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.
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Tags: running, trail running
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 5th, 2024 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.