Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

With Storm Kathleen sweeping over our islands I wasn’t sure what parkruns would be on. There was a nervous wait from 8:00 to 8:30 as I refreshed all of the Facebook pages hoping to see someone would confirm their parkrun was on. Royal Canal parkrun were the first to confirm so was delighted to join them.

The course is an out-and-back that starts from the town centre. It is pan-flat with no locks on the course. I set off thinking I would not be able to match last week’s time, especially as there would be more of a headwind coming back. But as it happens, I managed to set another walking PB of:

33:38

It was my first visit to Kilcock and it looks like a beautiful place.

After five weeks of resting and physio, I’m still not able to run. So, thinking about what old man sports I could do, I decided to watch a race walking tutorial and see if I could improve on my 5k walking pb of 35:38 set earlier this month.

It turns out that with only a basic understanding of the technique, the answer is yes! I managed to take over a minute and a half off my time and achieve a new pb of:

33:57

I was expecting some soreness after and I did get it but not where I expected: my arms were the most sore and continue to be so.

I’m delighted to be running again.

Tolka Valley was the last parkrun I needed to tick off the Dublin set. A nice small affair with a field of 38 runners and plenty of volunteers braving the rain to support the event. Nice views over the city, too.

She’s only gone and bloody done it!

The Barkley Marathons is a notoriously difficult race. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a nominally 100-mile race (nobody is sure how long it really is) that consists of five 20-mile laps through Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee. The elevation gain is huge and much of it is off-trail running. It contains many cult elements: the start time can be any time from midnight to noon for example and is announced an hour before when a conch is blown.

There is a 12-hour cut-off for each lap, giving athletes 60 hours in total. The terrain is so tough that most years nobody finishes. Though, if you manage 3 laps within the first 40 hours, you at least get a “Fun Run”. There have been various documentaries made about it including The Race That Eats Its Young, Where Dreams Go To Die, and Last Woman Standing which followed British ultrarunning legend Nicky Spinks trying to be the first woman to complete the race.

Enter the 2024 race where a star-studded line up. This included last year’s winner, Aurélien Sanchez, Jared Campbell attempting to get a record 4th finish, and Jasmin Paris who had a Fun Run under her belt and until this year held the out-right course record for the Spine Race which she famously set while expressing milk for her baby at the aid stations.

Either conditions were good or the field is getting stronger as a record 12 people achieved a Fun Run this year. It may have also helped that the race started at 5:17, allowing the first, third and final lap to be done in daylight. This meant a record 7 athletes were able make it to lap 5 before the 48-hour cut-off. The most finishers ever had been three, set in 2012 (the year The Race That Eats Its Young was filmed) and repeated again in 2023.

Sebastian Raichon and former Spine men’s course record holder (still two hours slower than Parsis’s time) Damian Hall dopped out leading five athletes out on the course. The only way to follow it is to follow Keith Dunn’s Twitter feed. Elon must have been delighted that people were briefly using it again as we all desperately refreshed for news and chatted on WhatsApp.

Ihor Verys was the first to come home with an hour and a quarter still to go before the 60-hour cut-off. John Kelly arrived 30 minutes later to briefly equal Jared Campbell’s three finishes until 15 minutes later, Campbell himself arrived back to set a record 4th finish. Greig Hamilton came in 9 minutes later, leaving Paris the only athlete left on the course with 19 minutes to get home.

We continued to madly refresh the Twitter feed as the 9:17 pm GMT deadline passed. No news. Then, a few minutes after the cut-off had passed, Keith tweeted to say Paris had made it home! At 59:58:21, she made it home 99 seconds before the deadline making her the first ever woman to finish the race!

Naas parkrun celebrated their 10th anniversary last weekend. There was cake! The course is on Naas race course and it is 2.5 laps of the ambulance track. They do mean a half: you start on one side of the loop and finish on the far side, meaning an extra 1,500 metre walk back around and through the stables to the car park. A good way to burn off the cake.

I have an ankle issue so I’m walking at the moment. That is a good excuse to do some touristing, though. The course is three laps of the park and it is very flat. I was very pleased with my time of 36:46 given I was walking.

Every year, Trinity and UCD have a cross country-off. This year, they extended the invite to other universities with students from UCC, TUD and Maynooth attending. There hasn’t been too much rain so the ground was lovely: no mud outside of the woods and good traction.

The men were running 6km across four laps. As the race started, the entire pack moved away from me like it was the swim in a triathlon. All I could do was hang on and hope some of them had gone out too fast.

I closed down the person in front of me and overtook them towards the end of the second lap. I really wanted a walking break by the fourth lap but he wasn’t too far behind so I pushed on. By the end of the fourth lap, I was closing down the next runner up but he had a sprint ready for the finishing straight.

I finished in just under 30 minutes (29:19, officially) with an average heart rate of 189. Good to know I can still go that deep. I have an issue with my left leg so I think I may have been faster if it wasn’t for that. But maybe not.

After, everyone headed to the kichen for some homemade cakes and a chat. Trinity managed to take home the men’s and women’s prize: well done, team!

Outstanding game this year. It came right down to the wire and beyond it, being settled in over time. Disappointing to see San Francisco not come home with the trophy. They have been to three Super Bowls since I started following them and have not won one yet. But at least I got £30 on Kansas City at half time.

Last weekend, I took part in my first masters race. I’m officially old. Masters is for anyone over 35, so I’ve been eligible for a while but now it has actually happened.

In classic Ireland fashion, the organisation was relaxed. There was no pre-race information. Or any information on where the event was taking place (St Anne’s is a big park). Luckily, someone from the club knew. I got there and tried to find the registration desk. I marshall pointed me in a direction. It turns out it didn’t exist a and each club just had a pack of numbers. Also, they announced at the start of the race that the 6k was actually a 7k. But everything was smooth from then on in.

The course was muddy. Which is to be expected with cross country. Luckily, it hadn’t rained much in the days leading up to it so it wasn’t full of big puddles. But large stretches of the course were on grass churned up into mud, and so very slippy under foot. This made it very difficult to get traction and therefore the running was way harder. It was lovely to get onto the harder stuff each lap.

Blackrock AC was out in force and cheering us on each lap so it was lovely to be racing with the club. I finished in:

37:20

When Ted said he found the race very competitive I knew I was in for a tough time. I finished 170th out of 179 finishers, so a solid nine people behind me. So close to picking up the lanterne rouge. Maybe next year.

The Chevin Chase has been run on Boxing Day for decades. But I only took part for the first time last year. This week, I was back again,along with 23 other members of Hyde Park Harriers for a muddy, hilly run around the chevin.

The cameras missed me in the wood but here I am looking exhausted having just made it to the top of surprise view.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be the Chevin Chase without the traditional water dip.

My finish time was:

1:08:41

Around three minutes slower than last year. Not bad given I’m now 10% heavier. Lovely to see everyon and a big thank you to all of the volunteers who made the event happen.