blistering 9:53. In fact he went under 10 minutes on the three occasions that he ran. Impressive stuff from Eoin. However his predictions were way off, proving he is human after all!

A few other lads went close to 10 minutes. Brian Walls ran a 10:05 in week one and Jason Reilly ran a 10:12 in week two. Well done guys.

Jill Horan was fastest lady with a time of 11:42 in week two and week three. Not only was Brid Ryan top of the class with her predictions, she was also second fastest lady, with a time of 11:57 in weeks 3 and 4. Great running from both ladies.

The biggest improvement came from Ken Byrne who ran 50 seconds faster in week two than week one. Might have to get onto WADA about that one!

Well done to everyone who took part and special thanks to John Byrne and all of the other volunteers who helped to organize the league.

And finally….

I’ve fallen a bit behind on the race reports lately but a few recent victories to note. The ladies team consisting of of Jill Horan, Fiona Fagan and Ann Horan took the silver medal in the National 10 mile on July 13. Congratulations ladies!

Congratulations also to Nick Devery who finally won his age category in the Carton House 6k trail run last week. Well done Nick.