Bupa Ireland Run 2007

Just registered on for the Bupa Great Ireland Run 2007 at http://www.greatrun.org/events/registration.asp?id=6

Plan is to beat last year's time of 44mins for the 10km. This could be difficult as I struggled to a time of 48mins in the Port Tunnel 10km last week. Although in 2003, I completed an Irish Runner Five Miles in 34mins 52sec, with Tom Olden in 33mins 51secs. Was sniffing around and came across an article in the Meath Chronicle that shows all runners who competed from Meath in last year's event. Looks like you have to register on the Unison site to enter but the results were as follows:-

The full list of finishers from Meath with their finishing time was:

1, Robbie Matthews, Crossakiel 35:00; 2, Declan Fahey, Enfield, 35:58; 3, Sean Carpenter, Collon, 36:16; 4, James Gibbons, Navan, 39:29; 5, Bjorn Ludick, Dunshaughlin, 39:30; 6, Ronan Carey, Mornington, 40:42; 7, Tony Finegan, Wilkinstown, 42:04; 8, Raymond Gunning, Enfield, 43:11; 9, Robert Wogan, Wilkinstown, 43:20; 10, Joe McGuinness, Duleek, 43:27; 11, Anthony McGarry, Duleek, 43:47; 12, Colin Cooney, Drogheda, 44:00; 13, Mary Watters, Navan, 44:19; 14, Patrick O’Meara, Ratoath, 44:20; 15, Vincent Meade, Wilkinstown, 44:24; 16, Noel Mulhern, Trim, 44:44; 17, Declan McGuinness, Duleek, 44:51; 18, Shane Kelly, Drumree, 44:53; 19, Peter O’Brien, Slane, 45:11; 20, Desmond Savage, Navan, 45:16.

Search Engine Optimisation

It is interesting to plot how certain key words appear higher up the Google results. Using some tracking software and some old-fashioned screenshots, I will plot how my name, Colin Cooney, becomes more visible in terms of appearances on Google's organic results. What I will be aiming to do, without any underhand methods, is get the the top few places when someone searches for my name. At the minute I am way down on the second page.

Websites are doing this all the time using a method called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). According to the definition on Wikipedia, "Search engine optimization (SEO) is a subset of search engine marketing, and deals with improving the number and/or quality of visitors to a web site from "natural" (also known as "organic" or "algorithmic") search engine listings. In effect, SEO is marketing by appealing to machine algorithms to increase search engine relevance and ultimately web traffic. This is analogous to foot traffic in retail advertising."

Blogs et al.

One of the great features of weblogs is that they are interactive — not only can you read them, follow the links you like, listen to files uploaded...but you can also leave your comments on any post. All you need to do is register — which helps us keep the spam and wasters. Below are a sample of Irish blogs which may be worth a look.

www.irishblogs.ie (all the Irish blogs, aggregated in one place: a good place to check out what is happening on the irish blog front)
www.sluggerotoole.com/ - Note on Northern Ireland Politics & Culture
twentymajor.blogspot.com
www.tomrafteryit.net
awards.ie/blogawards - Details about the upcoming Irish Blog Awards