Our Trainers
Thursday 21st, September
Ger Copeland:
I have been into fitness all of my life and trained as a PE teacher before taking over the family business. My passion for fitness has never waned. I spent my 20’s cycling and participating in triathlons. However, my first love is running, particularly over longer distances. I’ve quite a few competitive achievements under my belt e.g. winner of the Portumna Forest 100km in 2013, Titantic 50k winner and 9th quickest in the world for a 50 mile race in 2014, and winning captain of the Energia 24 hours Championship relay team and world record holder for 10 marathons in 5 days in 2015. Out of my first 100 marathons, I placed in the top 3 in 55 of them and won 27! I have an average time of 3:12 over those 100 marathons.
In addition to competing, I found that I really wanted to share my love of running and my experiences with other people. I wanted to make running (marathons in particular) much more accessible to the people of Ireland. So in 2014, along with good running mate Frank McDermott, I set up Dublin Bay Running Club and the East of Ireland Marathon Series. My role to date has been both Chairman and Head Trainer. I get great satisfaction out of seeing DBRC members improve their performance, whether it is getting over Howth Hill for the first time, improving their time over the hill, running their first race (be it a 10k, half or full marathon) or running their 106th marathon in a year!
Our club motto is “Me, We!”
“Me, we.” by Muhammad Ali is the shortest poem recognised by Oxford University. Ali used it to sum up his career, as in there can be no “me” without “we” – the support of his family, his friends and his fans. It's same with our club...we only succeed when we work together.