Porters turn their virtual version of 5k series into hit
WHEN the popular Galway 5km series, due to take place in April and May, fell victim to the Covid-19 pandemic, runners from across the county were disappointed. Yet, not to be denied, Craughwell’s well-known Porter family decided to take matters into their own hands.
A family of runners, the Porters are no strangers on the athletics circuit. Members of the family have run everything from 5kms to marathons and when it comes to the sport their enthusiasm for it is beyond reproach.
Father of the Porter household, Tom, has been hosting running groups for the best part of his life; his wife Mary was the voice of athletics on Galway Bay FM for many years; their daughters Lisa, Linda and Laura are also familiar faces at events; and son David, who won a county C1 medal playing at centre-forward with Craughwell in 2014, also has that capacity to open up the lungs in his genes.
In any event, the Porter family are not ones to sit around and, although the country is locked down at the moment, they have been keeping family, friends and acquaintances entertained with their virtual version of the Galway 5km series.
The background to this is as follows: Tom hosts a running group twice a week, with approximately 26 runners coming and going as they so wish. The onus is on the runners to turn up – Tom just provides the facility – and the runners connect via a WhatsApp group, named ‘Porter Runners’.
This hardy band of athletes, young and old and of all abilities, has become a community of sorts in recent years and one of the events they look forward to is the annual Galway 5km series, which consists of six races in as many weeks held at various locations around the county.
“So, when the 5km series was cancelled, the six races, everyone was feeling deflated, even though they were still doing their training and whatever,” says Laura Porter. “As far as we can see, there will be no road races for a long time. So, again, everyone was feeling deflated about that.
“Then, Brian Mulry (runner) and dad and I were talking and we kind of came up with the decision that we would run our own 5km series – virtually or remotely. There were about 26 in the WhatsApp group and it started off with just a few people deciding to enter.
“However, then, others who had ran with dad over the years became interested in doing it and more and more people started to get involved, like family members of runners. So, in Craughwell, we would have the likes of the Reidy family and the Whiriskey sisters doing it. Eventually, I had to stop the entries because the spreadsheet was filling up,” she says.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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