Scarr

27 May, 2016 - Barry Murray

I remember my first ever IMRA race back in 2007… it was up 3 Rock, there was about 40 of us in a huddle at the start, and off we went.
Last Wednesday night at Scarr and I look back from the start line and it was like a queue of people for the Bruce Springsteen concert.. over 200 !
Anyways, another lovely bright evening up the mountains with a cool fresh breeze. Scarr is another classic… long climb up to the summit.. then a fast descent with some technical bits. Registration and all the rest was simple and well run. Some friendly German dude set us off and I tried to set off at my preferred steady/easy pace. I think a few had read my last race report as I got the feeling there were a few others starting easy. A short climb up the fireroad brought us up to the mountain track and I was with the usual heads – Brian, Graham, Warren, John Bell and Bernard just a bit further ahead.

I usually know within the first 5-10mins of running whether I have the legs or not for the race. Last Saturday I ran stage 7 of the Wicklow Way Relay so there was a little residual fatigue so wasn’t feeling totally fresh. I think one of the key things to get right during this part of the season is recovery from races. With the LL and then usually something at the weekend… you can find yourself racing hard and burning the legs ( plus body and mind) out. Lots of stuff you can do for recovery which I won’t bother going into here…. but you can definitely over race yourself… and one simply strategy to use is to just not race for a week or two ! Note to file

So Scarr is in sight as we curve around the forest line…. And hit our first little downhill, where I passed Brian (déjà vu !) . Then the long slog began…. I do like the climbs in general and ultra’s I’ve done do help the slogging. However, this was a climb at pace and I was pushing it with little trots and fast hikes. Felt like an eternity, but we finally reached the fence line crossing and hit the trail up to the summit. This stage of the race is when my motor kicks properly into gear so I wanted to push the pace and catch up with 3-4 guys in front of me. Annoyingly, my lace became undone and I had to stop for a few seconds to tie it. I had Brian and Warren up my arse and they flew straight by me. Little things like that during a race can affect you. Even though they only went 10 yards or so ahead of me, I had to bust a gut to get back to them !

Lovely summit turnaround, touched the cairn and then the descent commenced. With so many runners coming up towards us it meant taking a more difficult line to avoid collisions. So some nice rock jumps and a few leaps and we were on the long fast descent down the mountain towards Glendalough. Absolutely amazing view at this part, although with the pace of the descent, I was annoyed I couldn’t take it in that much !

I was descending with John Bell… we were moving fast… caught Damien McPharland, then towards the final turn, we caught Graham K. I knew we only had a kilometre or so to go and we were all fairly flat out. I could hear the heels behind me and Warren overtook followed by Graham who must have got a spring in his step. So it was John, Warren, Graham and I in a line… its downhill to the finish and passing people at this stage really require you to barge your way through. I wasn’t in bargey mode so just kept my pace up with the others. We passed Isaac who seemed to be limping and we almost caught Paul Keville just before the line.

The previous week was just over 10km and I felt the extra bit of distance gave me more of a chance to pick up some places towards the end. This race at 8km was just a tad short for me so had to concede a few spots. Good work out though and again, probably the best “speed” session you can do if you want to race the longer stuff.

It’s good for the competition also to see the number of strong runners. 30seconds separated me and the next 6. Des Kennedy was flying and finished well ahead… but after that the time is close between next 5.

So I’ll leave with another question to ponder:

How do you sleep after a Wednesday night race ??