Denis O'Connell

05 October, 2014

Dublin Peaks race report - Denis O'Connell

Many thanks to Joe, Maike, Peter and Greg for helping out at this race.

This was my first imra race. I was expecting a bigger turnout as I have done Gaelforce West and WAR long courses where the entry fee is MUCH higher but there is a limit on numbers because there are so many entries. This looked like a really good challenge to me. However, there were only 30 runners in total today.

I chose the earlier 11am start as I'm usually up before 8am on Sat and live only 30 mins cycle away from the start, in Templeogue, so would be just waiting around for it to start anyway (as I don't fancy doing extra exercise before a long race). I also don't like to eat much before running, but can manage 30km with 1 small snack if I leave early enough. Mind you, I do need a bit of water.

I arrived in the car park at around 10:30 after cycling up slowly in spinning gears to save my legs for the run. I had a good idea of the route to take as I did a recce of a good route 3 weeks earlier using GPS data from James Cahill as posted on the forum. Thanks James for sharing this course. I uploaded it onto my Garmin Edge 705 and was able to follow it pretty closely apart from cutting out the top of Cruagh. The distance was ~28km and elevation gain/loss ~1300m.

I registered with Joe and he showed us on the map which way top go to avoid the private land aroud the top of Cruagh and where the checkpoint punches would be located. I kept some extra layers on until 5 mins before the start as it was cold enough waiting around with a cool breeze blowing. There were only 7 of us starting at 11am. John Ryan was carrying the punch and pole for Fairy Castle as
he is a strong runner and as it turned out the fastest of the early starters. We started at exactly 11am and even had a countdown.

I managed to stay with John until the first shortcut where you leave the tarmac road at a left bend and head straigt up into the forest instead. This was the first wet patch. I went slowly trying to stay dry while John splashed up the most direct route and built a gap. I still wasn't far behind John at Fairy Castle so knew where he left the punch and did not need to search for it. I punched @ 17:20. It was good to get the first climb over with without any difficulty and be up near the top of the field.

I kept up a good pace although the wind felt strong now and was blowing from the front-right. The last I saw of John for a while was when he turned off the Wicklow Way on the shortcut to Tibradden (turning right onto a narrow path where the WW bends to the left). I followed him in there and was immediately running on what felt like a stream. I was not going to stay dry for much longer so stuck to the (wet) path as much as possible. Now my legs started getting grazed by furze and my feet were getting wet fast. There's a fence with barbed wire and some very slippy sections so caution is needed here and I took it easy for while to avoid any early injury.

Between Fairy Castle and Mountain Meitheal I met nobody. It's nice to have the path to yourself - it makes negotiating the many wet and stoney sections easier.

The shortcut comes out near Tibradden top and the punch was very easy to find in the cairn. My time to here was 32:25. I immediately left the path here and headed cross-country downhill to the R116. I hopped over the fence just before the bridge over the Owendoher and found the track after crossing the river. In retrospect I should have spent more time checking out the best path here as Martina Nolan evidently knew a better route than mine and she gained some time on me here on the way back. It felt good to get out onto the gravel road after being in the forest. I had a few more scrapes now but was feeling quite strong again. My time was 48:40 at the top of the boardwalk.

I made it down to the bog road start @ 1h4m and was surprised to see John there waiting around to help Pat Quill move his car which had got stuck in the bog. He must have been waiting for about 5 mins. I waited with him for a short while before a van driver stopped and said he could sort Pat out so we set off then knowing he would be okay. The first section felt so good - a nice downhill section on good gravel road and not steep but very gradual. There were some large puddles of water to negotiate, some taking up the whole road but I didn't mind too much.

John raced ahead - he may have been rested after the break waiting around, and he built up a big gap pretty quickly. After leaving the gravel road the bog trail wasn't as bad as I had expected. I slowed to a walk on extra slippy or steep sections but in general was able to keep up a slow short-stepped jog. I took a look back about half way up the bog trail and spotted someone about 150m
behind. Was someone catching me? That spurred me on and I maintained a good pace to the top. I looked back a few more times to check progress and decided whoever it was was not gaining on me and maybe even falling back again.

John passed me on his way back about 120m from the top. He flew by me while shouting out where the punch was. I had no difficulty finding it but it was very windy so I did have difficulty using it. I punched in at 1h42m and didn't hang around. I could really feel the wind in my back going downhill. Somehow it felt stronger pushing me down than it had been pushing me back during the ascent. I passed by Martina about 30m below where John has passed by me, so maybe 150m from the top and now knew who it was that was behind me. In general the path to the far left (when descending) is the best route but certainly not alway, so I was constantly trying to look ahead to decide on the best option.

I ate my snacks (oats and honey bar and 3 glucose sweets) hoping for a burst in energy but they didn't cure the tiredness which I was now feeling in my legs. I was definitely getting slower now. 4 or 5 of the 12:00 starters passed by just before I reached the military road. My time back there was 2h10. I got a drink of water which was much needed. I had forgotten to bring my water in my bicycle cage - I wasn't planning on carrying it - just drinking some before and after the race, so missed my pre-race drink.

I spotted a few runners coming down towards me so headed up for them but started to veer away from the path I had gone out on. I decided to cut accross back onto the path I had used rather than use their trail, and ended up on some heavy-going ground for a while before joining up with Martina on the trail I was aiming for. We ran close together for a while reaching the top of the boardwalk at 2h29, but she was a little faster than me and reached the R116 a few seconds ahead of me. I did okay on the climb up to Tibradden and punched in there at 2h46 but there was no sign of Martina.

I headed back cross-country into the forest and the going was very tough now. My feet felt a bit loose in my runners and I was worried my runner would get stuck in bog with my foot coming out leaving the runner there. Usually in long distance runs the foot swells up a bit and there is no concern of this but probably with the sock getting saturated it shrank compared to being dry. Again
I took it very easy alongside the barbed wire. After leaving the fence there is a particularly boggy area. I chanced a soft looking patch and it was very soft - my leg sank in above my knee and knocked me off balance entirely. While pulling my leg out it cramped up and I needed to squeeze the lactic acid out by stretching the ankle back before going on. I took it easy for a while for fear it would cease up again.

Once I reached the WW again I felt confident enough on the solid ground and got back into a rhythm. I think I would have been better going the long but dry way round both out and back in retrospect (using a bit more of the WW). I made it back to Fairy C @ 3h10. I took a while to punch as the punch had been broken and a young girl said she knew where the broken part was so I waited for her to find it before punching while she chatted away about her plans to run in the hills. I met a good few hikers on the next section down to 3-rock, and once I was passed them it was an easy run back to base. I found some strength and finished well with a final time of 3h25. So my out and back times were very close with 1 minute between them at 1h42 out and 1h43 back.

The cycle back was easy enough but I was freezing, so again stuck in a spinning gear to try to heat myself up this time. When I got home the first thing I did was down 1.5L of water which really hit the spot.

Now I'm already looking forward to my next imra run!