About Us
Coast Road Runners operates a series of running courses, to train people to get fit and run from 0-5km (Couch to 5k) or from 5-10km. Our courses offer you a supportive, structured and friendly group environment in which to achieve your running goal. We also provide training programmes should you want to take your distance beyond 10km.
For people learning to run from 0-5km for the first time, our aim is not just to help you to run for 5km, but more importantly it is to give you the tools to run as a form of exercise after the course so that running becomes part of your lifestyle.
Our Story
Coast Road Runners was set up in March 2016. As a long term runner, I often heard people saying that they wish that they could run but feel that they can’t. I realised that what they needed was the confidence to believe in themselves to enable them to run. So I set up Coast Road Runners to help people to overcome this feeling that they can’t run, and train them to run from 0-5km. The first 0-5km course started in Clontarf on 7th March 2016. What I learned from this group has formed the basis that has underlined Coast Road Runners methodology.
How Far Do You Want To Go?
I always tell people that you can take your running to wherever you want it to go. Whether you never run a meter beyond 5km or not is entirely a personal choice. I was sometimes asked if I would do a course to train people to run for longer than 5km, so in April 2017, a year after starting Coast Road Runners, I started the first 5-10km course. Most people that did it came from the 0-5km courses. Seeing people who had taken their first running step with me within the past year, run for 10km (or 10,000 meters or c. 13,000 steps!) was a wonderful experience. It was also great to have people new to Coast Road Runners in the 5-10km group, as it helped them to move out of the 5km comfort zone that they felt stuck in after being in it for so long.
Out of this first 5-10km course came something that I hadn’t envisioned so soon after starting Coast Road Runners. As a 6 times marathon runner, the conversation of marathon running sometimes comes up during the running sessions. During this course it did more than just come up. Two people, Amanda and Paul ran the Dublin City Marathon in 2017. Not only did they both train together using a Coast Road Runners training plan, they crossed the finish line together in an astonishing 3 hours 52 minutes. In 2018, Coast Road Runners Elaine and Paul ran the Dublin Marathon and in 2019 an amazing 7 Coast Road Runners ran the Dublin Marathon 2019. And in April 2019 Paul became the first Coast Road Runner to do an Ultramarathon, an astounding 39.3 miles or 62.6km!
Running is by no means all about marathon running. However what this demonstrates is that once you are able to run for 5km, you can take your running to wherever you want it to go.
Our Methodology
Here at Coast Road Runners, first and foremost we want everyone to be able to enjoy running. The best way to do this is for people to be comfortable to run at whatever pace suits them.
The running coaches don’t set the pace, but let each individual run at whatever pace suits their own fitness level so you never feel under any pressure to keep up with or stay back with others in the group.
Our Ethos
We believe that the key to running is fitness and being injury free. Many people are under the misconception that they cannot run but anyone can run, unless they have a medical condition that prevents them from running. The best way to get and remain fit is to do regular exercise. You do not need to be fit when you start the 0-5km running course you but will be fit (or fitter than you were when you started) by the end of the course.
To maintain running in the long term, we recommend that people run 2-3 times per week. Always leave at least one day in between each run. These rest days are very important to help prevent injury. We also place a huge emphasis on stretching both before and after each run. This is paramount to preventing injury. Building on your core strength is also very important to keeping up running in the long term.
There is a huge sense of camaraderie when undertaking a challenge as part of a group. After spending 6 to 8 weeks with people, most of whom you never met before, new friendships are created. These friendships don’t end when the course ends as many people keep in touch with each other and meet up for regular runs together after the course. We at Coast Road Runners really encourage this and keep the group communication lines open indefinitely. And we are always partial to facilitating the social side of running by arranging reunion runs, coffees, afternoon teas, lunches, dinners, nights out…
My Running Story
I haven’t always been a runner. I first started running in 2004. Before that like most people, I played team sports in school. But when I started college, all of this went and stayed by the way side when I started working in the corporate world. I walked a lot and was fine with that until one day when I was 28 years old, I found myself walking up Howth Hill wheezing and out of breath. This gave me a huge fright. Having smoked for 10 years I knew it was because of the cigarettes.
On 1st January 2004 I made my first life changing New Year’s Resolution by giving up smoking. A few months later, I thought that I should feel much more healthy and fitter now that I was a non-smoker. But other than no longer wheezing, I felt no different. I felt that I needed something more than this to keep me from starting to smoke again. So I thought right. What can I do now that I wasn’t able to do when I smoked? And it came to me. Running.
I hadn’t been able to run (nor even tried to run) since I had left school 10 years earlier. So I did some running stretches then went for my first run. I ran for a few minutes and was so happy to have done it and not keeled over. I gradually increased the length and distance of my runs so that after a few weeks I was running for about 30 minutes. For my walks I liked to walk for an hour so I decided that I wanted to be able to run for an hour. So in a few weeks I was running for one hour and this became my running norm. Back then and pretty much to this day, I run 3 times a week and always leave at least one day in between each run.
One of the huge benefits of running is that it gives you so much headspace and time to think as you aren’t distracted by phones, tablets, PC’s, TV, work, family etc. So when I first started running it reminded me that I used to do milk runs as a child, something that I hadn’t thought about in years. My dad used to do voluntary work for St. Vincent de Paul and they did these milk runs to raise money. I was probably about 8 years old at the time. I remembered when I did them that I swore that I would do the marathon some day when I grew up.
| April 2024 Boston | 3.34.07 |
| October 2023 Dublin | 3.21.05 |
| October 2022 Dublin | 3.12.21 |
| April 2022 Paris | 3.12.16 |
| October 2020 Dublin Virtual | 3.20.04 |
| October 2019 Dublin | 3.12.33 |
| October 2018 Dublin | 3.16.58 |
| October 2017 Dublin | 3.14.58 |
| October 2016 Dublin | 3.16.06 |
| October 2015 Dublin | 3.18.39 |
| October 2012 Dublin | 3.25.32 |
| October 2005 Dublin | 3.47.56 |
Marathons
I hadn’t been able to run (nor even tried to run) since I had left school 10 years earlier. So I did some running stretches then went for my first run. I ran for a few minutes and was so happy to have done it and not keeled over. I gradually increased the length and distance of my runs so that after a few weeks I was running for about 30 minutes. For my walks I liked to walk for an hour so I decided that I wanted to be able to run for an hour. So in a few weeks I was running for one hour and this became my running norm. Back then and pretty much to this day, I run 3 times a week and always leave at least one day in between each run.
One of the huge benefits of running is that it gives you so much headspace and time to think as you aren’t distracted by phones, tablets, PC’s, TV, work, family etc. So when I first started running it reminded me that I used to do milk runs as a child, something that I hadn’t thought about in years. My dad used to do voluntary work for St. Vincent de Paul and they did these milk runs to raise money. I was probably about 8 years old at the time. I remembered when I did them that I swore that I would do the marathon some day when I grew up.
This thought clearly went to the very back of my head as I had completely forgotten about it until I took up running. Now that the idea was back in my head I decided. Right. I’m on a roll here with the New Year’s Resolutions so on 1 January 2005 I decided that I was going to run the Dublin Marathon. So aged 29, about 15 months after I started running, I ran the Dublin Marathon on 31st October 2005 and it was one of the best experiences of my life. 12 more marathons, 20 years and three children later, I am still as passionate about running now as I was then, and I hope to pass on this passion for running to Coast Road Runners far and wide.