Connemarathon Ultra 2013

Last year I attempted my first marathon, the Connemarathon. Infamous for it's "Hell of the west" hill at the 22mile mark, ouch. i didn't have any time goals for it, relatively new to running and just had the "be happy to finish" attitude. It was my first marathon. I'll never forget heading out on the bus for the race start at Lough Inagh and passing these runners already after starting. "Another event on today?" I enquired, "No, they are doing the Ultra, started at 9am and running 39 miles to the finish", I was horrified people ran longer than marathons, but for some reason slightly intrigued. I ended up finishing the Connemarathon (walking funny but a huge smile on my face for days). I also learned since that the marathon is not the be all and end off of distance running. In fact, it's only the beginning! I read of 39, 50, 100 mile races, to 24, 48, 72 hour races to races that have no finish!

Since that first marathon I kept up the training, did a few marathons since and ended up signing up to the Connemarathon Ultra to experience it for myself.

Race day fast approached and weather was looking about 15 deg cooler than last year so wrapped up well in the morning leaving the house and met Jerome to walk to the bus for 7am to take us out to the start line at Maam Cross. The day was promised to be windy but it didn't seem too bad that morning so things were looking good, no rain expected, phew!

We arrived at Maam Cross and met the fellow competitors. Plenty of familiar faces around from other races in the past 12 months so great to catch up with people again, everyone seemed a little on edge but happy to make it to the start line. Ray gave us our race briefing in the comfort of the Peacocke's Hotel while we readied ourselves. It got very emotional when he mentioned the passing of the great Simone Grassi, two time Connemarathon Winner 08/09 who in 2012 walked the marathon for Cancer Care West having himself been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2010. RIP. His parents and friends who were also running the marathon today in his memory. All of a sudden, 39 miles didn't seem that hard.

We then hopped on the bus again and it brought us to the race start, about a mile up the road to give us the 39.6 miles. Brilliantly organized and started bang on 9am, boy were we happy to be running, we were waiting around the start for only 10mins and we were already freezing! Almost 200 competitors running the Ultra this year with mostly sheep for spectators, all a bit surreal.

I set into a nice easy pace and got chatting to plenty of people along the way and all of a sudden we were going through 13.1 mile marker, that flew! Feeling good I pushed on a bit here and started passing a few of the marathon back-markers. It was a nice undulating course with only a slight headwind at this stage. Plenty of flashbacks from last years run, I was really enjoying myself. Then feeling good, I bound down the hills towards Killary Harbor and turning slightly to the right towards Leenane, it hit us like a tonne of bricks. A strong wind was now coming straight down Killary Harbor and hampering all out plans of an easy run into Leenan. What kept me going was the though that, "ah when we get to Leenane we'll be turning right and the wind will no longer be against us". How wrong was I. What ever way the valley is shaped coming into Leenane, we turned right at the 26.2 mile mark and yet again a strong head wind was waiting for us going up the hill from Leenane. Head down, grinned and beard it to finally get up the hill from Leenane and on towards Maam. I like this part of the course, the views were amazing and everyone is in high spirits with plenty of laughing and joking going on around me.  Plenty of support too from Marathoners and Half-marathoners as I went past, "go Ultra's". That was nice and I quickly returned "well done to you too!". For me it's not actually that hard to run 39 miles, I'm relatively young and do a nice bit anyway so it's a lot more impressive seeing some of the half marathon/marathon back-markers finish their distances.

In my head I had thought 5 hrs was possible for me, I went through the first 26.2 mile on that pace. The wind had quickly put and end to that dream so I was thinking maybe 5:15. Coming near Maam around the 32 mile mark is where my condition deteriorated somewhat. Suddenly my goal changed to "just finish". I was expecting this due to lack of long road runs and the pace quickly dropped from slow to extra slow. To be honest I really felt like walking for a bit but clung onto the "no walking" goal. Hell of the West was fast approaching and knew things weren't looking good. I reached Maam and to my surprise there were loads of support, getting plenty of high 5'sfrom kids for a few hundred meters, using this support and some jelly babies parents were giving their kids to hold out, I turned right and faced the beginning of the end, the hell of the west, "here we go again" I though. So head down and drove through the wind using every ounce of strength left to run up toward Maam Cross. At one point I glanced up to see what seemed like a long line of colourful ants winding their way up the hill in front of me. They seemed really really far away at that point, so head down again and tried to think happy thoughts.

Eventually reaching to top of the hill, I grabbed a bottle of water, couldn't get it in fast enough and relaxed a little knowing it's pretty much all downhill from here. Legs and feet were pretty shot at this stage but it didn't matter. To my delight I came across a bunch of GCH supports roaring "Go GCH" and "Well done John!" this really put a pep in my step and bound over the line in 5:18:16.

After over 5 hours of running it was nice to be stopped again. Walked to the finishers area to be presented my finishers medal by the Irish Ultra running legend, Mick Rice. That was a nice touch.

Congrats to Jerome finishing 4th in the Ultra with an astonishing time of 4:39:57, he went through the last 13.1 miles the fastest Ultra on the day and was unlucky not to catch 3rd place.

Matt made it look easy and took victory in the Half for the second year in a row in 1:19:29 and well done to all the other GCH runners who completed one of the most beautiful, windy races in the country!

Now for the Ultra rest...

Wicklow Way Ultra 2013 - Brrrrrrr...

The weather leading into this race was cold. Very cold. It's one of the big IMRA races of the year. An out and back course, starting at Johnnie Fox's pub, along the Wicklow Way to Balinastoe woods car park then turn around and do it all over again. Roughly 52km with 1940m of climbing. Roughly 130 people doing the full and another 200 people doing the original trail vedition, Ballinastoe Car park to Johnnie Fox's. Plenty of snow in the Wicklow mountains in recent days so it promised to be something special from the very start.

Training leading up to this race has been a bit hap-hazard to say the least, no real long run's since Art O'Neill back in January except a 26mile run the weekend before this race which was a bit of a shock to the system as to what running 26miles feels like again. MUST KEEP UP REGULAR LONG RUNS! Preferably hilly. On holidays in SA for 2 weeks leading up to this event didn't exactly help either, a few trail runs/hikes up table mountain and plenty of mountain biking.

I knew I'd be struggling with this one distance-wise but the Wicklow Way has a great reputation in the Irish Hill running scene so come rain, hail or shine, I wanted to attempt it. And sure enough rain or hail is exactly what we got! I got a good few laughs at work the day before the race, the weather reports from the Dublin/Wicklow area had been to "avoid if at all possible". Landslides, roads turning into rivers/lakes. Snow on higher ground. Road closures all over Wicklow. This was going to be an interesting one!

So not to be deterred I called Kill and we laughed over the phone at the weather and weirdly, looked forward to seeing what Djouce Mountain could throw at us. Friday evening after work, I packed my gear (NB, must come up with a kit checklist, only for Anna reminding me I'd have gone away without Jacket and Trail shoes, phew, not the first time either) and set off towards Dublin. Great timing (pure fluke) had myself and Kill meet on the road to Glencullen and straight into Johnny Fox's overflow car park to set up for the night. First thing that hit up when we got there was the cold, so straight away we hopped into the warmth of Johnny Fox's for a Pint of the black stuff by the fire. Lovely. Then around half 11 we called it a day and hit the hay.

Up again around 08:00 to duct tape lucozade sport bottles with handles, if i was ever to get sponsorship one day it'll hopefully be from Duct Tape. Packed two drop bags, one at Crone woods which we would visit twice, out and back and also a drop bag went to halfway point at Ballinastoe. Plan was to set off with nothing, and at each station grab a bottle of sports drink and carry it with me. Also threw in a few bananas and oat bars. I had the pre-race, unbeatable, porridge, coffee, poo combination. Hasn't failed us yet! Crossed the road to the start line and saw the early Ultra's go off. A surprisingly big group of near 30 people set off at 08:30 to give themselves a little more time than the normal start of 09:30. Saw a lot of familiar Ultra running faces at the start, great to catch up again on everyone's stories since their last race I met them at.

Our start time of 09:30 came around very fast so it was time to lube up, put on ridiculously short shorts for this type of weather. Where else would ya get away with it? Pre-race briefing was a pretty serious affair due to the conditions, no chances taken with this one. Fair play to the organizers  everything was done to a T and we set off bang on 09:30.

Didn't know what to expect from this race, all I knew was, snow covered mountain, 52km and 1900m of climbing in all. Great to get moving, hanging around in running attire gets very cold! So quickly got warmed up a settled into a nice rhythm. Ended up settling in with a group of 5 lads, a few from NIMRA. I chatted away to one of the lads that knew the course on what was ahead of us and boy was I sorry, ignorance is bliss sometimes! So got to our first real climb after a long road downhil section and started climbing Glencullen Mountains fireroad. Legs were turing over pretty slow and to be honest struggling already with the uphill, maybe long training run last weekend wasn't such a good idea. Managed to stick with the group up and over Prince Williams saddle then descended down to Glencree river through a mixture of really fun downhill sections, fireroads and a little road. Really glad of the grip of the trail shoes on the downhill sections and I flew down those having great fun! However, what goes down must go up again and after running along Glencree river for a spell, the ascending happened again. Soon after we were at crone woods and grabbed a bottle of sports drink and drank this along the way. Wasn't feeling that I needed anything yet, quite the opposite actually but I knew I'd need all the energy I can get for later on! And so began the climb up to Djouce. Along the way we got to the top of Crone woods and spotted Powerscourt Waterfall in all it's glory, flooding in the Wicklow has its advantages too! Pity about the fog as we got higher, scenery must be amazing up here on a clear day. As we ascended, out of the fog Djouce became more clear. It was getting cold at this stage, we were approaching the shoulder of Djouce mountain and being on the easterly side of the Mountain we were fully exposed to the wrath of a freezing strong easterly wind. Pulled the buff over my face, pulled up my hood and head down to grin and bear it. Ran as much up this as we possibly could but snow just got deeper and deeper until it was over 30cm in parts so began a feeble plod. Your foot would break through the snow only to be met with a puddle of ice cold water underneath. Soon I forgot I had feet they were so numb and wondered how long more of this there is. Eventually slipped and slided our way though the snow, around the shoulder of Djouce and found the board walk.

Boardwalk?

Well what was left of it anyway. The only way you could make it out in the snow was some 1ft deep foot prints either side of the board walk every now and again. Creating some of my own markers along the way. The board walk was extremely slippery so had to jog very slowly over this to make it down safe. Eventually after descending for what felt like an eternity, the snow disappeared again and I felt like I had feet again. Descended the fireroad all the way down to Ballinastoe where they recorded my number, I ate some food, grabbed another bottle and dropped my empty then off I went again. But this time something wasn't right, the cold and exertion to get to half way must have really hit me but I couldn't run up towards Djouce and was relegated to a plod. On the way up towards Djouce again, the Trail runners starting out at 12 ran passed as if I was stopped. Good to meet Padraig on the way and tried keep up with him for a bit to have a chat but legs weren't having anyway of it so had to say my goodbyes and told him to enjoy the snow up top! So continued on up Djouce, managed to pick up the pace again until the board walk whre we were all reduced to the same speed, no one willing to step off into the unknown to try overtake. That lasted until we got around the shoulder of Djouce and began to descend. This was one of my favorite bits of the whole race! Who knew, running downhill in the snow could be so much fun! With a bit of ignorance as to what was actually under the snow and numb feet I flew down and managed to over take a good few on the way down to the river at the bottom of Djouce. On the way up a relatively small climb, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm usually pretty good with climbing but I could barely manage to lift my legs to get up what felt like the biggest mountain in the world. Eventually got to the top of this small hill and it was a downhill trail to Crone woods from here. Tried to pick up the pace again but couldn't even run downhill, what was going on?! I remember just feeling ridiculously weak finding it hard to stay in a straight line. I must have been staggering somewhat because for 15mins everyone who passed me was stopping and asking if I was alright. I wasn't too sure to be honest but told them all, ya I'm fine, go on away. Never felt this bad in a race before but if there's anything I know about long races is that the bad patches eventually go away. I eventually made it down to Crone woods again, I managed to get running again and shuffled my way down. Stopped here to have a banana, and some water. Grabbed another sports drink and off I went. Jogging was still proving difficult and just as I approached Glencree river I saw some guy stopped up because of cramps and just stopped in beside him to feel sorry for myself. Not too sure what was actually said, I think it might have been mostly grunts by me, he was having a tough time too. It's bad but it feels good knowing your not the only one struggling, and as bad as it is, it picked me up a bit and managed to jog along the river and up towards Prince Willians seat again, I was running uphill again, wayhey! Ran down the other side of Glencullen mountain and began to feel strong again overtaking people along the way. Next I wasn't too sure if I was hallucinating when I saw, in the middle of nowhere, a guy walking up towards us in a shirt, tie and waiscoat shouting encouragement, I though I've really lost it now, I happily greeted him but also wondered about my own sanity. Thankfully after the race, Kill confirmed hee saw this oddball too, some strange goings on in the mountains around these parts!  I pushed the final uphill towards the finish to come in somewhere around 5hrs 44mins to be awarded a hard fought Wicklow way mug! And what a cup of tea that was later...

A great race and a great day out. IMRA races are great. Volunteers couldn't be more helpful and the runners are so friendly, especially in tough times. Its amazing for a race with €15 what you get, and long may it last!

Results and a few pic's here: http://www.imra.ie/events/view/id/1024/

Here's me having a tough time of it, caught rotten!

Art O'Neill Challenge 2013

It was D-Day! Well, almost. It was Friday 11th of January, the day before the Art O'Neill Challenge. It's hard to know what to do in relation to sleep for an overnight race. I don't really think there was anyway to properly acclimatize to an all-nighter so I didn't really do anything differently. Bar having a few glasses of wine Thursday night at at work outing and "carb loading" the be-jaysus out of it with a really nice dinner at Nimmos by the spanish arch! Slow roasted Cow's cheek, unreal. Oh ya this is meant to be about running.

Anyway, got up Friday morning around half 9 to get things together and buy the last few bits and pieces of the mandatory race gear. Didn't really eat too much all day. I was eating plenty the previous couple of days so body was well stocked with energy. Didn't want to go into the race with a full stomach, doesn't usually end well.

The plan was then to head back to bed for a couple of hours sleep before we left. It was wishful thinking with the thought of the race starting in a few hours time, it was never going to happen!

8pm came around, Anna called over and kindly offered to drive so she could see the carnage first hand! Ivan drove in from Headford and off we went, Dublin Castle bound!

Arrived, got registered and found a nice corner for ourselves to talk shop.

"What have I done..."

Registration was done by 11 so that left loads of time for Ultra-ultrarun-talking. Fair play to Anna for sticking this out for the weekend!

L to R: Kill, Padraig, Myself and Ivan

12am saw the Walkers off, 1am saw a few Hybrid/Ultra runners who thought might be a bit tight for time, and then 2am there was us...

Not a very clear pic but, I'm on the left of the photo, Ivan to my left and Kill to his left. We're obviously going too fast for the camera!

Off we went and turned south on the N81 all the way to the Right turn at the Blue Haven Pub. It was a surreal start to say the least. It was some time after 2am and we were in a group of 4 running through Tallagh just as people were stumbling of out pubs and clubs. Kill, Ivan, myself and Eoin Keith! It took a while to sink in but we were in the lead group and pulling away! What was I doing up in front, starting a 55km race at this pace will surely not end well. This genuinely wasn't part of the race plan but we just settled into what felt like a comfortable pace and ended up in the lead group. "Comfortable pace" is a funny thing, with the adrenaline kick of finally starting the race, it being 2am running through Tallagh, it's hard to judge normal comfortable pace.

This continued all the way out into the darkness of stone cross when the hill's started to kick in around 15km. Ivan and Eoin showed serious power in leaving me for dead on the hills so it ended up I was on my own from then on. Gradually catching walkers in the darkness. It was really nice running a race in the blackness of the country. Black but not yet black enough to turn on the headtorch. You could barely make out the grassy verges so that was enough. I eventually turned on the torch after feeling bad for scaring the be-jaysus out of a few walkers. No real way of telling I was coming up behind them until I was just beside them, emerging the the darkness without warning. It woke them up if anything! In general though, if I didn't frighten them too much the walkers were full of support and gave plenty of room to pass.

The short-cut down through the private farm was a nice downhill section but with road shoes on, it was slippery as hell so pretty much slided my way down to the river, crossed the bridge and began the climb up to the first checkpoint, aptly named, CP1. I must note, there were a few walking breaks at this point, it's a pretty nice climb to CP1 so I was definitely feeling it at this stage. Here's the elevation profile of the route:

Not a great sign I was getting tired at this stage, that was meant to be the easy part, it was going to be a case of hanging in there for dear life from here on. Clocked into CP1 at 2:22:09, still in 3rd place. Spent a few mins trying to find my bag, eventually finding it and packing my bag with all the mandatory race gear, some water, changed shoes to something with a bit more grip and had a banana. It felt like about 30sec but I actually spent over 7mins arseing around CP1 getting my gear together. So clocked out of CP1 and onwards to the Wicklow mountains. After a couple of KM's of fireroad, it opened up onto open mountain. This is where things get interesting. Fog was down, it was pitch black but I was very grateful of the torch's Trish kindly got on the cheap from the states, thanks Trish! Out with the compass and map and took a bearing, hoping to find Billy Byrnes Gap. Ascending the hillside, I spotted a torch in the distance, one of the walkers maybe. But it was coming towards me, this was strange. "Ivan?!" and his response, "JOHN!!! Man am I happy to see you!" Long story but it ended up Ivan alone on the mountain-side looking for the Gap. Never having recce'd this section, it was never going to be easy for him so he was happy to meet anyone at all, it was just lucky it was me! Ivan didn't look any bit tired, I was quite the opposite but struggling on. I had the upper hand in navigation (in that I actually had recce'd this section, whether or not I could remember it is a different story). So we stuck together and headed for the Gap. It took longer than I expected to find it and then down we went, running, stumbling, falling our way down to Ballinagee Bridge in the darkness. I had hoped to keep higher and enter the forest at the proper entrance which is about 500m from the forest corner by the river but uphill. It didn't go exactly to plan and we hit the corner of the forest pretty much dead on. I'm not sure why but I thought it'd be best to find the proper entrance and continued to climb the hill along the edge of the forest to find the entrance. Ground was tough to run up and this def wasted loads of time. We should have just ran into the forest and pushed our way through on to the lower fireroad. Ah hindsight is a great thing.

We ran down the fireroad to the road, crossed Ballinagee Bridge and clocked into CP2. We were sure we'd have lost a few places at this stage but ended up in 2nd and 3rd place at CP2. Again, I had to take on water here, eat and generally arsed about again resulting in another long stop-over of 6 and a half mins. I was feeling pretty rough now at this stage, it would've been nice to clock a podium finish but getting to the finish at all was going to hurt so all I could do was hang in there. I need more hill work. The hopes of a podium finish were dashed when another runner came flying through CP2, and was away again before we could even say hello, how rude.   

Clocked back out of CP2 and off we went along St. Kevins Road towards Glenreemore Brook. Another route decion had to be made here. In one of the recces we avoided St. Kevins road and just went straight onto the fireroad and this route involved a tough route through some of the forest as to avoid having to go around in a big loop. On the map it looked as if St. Kevins road might be a better route and one where we wouldn't loose too much time. To our dismay, while running on St. Kevins road, we saw 3 lights up in the distance taking the route we recce'd, damn, must be faster. Caught these lads by the gate to the brook and off we went up towards Art's cross. We were now all onto Glenreemore Brook and ran up towards the corner of the forest and there, as planned, we broke off right, crossed the river and began the final big climb up to Art's cross. The three other lads were now behind us again but not far, we were pulling away for now but the fog was getting very very thick so we'd have to stop soon to try figure out how to make it down to the finish. No sign of the sun rising at this stage. 

The fog was really getting thick at this stage so navigation was going to be very tricky. We kept climbing and climbing until it flattened out on top and we had two options, go left and look for the cross so we could take a proper bearing, or have a guess at our current location and chance taking a bearing from where we were to find the three lakes. Not finding the three lake could very easily result in descending into the wrong valley, which meant no hot chocolate waiting for us. We couldn't afford to let this happen so there we stood with the map out trying to make a decision when all at once, the 3 lads appeared from the darkness. "How'r the lads?" I enquired, "any chance ye know where we actually are?" getting a very relieving  "we know exactly where we are" response. As they proceeded to pull out a fancy GPS thing. Excellent! The were happy enough to let us tag along and it ended up us chatting away to Billy, Grattan and Stephen all the way down to the finish at Glenmalure Valley. With the five of us finishing just under 6 hours 40 mins, a long time to be standing never mind running!

Finally!

Anna was patiently waiting for us down at the finish, up bright and early herself for the 1 and a half hour drive from Dublin to the finish in Glenmalure, weird we had just run that!

Plenty of congratulations and back patting down at the finish, we very quickly got into some warm clothes and made a beeline for the hot chocolate stand. Sweet sweet warm liquid, ahhhhh...

Waited around to see people gradually trickle down Table Track, including Padraig who had a great run himself finishing in 48th place in his very first Ultra distance, many more to come! He was the one that talked me into the Connemara Ultra! A changed man!

Walkers were trickling in just before we left, serious respect to these people, they left at 12 am and some were finishing up 17 hours later! Now thats sore feet whatever your doing!

A great event and good to know that the DWMRT and all the volunteers have your back if things go belly up. An event that Declan and his team can be proud of. Fingers crossed this goes ahead again next year in some shape or form.

Off down the road into the Glenmalure lodge for a well deserved full Irish. An amazing event that will definitely have to be tackled again next year. Kill will have to have another shot at it too. We arrived to the finish to hear the bad news that Kill had to drop out after the road section, stomach was not playing ball with him on that occasion. A pity after such a great start but that's how it goes sometimes.

Also congratulations to the winner Eoin Keith. He showed serious character to win the event AGAIN, even after only 11 days previous to that he smashed the Irish 48 hr record and broke 300 miles for the 72 hours at the Across the Years event in Phoenix, Arizona. Sick.

Here's my Garmin Route. (forgot to stop it at the finish for a while): http://connect.garmin.com/activity/263836535

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...