Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

On Sunday, Iveagh Sports Ground launched their junior parkrun. I was quietly hoping there would be cake. There wasn’t, but there was lots of very friendly and encouraging volunteers. The course is two laps on grass. It’s flat but still has a few lumps to make it interesting.

Another weekend trip. This time, our first one to County Wexford. Gorey is three laps of a the local park. It’s flat, a nice park and a cafe with toilets in the centre for post-parkrun snacks. Ticked off another G for Staying Alive and my 59th for Cowell Club. Lovely to be there for their 8th birthday and thank you to all of the volunteers.

Another letter ticked off the alphabet challenge! This week I completed the University of Galway parkrun, earning me a valuable “U” and completing the spell “parkrun” challenge. It’s a nice course: a few laps around the field then an out and back along the river before one final lap of the field. Very flat and surface was nice enough for my fast shoes.

On Friday, we staged our first Mini Triathlon. It consisted of a 400-metre swim in the pool, a 10 km cycle in the spin studio and a 2 km run around campus. It was a lot to organise but well worth it. Eight athletes took part and apart from having to invalidate the bike results due to a misconfiguration, everything went smoothly. We can’t wait to run some more events like this next year.

On Saturday we took to the cycle track at Corkagh Park for a coached cycle session. We went through fundamentals including gears, braking, cornering, and then onto group riding skills. We finished with a time trial and then a relay race with matched pairs from the time trial. I didn’t win but I did have a lot of fun coaching!

Last weekend I drove up to Mullagh in County Cavan to tick off my “E” in parkruns. It’s a beautiful part of the world. It doesn’t have the dramatic mountains of Wicklow or the west, but lovely countryside filled with trees, rivers and fields. And people: I had a lovely welcome. Thank you to all of the volunteers who made the event happen.

The course itself is four laps in a figure of eight around the park. It terms of lapping sports fields it was lovely as here were bridges, ponds, streams and lovely buildings surrounding the park.

Dublin Marathon is a city marathon and one of the biggest running events in Ireland with 20,000 athletes taking part. I was really nervous about taking part but also determined to do what I could.

For background, my physical and mental health has taken a real battering over the past two years. I’ve gone from finishing IRONMAN Copenhagen and running 100k to struggling to make it around the 10k at EcoTrail Wicklow last month.

The last time I tried to run a marathon, which was Westport in April, I dropped out at 21k which was my first ever DNF in a running event (not counting backyard ultras, where everyone but the winner is officially a DNF).

Preparation wasn’t what I hoped. I was planning to do the 47k or 30k at EcoTrail but was too ill due to stomach issues. I got one 30k run in beforehand and a 14k + 10k at EcoTrail day, but everything else was 20k or shorter. I knew returning to the marathon was going to be a huge psychological challenge and went in thinking “it would be nice to finish but if it is not on the cards, at least I tried.”

Registration

You have to collect your number from the RDS. It’s a pain because it is about 3km out of the city centre so too far out for public transport and too close to the city centre to find free parking.

It was very well organised, though. There was no waiting to get my number and there were lots of volunteers on hand. I cycled down and between all of the things I had in my pockets and I ended up leaving my phone on the registration deck! Thankfully, a volunteer spotted it and kept it safe for me.

Pre-race

I took the tram into town on the morning of the race. It was the first one of the day to get there on time and was so busy that even from my stop it was already standing room only. It just kept getting busier and by halfway it was so busy that it looked like one of those scenes in Japan where professional shovers cram people onto the metro.

This was not fun. I was in a full panic. I told myself it was only another 15 minutes. But the tram was running so slowly it took an extra 10 minutes to get into town. By the time I got off the tram, I was visibly shaking. Not the start I really wanted.

It was quite a long walk to the start with a choke point for bag checks, then bag drop, then a 2k walk or so to the start pens. By the time I got there, I had already done 8,000 steps. But that’s somewhat inevitable with such a large event.

The first hour

Almost as soon as I crossed the start line I started feeling panic again. The start goes around the city and there were probably some lovely sights but I was finding it difficult to engage in anything.

I knew my friend Holly was working on the water station at 8k so I kept telling myself “just get to 8k and Holly will be there and say encouraging things”. Thankfully, I made it, and Holly was there and gave me the first pep talk I needed to keep going.

The second hour

Anxiety still running high I plodded on. After the first hour of heading north through Phoenix Park, you turn back and come back along the bottom of Phoenix Park and I took a walking break here to gobble some Haribo. Thankfully, I was able to stick to my nutrition strategy for the whole race.

As halfway approached my anxiety built as that is where I dropped out in Westport. I hoped it would get easier after the halfway point but also knew it was unlikely to make much of a difference.

Luckily, my friend Monica was cheering people on at 21k and she was the perfect person to run into at this point, delivering an impromptu counselling session on the side of the road.

The third hour

The lonely 20s. You’re hurting by this point and yet still nowhere near the end. I brought two flasks with me: one with Lucozade and one with Red Bull and at the magic 28k point where I had decided I could start on the caffeine. Delicious caffeine.

I think one of the walking breaks paid off as I managed to crack a smile at some point.

The fourth hour

Into the 30s and things did start getting a bit easier here. The mental pain was receding slightly as the physical pain really started to ramp up. Approaching the four-hour mark I was getting really sick of gels and took a Quality Street from a kind man on the street. I was starting to recognise some places here and that was nice.

The finish

As we approached 40k and beyond I was now feeling confident that I had done it. The last 2k were lovely: I was hurting but it was only physical pain and I was quite misty-eyed knowing that I was going to make it. It felt great to finally be able to take some of the atmosphere in and enjoy it.

My official finish time was:

4:33:07

I met Patricia just after the finish line. She started in a later wave than me but ran a wonderful time to finish well ahead of me. We then met some of the other club members at a local coffee shop for some well-earned caffeine and cake.

Conclusion

I’m absolutely delighted to have finished. I feel like I instantly got some of my mojo back.

I came in thinking it would probably be hell. And it was. Just hours and hours of it and I wanted to quit so bad. But I stuck with it and I finished it. A massive thank you to everyone who came out and cheered, and especially to Holly and Monica for their mid-race pep talks.

I went straight back to running on Tuesday, which I wasn’t physically ready for, but I was just so excited to feel like I was probably running again that I just wanted to get back out there. Everything over the past two years has felt like things were getting worse and this feels like things are getting better. Here’s to much more running to come!

Getting something out of this race meant a lot to me.

I only just found out about the event after the registration deadline in 2022. I was in great form from IRONMAN Copenhagen but alas, it wasn’t to be.

So I signed up for the 80k in 2023 and decided to make that my A-race of the year. Health problems got in the way of training and I dropped down to the 47k but in the end I was too ill to run at all for two months and missed the race.

When 2024 rolled around, I opted to register for the 47k as that seemed straightforward. But continuing health issues meant I couldn’t train and even though I dropped down to the 30k, I still wasn’t in any form to complete the race. This year, though, they added a 10k option. I missed the deadline to switch down so ended up having two separate registrations: one for the 30k and one for the 10k. But I made it to the start line.

I wasn’t feeling much better on the day. I was still having stomach issues and my latest attempt to find shorts that did not chafe had ended in failure. Luckily, Bray had clean public toilets.

The race starts by running along the sea front and then heads straight up Bray Head. It’s a climb of just under 200 vertical metres. As we went up, I found my vision got quite blurry. I’m not sure whether it is the low light under the trees as a similar thing happened on the way down where I woul have had a lower heart rate.

The views from the top are beautiful and I stopped to take a few pictures. We then follow the track around the headline for another beautiful view of Greystones before descending into the valley on the far side. There is then a road section into town before climbing and descending Bray Head a second time.

I was so relieved to cross the finish line after battling my stomach, my vision and my nerves. It’s bean a unpleasant descent from IRONMAN triathlete to struggling to run a 10k. But I did run it and I made it to the end. I wasn’t aiming for any kind of time but for the record it was:

1:21:57

It’s a beautiful race and well worth checking out if you like mountains and sea views.

I’ve been struggling with a lot of stress-related injuries recently which have made racing very challenging. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot compete vicariously. I’m back coaching with DUCC. We got a few swim sessions together last year but this year we have a much stronger schedule with three swims per week. We also have a track day coming up in a few weeks so I am looking forward to that.

Another Paralympics has been and gone and another great result for Team GB. We finished with 124 medals including 49 golds. This is the exact same number of medals we won at Tokyo 2020 but with eight extra golds. It also means Team GB has come second in the medals table again.

This marks the 7th Olympics in the row where we have come second in the medals table. Technically, Russia came second at London 2012 but obviously we don’t count them anymore because the country is a bunch of big cheats.

One of the things that makes me proud to be British is that as good as an Olympic team we field, and we do field an excellent Olympic team, our Paralympic team always outperforms them.