We're not in Kansas anymore (or California)

26 November, 2015 - Paddy O'Leary

(A bit of a delayed post. Those time zones always throw me off)

With a fortunate opportunity for a work-sponsored trip back to Ireland, it was made all the sweeter when I found out that my former UCD colleague, Maike Jurgens, was race director of the final race of the IMRA season, a monster 10 mile climb up and down Maulin and Djouce. It was a wet day up in Wicklow, much to the dismay of this California-honed trail runner well used to the dry arid trails and fire roads of the Marin Headlands. A pair of Hokas with extremely little grip was going to make for some interesting climbing and descents (or running on the spot or falling on my arse). But sure it was a great introduction back to Irish weather at least.

After Maike gave us the green light, off we go up the fireroad from Crone car park. It wasn’t even 30 seconds before myself and Ian Conroy took a wrong turn turning right up through the forest, but thankfully we copped on that UCD lads were on track so quickly pulled a 180 and headed off in chase of the front runners. Given I had a poor reputation for racing into completely unnecessary leads and then taking wrong turns in races, this was NOT an ideal start. Haha! Though given the course was meant to be unmarked, I was delighted to see the marshalls at each major intersection sending us up and down the right trails. Though I was never offered the Quality Street, Roses or goodies of some sort that they were supposedly handing out. We must have caught them off guard.

Myself and Conroy shared the lead for the first couple of miles until we took the last turn up Maulin. After Ian realised I wasn’t an American coming over to steal our trail running titles, we started to share some great conversations about Ian’s races on the European and World Championship circuit and my own couple of races since I moved to the US. We also realised that I had raced against one of his friends, another Ian, Iain Whiteside, in a race back in the Bay earlier in the year so that was a chance observation (small trail running world). Interestingly, at the time Whiteside had also confused me for an American, commenting that it was peculiar seeing an American wear INOV8s, but I soon had to correct him that I was a born and bred Bree man.

I pulled away before the first summit figuring the rest of the pack would be catching me on the descents given my lack of grip and experience in running on any ground with any sort of moisture. I was expecting Ian to catch me first, but it was Alan Kelly who blazed by on the way down to the footbridge. Luckily for us long course runners, this blazing pace was to finish the short course. So off we trudged up Djouce where Ian caught back up and we descended across the board walk together at a decent clip (almost taking a few tumbles along the way). The out-and-back part of the descent back down Djouce was great fun with solid greetings and shouts from the runners heading up, whilst we tried to control our brakes and not end up careening off the side of the course or through the climbing runners. With the last climb back up from the footbridge, I was able to put a bit of time on Ian (who had just come off a couple of weeks of off-season, and picked a great race to kick off his training! A mad man!). Once on the fire road, it was plain sailing the whole way down, as it was much more similar to the trails I was used to back in Marin. Put the foot on the gas, as they say over there! And let gravity do its work!

Great to hear everyone got down off the hill in one piece, apart from a few cuts, bruises and one sprained ankle-enforced bike ride from the top. Maike and the Powerscourt Arms put on a great presentation, raffle and supplied us with bucket loads of soup and sandwiches, so all of the runners left Enniskerry with full bellies… from the food and from a great season racing! Looking forward to my next race back home. And if any of the IMRA runners can make a trip over to San Francisco at any stage, do let me know and I’ll bring you out on the trails.

Strava Race log: www.strava.com/activities/428103507