Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Newcastle West parkrun

Tuesday, May 13th, 2025 | Sport

On Saturday, I ticked off my first parkrun in the compass club. It’s a lovely small parkrun with friendly volunteers and a three lap course around the castle demesne which was lovely and shaded by the trees.

Sandyford 5k 2025

Monday, May 12th, 2025 | Sport

I ran the Sandyford 5k last year but this time I did it as one of the Cabinteely Hill Harriers teams. This year, I was significantly faster, completing the course in 22:33 so happy with that. No prizes for me personally but plenty for the club.

Stormont parkrun

Tuesday, May 6th, 2025 | Sport

You need ten parkruns beginning with the letter S to complete the snakes challenge. That is a lot of Ss. Stormont was my sixth. It is a well attended event that takes in two laps of the Stormont Estate with the start and finish on Prince of Wales Avenue looking up at the parliament building. Thank you to all of the volunteers for making the event happen.

Back to the Premier League

Monday, May 5th, 2025 | Sport

Leeds United confirmed their promotion a few weeks ago, but clinched the Championship title on Saturday. They finished with six wins in a row. Let’s hope that serves us well in the Premier League next season.

Phoenix Park Duathlon 2025

Sunday, May 4th, 2025 | Sport

I first did the Phoenix Park Duathlon back in 2023 and it was a well-organised and inclusive event. This time, DUCC brought a whole team.

The event was well organised again with loads of marshals available. There was a slight delay to starting the race when the ambulance broke down en route to the event but everything was still very smooth. It went off in three waves and despite promising to run a 25-minute 5k I ended up in the last one.

The first run was two laps of the field and nice and flat. Transitioning on the bike was fine and we set out to complete three laps of the park on fully closed roads. The bike course is fast, too, with only one meaningful hill at the end. I was able to stay aero for a lot of the first lap. On the second, the wind picked up and it was harder to stay on the aero bars but it calmed down again for the final lap. Another smooth transition and it was onto the run for a final lap around the field.

My total time was:

1:23:10

I was slightly faster across everything compared with two years ago. I am pleased with that as I felt like I was fitter back then. I looked at my heart rate and I was working slightly harder this time but I also think my running form has come on a lot and that has helped.

Discipline 2025 2023
Run 1 23:31 24:55
T1 1:01 1:23
Bike 46:12 47:46
T2 1:05 1:27
Run 2 11:21 11:23
Total 1:23:10 1:26:56

Well done to Hugh, Finn, Paddy and Naz who has completed the event. Paddy won his age group and Naz completed the race despite dealing with a medical emergency in the middle. Great effort all around. The photographers managed to find me this year: thanks to Triathlon Ireland and Belpark Triathlon Club for the pictures.

Navan parkrun

Monday, April 28th, 2025 | Sport

Last weekend I went to Navan parkrun. It is a three-and-a-half lap course following the loop around Blackwater Park. One hill but a slow downhill, too. Some nice views of the river and what looks like an old mill. Thank you to all of the volunteers for looking after us.

Porch Field parkrun

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 | Sport

Last weekend I completed Porch Field parkrun. It’s my 60th different parkrun event It’s located in Trim and it is a lovely run. Two laps of the park which features a ruined church, riverside section and sheep including some lambs. Friendly volunteers, of course, as well.

I was almost take to the start due to a racist parking app so I had to sprint to the start line. That apparently left quite a lot of adrenaline in my system and I ended up running 23:30 including stopping to take a selfie. I could have taken it after but that would have meant doing another lap of the course. it also gave me an age group victory, coming 1st out of 5!

TriLaois

Sunday, April 20th, 2025 | Sport

TriLaois is a sprint distance triathlon that takes place in Portlaoise. 750m pool swim, 23km cycle and 5km run. It’s been 20 months since I last did a triathlon and I was super-excited for it.

Still had some stomach issues on the morning but once I was racking my bike in transition it was nothing but excitement. We had nine athletes from the club racing and there are not many greater joys in life than racing with your teammates.

Transition closed at 8:10 and our wave was not scheduled until 10:30. This meant we had the chance to watch some of our teammates in wave one, but then left quite a gap between wave one finishing the swim and us getting in the pool. The bag drop was not secure but it did mean we could keep our hoodies on until the last minute.

The swim

We had a lane to ourselves in wave five. Six people in a lane sounded like a lot but Sarah, Roxane and Grace swam as a pack reducing the number of groups moving around. Melchior was quickest out of the water. I had two bursts of speed where I briefly tried to stay on the girls’ feet but otherwise took it easy.

The cycle

Transition was on an astroturf field which meant our feet got covered in those little rubber balls. I went for socks but otherwise there was no messing around and I was out in two and a half minutes.

The cycle route was an out-and-back and pretty flat. There was tailwind going out and it was slightly downhill which meant coming back was much harder. Even though there was nothing to take me out of my big ring, 3% into a headwind is enough to slow you down. I managed to catch my team mates on the outward leg. I was just under 30 kph average speed.

Annoyingly, neither my heart rate monitor nor my power meter had synced with my bike computer so I had to work on feel. The power meter did sync with my watch, though, and thinks I averagd 189 watts.

The run

Transition two was smooth enough as I switched to my running shoes and set off on the run. I tried not to hurt myself too hard. That’s tough as soon as you see someone ahead of you, though, and it was a constant battle of trying to slow myself down. Thankfully, there was an aid station half way to get some water over my head.

I wrote my tri suit which does not have any pockets so I had to do the run without my phone. As a result, by the half way point, I was two and a half kilometres away from my phone. As someone who doesn’t usually go to the bathroom without my phone, I think that might be a new personal best.

The results

My total time was:

1:30:10

And my splits were:

Discipline Time
Swim 17:07
T1 2:24
Bike 45:55
T2 1:35
Run 23:09

All good stuff. 2:16 per 100 is good enough swim pace for me, the cycle was faster than expected as I thought about 45 minutes for 20km and the speedy run was a nice bonus, too. Most of all, I had fun, which was the aim of the day.

We took a team of nine of us and everyone did brilliant, especially considering most people were doing their first triathlon.

Name Position Age group position Time
Finn Meenagh 7 2 01:16:53
Christopher Lohse 13 1 01:19:00
Chris Worfolk 50 12 01:30:10
Christine O’Brien 60 2 01:31:43
Melchior Mathé 87 4 01:37:50
Gus Hagon 101 6 01:39:54
Grace Kodia 113 3 01:43:15
Sarah Kelly 117 5 01:44:20
Roxane Monmarché-Fontaine 119 6 01:44:20

Well done to Finn Meenagh and Christine O’Brien for being the first DUCCers across the line, and Christopher Lohse for winning his age group. Alas, the competition of the M35-39 age group made for a tough race.

Post race celebrations

After the race, we headed to The Pantry Cafe & Walled Garden for some refreshments and banter.

400th parkrun

Sunday, April 13th, 2025 | Sport

Last week I completed my 400th parkrun. It was also Arik’s 250th parkrun and that is a real milestone. We got a group picture but I’m not sure where they ended up so here is one of me crossing the finish line with Jonas. I baked some focaccia for the after party at the cafe.

DUHAC 24-hour run 2025

Wednesday, March 26th, 2025 | Sport

Trinity Harriers run an annual fundraising event that involves teams of four competing to see who can run the farthest combined distance in 24 hours as well as raise the most money to fund club activities. I did the event two years ago and it was a lot of type 2 fun.

This year there were another ten teams competing. I was on Chariots of Tired with Clíodhna, Jack and Adam. Alas, I still don’t have a photo of me running in a DUHAC vest.

Race day report

I’m heavier and probably less fit than two years ago when I was still in IRONMAN form. But i had logged some long runs. And unlike my previous two 24-hour races, where I slept from 2am to 7am, this time I wanted to try going straight through.

Unfortunately, things did not go to plan. My stomach was unhappy from Saturday afternoon onwards (the race was on Sunday) so I was feeling crap to begin with and was running a slow pace with lots of bathroom breaks from the start. My mood was unusually low and I felt really sad for most of the night. I was originally running with an audiobook but decided to switch this off and just be present to see if that helped, which it did a little. As a result, by 6am I had only covered 35km which felt barely further than last year. I decided to abandon my attempt to go all the way through and opted for a 30-minute power nap.

As soon as I climbed into bed, fully dressed in my running gear, I decided I couldn’t face a 30-minute timer either so I cancelled it and just went to sleep. 90 minutes I woke up naturally and felt a little better so I switched into my super cushioned shoes. By this point it was daylight and I switched to my 1.3km loop around the green space. By 10am I finally made it through 50k. Not going to be finishing Donedea anytime soon, but I got it done. I was running in blocks of 10-15km at a time and did another 12km to take me up to 62k before taking a break for lunch.

I had a series of milestones to try and get myself excited about reaching a certain distance. Post-lunch running was a bit of a slog as once I was through 60k there wasn’t really anything until the double marathon at 84.4 so there was hours of running in circles with not much to celebrate. I think I around 50 loops of the green space in total. After each block I got on my foam roller to try and loosen up some of the muscles, especially around my hip that tends to cause problems.

My final daylight loop took me to 97k at which point I briefly paused to stick some tea in the oven before doing a final 3k to round up to 100. This gave me a new 100k PB of:

19:09

At time of writing, the world record is just over six hours so lots of room for improvement there. But self-compassion and all that: most people don’t have a 100k PB.

Unfortunately, dinner upset my stomach again. My previous experience of running ultras has been that some real food is helpful but I fuelled most of this on Haribo, Lucozade and gels. That was working for me so maybe I should have stuck with that. With my ongoing stomach issues for the past few years, eating and drinking anything is pretty hard at the moment so getting anything in was a challenge. In total, I got through 12 bags of Haribo, seven bottles of Lucozade, six gels, six chocolate bars plus some crisps, shortbread, strawberries and salted potatoes.

I took my time getting back out there but by now I was exhausted. My running was barely faster than a walk and my ankle was starting to wobble in a way that said I might hit the deck at some point. So, after a final 10k, I decided to call it. At this point, I still had two hours left and it was a bit frustrating to have done all of this work not to use all of the time. But I think I was physically and mentally done at this point and deciding to let myself stop here was a real sense of relief.

Results

My total distance was:

110km

Plus my shiny new 100k PB of 19:09 which is about 3.5 hours faster than two years ago. I also set a new single-day step record of 122,988. My total running time was 13:05:32 which is about two hours up on my two previous 24-hour races. I burnt around 7,779 kcals.

I managed to avoid any serious chafing thanks to copious amounts of vaseline and bepanthen but I did pick up a blister on one of my toes.

It felt a bit deja vu because two years ago Team Cool Runnings monopolised the leaderboard with 1st, 2nd and 4th, and this year again we took 1st and 2nd with Jack posting a monster 200+km 8-hour+ cycle that he traded in for running miles.

That final 10k managed to take us over the 200k mark for a comfortable victory but things were exciting close behind with just a few kilometres separating our second and third place. The total distance covered by everyone was 1,293km meaning that on average people ran over 32km each: a phenomenal effort given not everyone is a distance runner.

On the fundraising side, Lost In Pace (great team name!) flattened us all with €1,670 raised. In total, we raised over €4,000 for the club which might still be rising as the fundraising page only launched the day before the event.

Reflections

In the days leading up to the event, I was both excited to get started and nervous about how much it was going to hurt. And that was pretty accurate. But I would like more tired legs and less stomach issues. They’re really driving me crazy at this point. But despite all of that, I did make it to 100k, and past it for the first time, and that’s pretty cool.

I tend to get caught up in “X ran 180km when they did a 24-hour event” so I am going to stop and pause and reflect on 110k being a really long way. It’s more than two and a half marathons and most people will never run a marathon. I can be proud of what I achieved and how hard I worked for it, both in training and in those difficult hours when I pushed through.

A big thank you to everyone at DUHAC involved in organising the event. And to everyone who has contributed to the fundraiser. And to my wonderful team mates, my family, and everyone at Blackrock that sent encouragement over WhatsApp.