Sheeps Head Way

Some great running in great company today! We did a very nice run/hike/walk/crawl from the Lighthouse on the South-west end of the Sheeps head peninsula along the Sheeps head way up over Caher Mountain, Seefin, Gouladane and down into Durrus.
I arrived into Durrus at 09:00 meeting Brian McCarthy and his sister Dee. Kill arrived soon after and off we went towards the lighthouse for the start.
Nice day today after the gale force winds the night before with plenty of rain. I'd reckon it was close on 10 degrees for most of the run so no need for a jacket.
Here's a few pics:

Straight Ahead!

Weather opened up nicely!

We're feeling it at this stage!

We found the Sheeps Head!

Back in Durrus at last!

So a great day out, felt good all the way around. Energy-wise I seemed ok with a banana for breakfast, and then a banana and apple on the run. Legs getting sore towards the end, I need to do a weekly long run to improve this, maybe a new years resolution to run a 26 mile+ run every month in 2013? In all I think it was about 21miles in 5hrs 20mins ish. Its a tough trail with plenty of nice climbs. Very wet in patches.

On a side note, I'd imagine Brain has been on Wiggle.co.uk ordering a pair of shoes with grip! Tough day when your wearing racing flats with no grip! Everyone learns the hard way though!

3 men in a Clio - Art O'Neill Recce II

Padraig and myself decided another AON route Recce should be done. To be honest I think we would have been fine without it but the weather was looking good for the weekend and what better place to get a training run in than on the Art O'Neill route itself. We chose the last section because by our reckoning, its the toughest bit, navigationally and terrain-wise.

We decided on Sunday morning to leave dark and early at 6am from Galway (thanks Anna for the loan of her Clio, I need to get my car taxed again in the new year after a few months of no tax, just a few...) where we had arranged to meet up with Ivan Slovak. An accomplished Ultra-runner himself, we knew we would have our work cut out keeping up with him but decided it'd be good training for us anyway!

We arrived at our start point, Ballinagee Bridge, a bit before 09:00. Lovely morning when we arrived so we knew a nice run was ahead of us. Changed into running suits, compared gear and explained choices as all runners seem to do. It seems a constant strive for all runners to find the "perfect" gear set up. It's a personal choice but we were pretty confident with all our choices, except Padraig and his shoes, one more chance he reckons. A good place to test them out anyway!

The planned route was going to take us 3-4 hours so I kept Breakfast to a banana and water. I had eaten a nice bit the evening before so I knew there was going to be no shortage of fuel. Decided against bringing water too, not warm enough so just took on a few sups before we headed off at maybe 09:15ish? I brought by Osprey pack to carry extra layers, phone, keys, camera, map, compass. Thats travelling light, on the night of the AON it'll be full to the brim with the kit list! I didn't really feel the need to load up the bag to simulate race conditions and get used to carrying a bit of weight, to be honest, I couldn't be arsed and just wanted to enjoy the run as comfortably as possible.

We headed across the bridge and instead of crossing over to the river following Kevin's road, we took the more direct forest road according to Eoin Keith's race route 2011. Breaking off the fireroad and crossing the forest bit looks a lot easier on the map than it was in real life! There must be an easier way but alas we didn't find it. Maybe turn off forest road a bit sooner we reckoned. It's only a short bit anyway so we didn't mind too much.

Popped out of the forest at Glenreemore Brook and went up along the river until the corner of the forest. Here we crossed the river and put the head down for the climb up to Art's cross. It's a tough one. Ran about 3/4's of it but I really don't see that happening after having covered 45km on the night of the race. Will do my best though! A lot happier with the route this time, kept high and a little to the left of the ridge to gradually gain elevation. Could maybe have tried gain more altitude earlier on but I doubt it'll make too much difference. Made it up to the cross and took a well earned break and got time for a few pic's:

We found it!

A nice sight to finally find Art's cross unlike our last Recce! Used the compass here to take a bearing for the three lakes because they're out of sight. This will be the interesting part on the night/morning of the race. If the visibility is very bad, finding the lakes will be interesting to say the least! The land from the cross to the Lakes is pretty featureless so its easy to go off course and not find the way down. After nearly 50km by that stage it'd be nice not to have to add any more unnecessary km's!

The next bit to the lakes and past is pretty tricky. Lots of wet bog and huge "bog walls" that had us on all fours to try negotiate. We tried finding the best route with each of us taking a slightly different route past the lakes but to be honest there's no easy way. I know now not to go too near the lake. A few very wet patches I was sinking fast in if I didn't move quick enough. Best to avoid if you're by yourself!

Lovely run down to Table Track, I seem to be enjoying the downhills more and more each time I do them. I put it down to the shoes having plenty of grip: Inov8 Baregrip 200 which I love for this type of stuff. Nice and light and with the minimal soles, not once do I ever go over on my weak ankles. Not so great on fire-roads with wet rocks.

Moving nicely down to Avonbeg river.

And down Table Track...

We got down as far as where we joined the path by the river we found on the last recce. It's pretty much straight downhill to the finish from here so we just turned here and went back the same way. The climb up to the two "Three Lakes" was pretty tough from here so pretty much all hiking to get back up and across to Art's cross, traversing across the open bog again with plenty of expletives as we came across 6ft bog walls again. Unforgiving terrain!

Back to Art's cross where we stopped for a breather. It gets cold very fast as soon as you stop so it wasn't long again before were were hurtling down towards the forest again. The steeper it got, the more fun I had on the way down. There seems to be an optimum speed I found to "dance" over rocks/bogholes/unknown lumps in heather. Any faster and I'd be out of control (which did happen now and again) and any slower and I'd wouldn't have my other foot down fast enough to stabilize myself after slipping of a sudden change in footing resulting in a spectacular fall. What a way to spend a Sunday morning:

This is the life!

We re-grouped after each of us taking slightly different paths down and had a nice jog down to Kevin's road and back along the river to the Fire-road and back to the car.

Can't beat a bit of Kevins Road, the end in sight!

In the end I felt great to be honest. No signs of running out of energy towards the end so it seems I don't need too much to keep going. Or maybe I don't feel hungry because my stomach shuts down all digestion. This would be fine for the shorter stuff like today but on a longer run I need to be eating so I'm not sure how it's going to go, fingers crossed! I'm going to try force myself to eat early on in the AON race while I still can digest and then hang on for dear life towards the end when things start to get tough. Getting to Art's Cross on the night/morning of the race is going to be a great feeling, it's pretty much downhill from there on. Well...with the little problem of crossing the bogs again but we won't think about that too much yet!

A few more long runs now in the next few weeks. I think my weekly milage will take a hammering due to it being Christmas and all. I've been consistently doing more than I ever did since the marathon. Roughly 50-60 mpw. But the majority of that is running 5miles twice a day. So in terms of Ultra-running, it's prob pretty crap miles. I feel I should be doing 2 long runs a week but we'll see how it works out on the night. I've barely been getting one long run in a week. It'll be a good learning experience anyway!!

Art O'Neill Recce

We all met up at the Art O'Neill finish area where we were to spend the night. I was last to arrive only just in off a flight from London, meeting Kill and Padraig at 11:45 pm. It was cold! Plenty of frost around even at this time so we knew the morning was going to be even colder. We made our plans for the recce over a quick mug of tea courtesy of Kill and off to bed, well wrapped up. I was in the camper, must remember next time to wrap up more, woke up at 5am very cold, thats what you get for going to sleep in a nice warmed up camper and turning the heating off.

We began bright and early, well early anyway, with breakfast at 06:45.

Just threw back a coffee and banana. On a side note, don't keep bananas in the fridge, they go black very fast for some reason.

About an hours drive to where we had planned to start the recce from here just past Kippure Holiday Village. Arrived at the start at 08:30, stepping out of the van in more light we were left very amused at how Kill had managed to put on his shorts at 06:30am:

After Kill sorting out his trouser malfunction, off we went and a nice pull up to Ballynutagh Gap and on up to the top of Black Hill had us nicely warmed up.

Our feet were already wet at this point by turning off too soon for Black Hill, this is why the recce is so important!

Straight down the other side of Black hill and aimed for Billy Byrnes Gap. We may have then too low a trail here, higher up to the left might have kept us out of very boggy land more. Same difference time-wise I'd imagine though.

Headed straight south for here aiming for the forest below in the valley. What a downhill section! great fun and pretty wrecked by the end of it but nice to let go on the fast sections nearly loosing a shoe in the process.

Straight through the trees below to find the fire road. There must be an easier way to get onto this, looking at Eoin Keith's GPX file, he took a higher route and didn't have to contend with as many trees. We'll see how we feel on the night! - as in, if we find the forest at all we'll be happy!

Followed the fire road south and came to a main road coming across some hikers starting out for the day. Nice having that much road behind us already. We took a few minutes to take our bearings on the main road and off we went, left along the road and then directly right again keeping along St. Kevin's road as far as the foot bridge. Definitely made a mistake here, we need to stay on the fire road longer going south and then pop out later on near the "Pass Rocks" to avoid a tricky, soft, very wet section. This is what the recce is for!

Again another mistake following the river up the valley on the left. We should definitely cross the river ASAP and get higher and keep to the right on the way up to Art's cross. We ended up missing it completely, saw it in the distance and said "feckit, we'll get to touch it in a few weeks anyway". I hope thats true! From where we were at, 047 989, we took a bearing for "The Three Lakes". Between re-grouping again, finding where in the name we were on the map and where Art's cross was, it was getting cold!! With a strong southerly wind I wanted to keep to the north side of the ridge and kept a little lower. Anyway to cut a long story short, I looked back after maybe 10mins to see no one behind me anymore. With a thick fog closing in fast you can see how quickly a situation can go from, good to bad in a matter of seconds. I back tracked a small bit to find Kill off in another direction and the finally Padraig. Close one with the fog getting thicker! Decided to stay closer together for the next section, open, pretty flat, very very boggy rough section. Really draining to try run these sections, the bog really takes it out of the legs. Really feels like your running on two blocks of ice at this stage from all the wet feet.

We found the three lakes, took a bearing south and descend into a really nice valley. Nice except for the section by the river, very hard to find passable routes, we might need to keep higher here to avoid all the different path's and meanders the river takes, really breaks up your stride and you feel like your going nowhere fast. I think we can keep to the right more and we should be pretty good. Out we came to a fire road and went left. Tunrs out we should have gone right, well spotted Padraig before it was way too late! We could either go back the way we came or make things interesting and descend down a boggy section to get back on track. Of course we didn't go back the fire road! Crossed this steep, boggy section strewn with logs and cut down trees. Messy enough and definitely won't be doing that for the race.

The key on getting down to the finish seems to be sticking to the river. The fire road seemed to break off to the right and it wasn't very clear if it would loop back so we had to have a change of plan again and cross a very rough, boggy section to get back on track, we'll know next time!

Nice jog down to finish 30 km in a little over 5 hours.

Padraig was thinking ahead and had a full loaf of sliced pan, ham and cheese. We threw on a pot of tea in the camper and we were like pigs in muck, a great end to a great day on the hills of Wicklow.

Gear-wise I seemed to be okay. I had thermal base layer and windproof Inov8 mistlite jacket on up top. When I was getting cold I threw on a light fleece jumper as an extra layer which worked well. For the legs I had a light running tights and a pair of shorts for a bit of insulation, it gets cold! I'm well used to carrying the bag on my back from running to work so that wasn't an issue. Shoes were the Inov8 Baregrip which are great for the mountains but not so great on the road. Two pairs of shoes on the night is a must, road shoes and then change into the trail shoes. If the weather is like it was today then its going to be great. I may invest in a good jacket just in case. Weather can be pretty horrific, I don't do the cold very well so I'd like to be prepared!

EDIT:
Kill's GPS route: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/246833181
As the Crow flies, he'd be having some laugh at us.

In the beginning...

My very first post on my very own blog.

Well, here it goes...ahhhh....hmmmm....

Tough enough when you have a blank page in front of you. It's really more for personal reasons I want to keep this blog than anything else. I'm a scientist so I'm sure my blog will be brief and to the point. I'm not a good writer, in fact I'd go so far as to say I might as well be staring into a field of thistles than trying to wax lyrical in an imaginative, witty, humorous way. The reason I'm starting this is to have one single place where I can put a few lines to pictures I've taken or to write up a race report here and there. It won't all be running, far from it. So far I've three events booked for 2013 with two of those a 100 km cycle and a 100 km adventure race. I like the highs and lows of longer distance events and the range of emotions you can feel in the space of a few hours of doing something that physically demanding. It's a little addictive and if you asked my girlfriend/close friends/family, I'm apparently "obsessed" with running. I don't think so but that's for a different post.

I won't really be using this as a training log, I don't really have the discipline to update it that regularly. Besides, my training is pretty boring anyway, with the majority of it coming from running to work a few days a week mixed in with a track session with GCH on a Tuesday night and then a long run/cycle/hike thrown in here and there. I might update Track sessions here and there so I can look back and see improvements (well improvement is the plan anyway).

My first few posts will be a little background about me, a few past race reports if I can remember them and plans for the coming few weeks.

A lot of my training is not necessarily to get faster but to be able to comfortably enjoy long distance endurance events without doing my body too much damage. I'm relatively new to endurance events so in the past 18 months improvement has come pretty easily so I don't concentrate too much on race specific training. The more training I get done, the more I improve, simple! I feel that will happen to a point where I will eventually have to do more "quality" sessions to improve but for now just taking it relatively easy (I know a few people are going to laugh at that) listening carefully to my legs and body. Improvement comes with patience so Softly Softly Catchee Monkey...

Madventure Marathon - A win!!

No this picture isn't photoshopped, I actually won a race! Small event down in the East Clare hills overlooking Lough Derg called the "Madventure Marathon". I entered the half marathon race. I wasn't too sure how I'd be after the Connemarathon two weeks previous, I had heard you should take a days rest for every mile you run in a marathon, that didn't make any sense to me so Padraig asked would I be interested in heading down with him and I gave it a go! A small starting group of 34 people headed straight into the climb and I just went at what felt like an easy pace and ended up in the leading group, a very new position for me to be in! Good battle between myself and another guy up to the top and there it leveled out into a flat boggy section where I could push the pace a bit, then came a rocky descent where the Vibrams weren't any help and I was passed as if I was stopped. The road leveled out and terrain got a little more gravelly so I could push the pace a bit again and caught the leader, ran with him for a while before opening up a slight gap and about half way down I couldn't see him behind me anymore, I was actually winning a race. I couldn't believe the position I was in and with only 3 miles left I gave it everything i got to finish and take the win in 1:35:37. I was delighted! It may be the only win I'll ever get so I'll cherish that one. A great event and they couldn't have put on more food for us at the end, great organisation.

Congrats too to Padraig finishing in 7th position in 1hr 51mins, great day out all round!

Connemarathon 2012 - My very first marathon

I was very nervous coming into this, not even too sure if I could finish it or not. I had heard plenty of marathon horror stories where people "hit the wall" towards the end bringing them to a shuddering halt along the course, unable to finish. That was worst case scenario. I had never even run a half marathon before training for this, actually my longest race before I signed up for this was the Galway Bay 10km on 1st of Oct 2011 finishing in 41:40 as far as I can remember? (can't find the results online). But when I had this race completed I went in search of more, leading on the sensible next step of the Connemarathon!

I always was intrigued as to how people even run this far without stopping so this was going to be goal No.1, run without stopping for the full marathon distance, after that I hadn't any time goals so just wanted to run comfortably and try enjoy the day out.

Training went well. It was great to have the marathon as motivation for keeping up training through the cold, wet dark, winter months. I followed Hal Higdon's Novice 1 training plan. It was good to have a structured training plan to follow that seemed to work for many more people. On paper it seemed like a lot of work, running 4 days a week compared to my usual 2-3 days/week. But I wanted to be ready for the marathon when it came around so I started 18 weeks out from the Connemarathon to follow the plan exactly. That was always going to be easier said than done. You find out pretty quickly that it can be tricky working out these training plans around personal plans so a few of the long runs were moved around, always tried to avoid doing a long run on a day after a night our for obvious reasons. I kept pretty much to plan throughout the 18 weeks. I think the most important aspect of the plan for me was the long runs. I always tried to get the long runs in but might have missed more than one of the mid-week sessions. I didn't beat myself up for missing a session or two either and had the mentality that a rest day can sometimes be just as important as a running day, depending on how your feeling.

Race day fast approached and all of a sudden I found myself at the start line of the 2012 Connemarathon, what was I thinking! I lined up at the start with Deccy and Kill. The gun sounded and off we go! Kill shot off like a bat out of hell which was expected. Myself and Dec took off together and  settled into a nice comfortable pace. First half of the race went well and went through the 13.1 mi marker in 1:36:10 which felt surprisingly comfortable but I knew this was where the fun started, the "hell of the west" was still to come so I kept the pace nice and relaxed to have something left in the tank for the end. At about mile 20 I was very surprised to see Kill up ahead, turns out he was having a bad day at the office and was struggling big time with the heat and this led to stomach problems for him. The dreaded "hell of the west" didn't actually seem to bad and I managed to cross the finish line after 3hrs 13mins and 9secs, I couldn't believe it, I had just run a marathon!

Here's my hard earned finishers medal:

A great day out, weather was very that day with nearly everyone getting some form of sunburn to the right side of their faces, hence this photo:

Also great support from Anna, Andrew, Valerie (heavily pregnant) and Linda, thanks!

About Me...

I live in the lovely Galway (but from Cork like) so I get to visit Connemara quite often for hiking/running. I started running initially to get fit and loose excess weight back in 2010, then last year I did a little hiking to enjoy the scenery of Connemara and now I mix the two up, hike some lovely cities and run in some amazing landscapes.

Most of my training is running to work with some long hikes/runs/walks thrown in at the weekends. I also train with Galway City Harriers who also have their share of very experienced runners who have a wealth of experience in all types of running.

In 2013 my big personal achievements include Art O'Neill, Connemarathon, Wicklow Way Solo and the Ice Trail Tarentaise in the Alps, an amazing experience. 2014 will be more of the same long distance goals hopefully, initially my main goal will be Sub 5hrs in Connemarathon Ultra and then I've booked on to the Lakeland 100 Ultra race in the Lake disctrict in Cumbria - http://www.lakeland100.com/the-lakeland-100 - This will be with a goal of just finish and enjoy the weekend as much as possible, 100 miles will be a new experience and a long, long way!