I picked up Gearoid at around 7:30 am and off we went for the "Run The Line" trail race in the Dublin Mountains. I hadn't heard of this race before but the word on the street (various forums online) was that it's a nice trail and all proceeds go towards the Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team.
We arrived just before 10 am at Lamb Doyles Pub and there was already a nice buzz around. Lot's of skinny, spadex wearing, weathered looking heads around, we were in the right spot alright. We got registered quickly and back to the car to get race ready ourselves. Nice and cold out so got changed in the comfort of Lamb Doyles pub and waited around chatting to some familiar faces.
No warm up to speak of and straight onto the start line with about 190 other people. I was somewhere in the middle initially and nearly missed the start gun with talking to people I hadn't seen in ages. Our group of 190 doing the long course (26 km) started at 11 am and then the short course (11 km) people, another nearly 200 people were off at 11:10 am. Pace was nice and relaxed at the start so I worked my way up the field into about 10th position to get a good run at the first hill. I wasn't to sure how I'd cope with the hill running due to the fact i hadn't run up any hills to speak of since the summer. So just took it stride by stride and kept plodding up the hill. To my surprise I didn't feel too bad jogging uphill and kept a steady pace. This was obviously early days and still had 90% of the race to go. After the first big climb up Three rock I was probably in the top 6 or 7. A nice route around Three Rock and then we were directed right along the edge of a forest up to Fairy Castle, the highest point on the course of 537 m. As sure as night follows day, after a big climb like that, there's a lovely downhill to be had. Off we bound down the other side of two rock and ran into pretty thick gorse bush growth which gave my uncovered shins a good scraping, never thought I'd be wishing I had worn tights. Man tights of course.
What happened next I'm not totally sure of but I overtook a couple of people and thought I was going mighty as the trail now took a route right by a barbed wire fence, which I thought at the time was quite dangerous if you slipped and fell on the wire so I was pretty careful. I kept up the pace and ran straight into a big bushy tree which I tried quickly to push around but on closer inspection the tree was huge and there was no way I was getting past. "What in the name of god did the people before me do?!" I thought as I looked right, down the hill a little to see runners I had overtaken skipping along a completely different path I was now standing on. Balls. I heard of no one else making the same mistake so it seemed to be just me that went wrong there so I don't know what happened, better keep an eye out in future. So in realizing I was wrong, I carefully hopped over the barbed fence and bounced my way down the open mountain side through the gorse to join the runners who were actually looking where they were going. No overtaking for a while I thought and just settle in behind a runner in black. This section was still downhill but the path was very narrow and the thick gorse made it tricky to spot good footing so there were a few "leaps of faith" taken to find some good grip. This mostly worked out ok but on more than one occasion it resulted in one foot not getting any footing and then ending up head over hills, rolling in gorse bush. Good fun and all but gorse isn't nice to be rolling around in too much. Eventually made it out the other end of the gorse section and took the fireroad/path down towards the main road and crossed here. Stopped up and had a cup of water, this was about 10.5 km down so another 15 or so to go.
Up again we went so took it nice and steady. Settled in with the runner in Black and we made a few "jaysus, tough going" comments to each other. Without realizing it I ended up pulling away from this runner in Black and I was on my own making my way through the trail. Some really nice trail/forest path sections here so really enjoyed this section. Feeling pretty good at this stage and really enjoying myself I was able to hold a nice pace and push the downhill. I wasn't too sure what position I was in but reckoned maybe 5th or 6th.
After that forest circuit with a nice climb, we were brought back again to the same spot to cross the road with about 10 km left. Threw back another half cup of water and off I went for the last big climb of the day Head down and just plodded up the hill again towards the summit of Fairy Castle. Left before the summit this time and continued around in a clock-wise direction back towards Three Rock. At this point I was out in the open mountain and had a good view all around me. Looking back and forward I could see no one at all. I was sure I had gone wrong again but to my delight after about another 0.5 km, sure enough there was another marshall directing me left, thanks be to god. No humour to take a wrong turn at this stage, feeling the effects of the previous 20 km now the next section was to be a nice downhill to the finish, well mostly downhill anyway. It consisted of mostly fireroad (with amazing views overlooking Dublin) and then back down the singletrack we had come up two hours previous at the start of the race. On nearing the last downhill section I could see another runer up ahead, delighted I might be catching someone I upped the pace and caught the runner who turned out to be Eoin Keith. I took him by complete surprise it seems because he upped the pace two and we were going very hard down towards the finish. We arrived down to the last 500 m road section together and on switching from hard downhill running to flat road running again, my legs had had enough, nothing left for a final kick so I just sat back and watched Eoin pull away, damn. Fair play to him though, serious kick in the last 500 m which landed him 3rd place so I ended up about 20 sec back in 4th place with 2:08:19 on the clock. Delighted with that, what a great event. Gearoid also had a great race finishing in 2:34:46 for a 29th place finish to his first ever trail race and judging by his reaction to it, it won't be his last! Padraig also only just back from injury had a brilliant race finishing in 2:33:02. Next stop, Art O'Neill for him the lucky dog.
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