Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

I recently finished a six-week Learn to Lift course. Despite being a strength and conditioning coach, we only do bodyweight in triathlon, so I didn’t know that much about getting the weights out in the gym. The course was really good: we covered squats, deadlifts and the bench press mostly using the barbell. Thanks Grace!

Duathlon is a multisport run-cycle-run event. I’ve never really been that into duathlons. It doesn’t have the sex appeal of triathlon. Perhaps because it is plausible that people like both running and cycling. Whereas nobody likes swimming, cycling and running so we can all suffer together.

Still, Trinity Triathlon was making it a club trip and my previous experience in Naas, for the Naas triathlon, had been a good one. This one was at the Punchestown race course and featured a 3k run, 20k cycle and 3k run.

Just as we rocked up, the freezing rain came down. Fáilte to Ireland. Luckily, it held off for the race and sat comfortably in the cold but not too cold temperature. The bike course was an out-and-back which had a long hill that, to its credit, felt longer on the way down than it did on the way up.

My splits were:

Good enough for 128 out of 178. It was on the National Championship series so everyone was annoyingly fast. I’m claiming victory vicariously because I drove Maxence to the race, and he came first in his age group.

During COVID, JP started organising a Zwift league for the triathlon club. 13 series later and it is still going! Mostly thanks to JP’s relentless organisation skills. It’s been wonderful to have a way to stay connected to the club.

I accentually got myself promoted to the top division last series which meant racing against people much better than me. And led to some exhausting evenings with Amy chasing me down for most of the race. But thanks to only three dragon league riders showing up for all five races I managed to scoop myself a bronze 😆.

The Chevin Chase is an 11k trail race that takes place on Boxing Day each year. it is notoriously hilly but not as hilly as I expected: there were clearly some flat bits in it!

The race is now split across two waves and there were around 19 Harriers in each. It rained as we waited for the start but lightened up slightly once the gun went off and we began our climb up the first long hill. With hundreds of people around it was a timid start as there was nowhere to go.

After the first three or four kilometres, it thinned out. I got to the 2k point and thought “I’m glad I weren’t for leggings and long sleeves because I’m still cold”. It wasn’t until the long climb at the 9k point that I started to get too hot.

The course was in good condition, mostly. My feet were dry until the water dip at 9k, which was then followed by some deep slippy mud. But the trails through Chevin Forest Park were very runnable. I made the decision to run through the water dip.

There was plenty of n course support including JP and Anne who took this lovely photo:

The final part is downhill with one little kick up. Luckily I had heard Lou’s warning about the kick and was prepared for it! Nobody had told James, so I managed to catch him up and we crossed the line together.

It was a beautiful race and I didn’t mind the hills. The weather was miserable. But whereas do you get the chance to catch up with so many Harriers in one spot over Christmas? Would do again.

Had France in the family sweepstake. So close.

The mixed reactions to Gareth Southgate’s management are silly. England made it to the semi-finals in 2018, the final of Euro 2020 and only just fell to France in this World Cup. It’s the most consistent England team we’ve had in my lifetime.

Clontarf is an area of Dublin just north of the city centre. They promise Dublin’s flattest half marathon, which after Tollymore a few weeks ago had a strong appeal.

The course goes out along the seafront before taking the wooden bridge over to Bull Island. It then goes over to the far side of the island facing onto the Irish sea and along the beach for two kilometres before heading back across the island, onto the mainland and along the coastal path towards Howth. You then turn around and re-trace your steps.

Over 3,000 people took part meaning the course was busy. Once we were back on the main land there were lots of runners coming the other way and overtaking became difficult. I was aiming for the 1:50 wave, but somehow found myself in the 1:45 wave and yet still spent the whole race overtaking people.

On the way out, the beach was lovely. There was plenty of firm sand to run on. On the way back, things were more challenging. The tide had come in and covered a lot of the sand. The wind became a strong cross-head wind and a lot of people found it so hard going that they dropped to a walk. I managed to battle on but at over two kilometres it was a hard 15 minutes!

Thankfully, we did eventually reach the bridge and back onto the mainland. The wind and tide was now throwing waves over the seafront wall so my careful attempts to keep my feet (and my hair) dry were at an end. At least we got a brief tail wind coming back across the bridge.

My official time was:

1:46:57

Officially, I didn’t care about time and just wanted to take it easy and have fun. But a part of me also wanted to make sure I was under 1:50 so that I could tell myself that if I was actually trying, I could go much faster. In the end, I was comfortably under and that was good enough for 629 out of 2,307.

Tollymore is a forest park located at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in Newcastle. So that’s not the Newcastle in England, nor the one that is in County Dublin, or the five others that are in the Republic of Ireland. It’s the one in County Down, Northern Ireland. There are a lot of them.

It is a pretty hilly affair. The race starts from the car park which is not too far from the river at the bottom of the valley, and then goes up the hill and down again four times. It’s not mountainous but the over 1,000 metres of evaluation gain mean there are long, steep climbs that switch back and forth. The route comes out of the vegetation several times onto the barren hilltops.

The race is available in half marathon (one loop), marathon (two loops) and ultra (three loops) formats. The first few kilometres were about people sorting out their positions as we ran in a large group before the inevitable thinning out that allows you to see the ground in front of you.

It rained most of the morning, right up until the start. I started in a buff and rain jacket but was soon too warm and packed everything away into my running pack. Despite the clouds and gloom it was comfortably warm after this. On the second lap my stomach was starting to moan so I switched out some of my nutrition for the cake on offer at the feed station.

As I reached the main road that brings you back into the finish of the lap, Elina and Venla came walking along it from Newcastle. A lovely boost to cheer me home. My official time was:

4:21:15

That was good enough for 34 out of 73. I had no time ambition going in, but was pushing for sub-4:30 towards the end. Nobody managed to run under three hours. Despite the hills, or more likely because of them, it was an incredibly beautiful event and I will probably return to the Mournes for future races.

With my parents visiting, we were determined to get out and do a parkrun on Saturday. And that took some determination because it was raining heavily. More heavily then when my first parkrun in Ireland over at Fairview. And that was in the warmth of early September.

The run starts at the top of the hill by Cabinteely house and then goes down the hill and back up again for one short loop and then two longer loops. I set off quite hard as I wanted to stay warm and was soon wondering if I had overcooked it given I still have a cold. By the third lap I was ready to walk up the hill but another runner slowed down to chant encouraging words at me and then I was socially obligated to keep pushing. I managed to hold it together to the line, squeezing in at 22:59.

Exploring another new parkrun in Dublin. Brickfields is not too far from Rathmines and a bit smaller than Bushy: the course consists of four laps of the top part of the park. The surface is good although there are lots of leaves, and it is flat.

Howth is a beautiful peninsula that makes up the top of Dublin bay. The Howth Summit 10k is a Gaelforce event that takes you over the top of it.

The start line and car parking is down at Howth Castle (the train station is also close at hand for those not heading straight to Tesco for the weekly shop after the race) but number collection is at the golf course further up the hill so you’ve climbed one hill before you even start 😂. It took a bit of time to find registration but it eventually turned up around the back of the building.

The route starts with a 3km climb uphill. Some of it is just steep. Other bits of it get technical. A lot of it is single-track through the woods. A few of the sections require scrambling, including one extended section that comes out of the top of the woods and gives you a beautiful view over Portmarnock.

Or at least it would if I had dared to look. It was steep and the soil and gravel were loose. Very much outside of my comfort zone so I decided it would be a bad idea to look down. Once we made it to the top I decided to take a breather and take in some of the beautiful views.

After this, things got easier. We went down for a kilometre and then back up for another kilometre, taking us to the radio mast at the very top of Howth. Completely panoramic views from here including Dublin Bay, Portmarnock, the rest of Howth, Ireland’s Eye and even Lambay Castle in the distance.

The next three kilometres took us downhill on better trail that was easier to run on. I usually lose places on the downhill but I managed to hold my own here and even go past a few people. This section takes you down from the mast all the way ho the coastline. A short road section then follows before the climb up past Howth Castle to the finish line at the Deer Park golf club.

My finish time was:

1:03:22

That was good enough for 184 out of 519 but what I am most proud of is that I took the time to stop and admire the views and pull my pace back when I wanted to. I want to enjoy races like this rather than just blast them as quickly as possible and I think allowing myself to take over an hour to do a 10k is a good step in that direction.