Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Too hot! But under 24 minutes. Got a bit caught up from taking it easy. I did turn up with some homemade biscuits and they all got eaten so I’m taking that as a victory. Thanks to all of the volunteers and Rob for directing.

In 2015, James Lawrence, also known as the Iron Cowboy, set the world record for number of full distance triathlons completed on consecutive days: 50. In 2021, he raised the bar to 100 and then in 2023, Sean Conway raised the bar to 105.

Last week, Jonas Deichmann kicked off Challenge 120: an attempt to complete 120 full distance triathlons in 120 days. For reference, that is a 3.8 km swim, 180 km cycle and a 42.2 km run (full marathon) each day. You can follow him each day on his live tracker and there are daily updates on Instagram, too.

Not a real milestone. My running form looks pretty good, though. Thanks Dermot for the photo.

Donabate parkrun takes place at Newbridge House & Farm. It’s a beautiful country house and the drive in passes a ruined tower, plenty of trees and open grass. The house looks lovely from the front (see below) but not quite as nice from the side (see above).

The run is one large lap and then one shorter lap so you don’t repeat too much. There is a nice cafe for on-site snacks after the run, too.

Last weekend I went to River Valley parkrun. It is a lovely course: two laps of the park including running along the stream in the middle of the park. There is a hill but it is nothing compared to Temple Newsam.

I hadn’t run since Westport marathon so I was pretty pleased to be just over 26 minutes. This one takes me to 348, so only two to go until the next unofficial milestone. I did get sunburnt, though! It hasn’t stopped raining since October and at 9:30 am I managed to catch the sun.

I booked this race a while ago as a chance to take a trip to Ireland’s west coast. Then I picked up an injury and haven’t run much for the past two months. Still, I was armed with some good distance in me and sign-off to run from two physios. I actually suggested I should skip it but they said it would be fine: must be the first time a phyio has talked a runner into running!

The race starts in the quay and takes in a two laps of the green way before heading out along the coast road. The course is described as having some hills but probably nothing that counts as a hill in Yorkshire. There was sunshine before the race. But then the gun went and the rain arrived. It rained a lot for the first hour and it was real stinging rain pelting you in the face.

The rain wasn’t the worst of it, though. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my ankle would give out at any moment and I would be stranded. I knew that was ridicious but it kept distracting me and no amount of psychological tools was shifting the feeling. I tried to keep going as long as I could, which took me through the half way point, but with another 7k to go until the turnaround to come back into town I decided it was too much and called it a day. A big thank you to the marshal and Kevin for giving me a lift back.

It was disappointing as I don’t think I have ever had to DNF on a run before but I live to fight another day.

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!