Follow the markers...

12 August, 2018 - Barry Murray

Gloves as part of the mandatory kit, waterproofs, phones, and cut off times. Here I was sitting in the sun on the evening before at Inch beach, looking at the clear skies and the McGillyCuddy reeks in the distance.

But safety for all concerned I guess and this new Galtee half was more off the beaten track than normal. I woke up Saturday morning to calm mild air and dry roads. By the time I got to Banteer the mist had started to sprinkle. Picked up Conor Murphy along the way and with all the chat we were at the race HQ in no time.

Plenty of new faces for this one and the visibility for the morning wasn't looking great. Thankfully, the lads, Barry Harnett and Alan Sheahy marked out the course the friday night and they did so perfectly. It was a twisty turny course with open mountain and lots of just proper off the beaten track sections. Barry or whoever came up with the course must have been smoking some good stuff when they planned it.

Anyway, it was my first trip to the Galtee's and half marathon trail race no.3 for me. I was more relaxed than normal for this race, not sure why. Didn't even manage to get a warm up in, was too busy grinding my coffee in the camper. Got changed and was the last one down to the race briefing. Figured I would use the first couple of km's as my warm up. Not as many familiar faces as normal, but I had Brian Mullins for company and I knew English lad Andy Fleet would be at the front too.

Off we went , after all the hot dry weather and muggy air, with my Carauntoohill Classic experience, it was nice to be running in the wet. For some reason, I just wasn't feeling as good as normal from the start. It was myself, Brian, Andy and Torben runnning at a nice steady pace, but I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe it was the lack of a warm up . I knew I just had to shake it off so ploughed on ahead. After a couple of km;s, we hit our first ascent and Andy led off with Brian in tow.

I was 3rd, trying to keep Brian in my sights. Torben was just behind me. The running also felt a bit different as the visibility got worse. You could only go as far as the next flag or tape. It was hard to openly run as you had to keep on the course and the only way was to follow each marking. I wasn't able to keep with Brian and Andy and I knew this would make getting in the lead harder. Sometimes, just staying with the lead, even if they are going that bit harder than you would like, is worth it, as you can just find that extra gear. Harder to find that extra gear when you are on your own.

Anyway, the course involve 3 peaks..... before I knew it,, we were up the first one, Galtee beag I think... then Galtee Mor... would have loved to have been able to take in the view.. but you could only see about 20yrds ahead of you. For some reason, the climbs didn't seem hard or long. A good bit of hiling up steep slopes, but nothing crazy. Maybe not being able to see up, and not being able to see the summit, makes it less taxing.

I ended up running most of the course with Torben... good to have company on the route like this and poor weather conditions. About mid way through the race I started to feel normal again and wanted to push on to try catch the lads. Torben was running well so the two of us just paced off each other. We were on our final sort of climb.... zig zag sort of grassy mossy trail... and we see Andy running back down towards us. He said he couldn't see any more markers. We told him we thought we were on course and the 3 of us kept going... a few seconds later and Brian is running towards us saying the same thing, no markers. So we immediately all turn around and start running back to the last marker we had seen. Within a minute or so, we saw that we had missed a turn. We also met Conor Murphy, Peter Power and Karl McGuire.... who were behind us and just at the turn. So Brian and Andy had lost time to myself and Torben, and we had lost time to the next group. Anyways, these things happen on a course and weather like this. I looked around, there was now 7 of us together, and said, “race starts again here lads”. We had about 3-4km left I think. another big open mountain section... Brian charged off. We were all still looking for markers... a few shouts were needed to keep us all on track. I sort of switched off race mode. It was just a case of us all getting back. Brian in fairness kept in the lead. Peter Power managed to follow Brian.... I was with the other lads. We had a few ravines to climb down and jump over. We then met Barry Harnett waving to keep us on track. I asked him how far away from the finish we were, and he said about 10mins of running. I was sort of surprised... I didn;t feel like we were out that long.... the previous 1/2's were around 1.40hr and felt much longer... maybe it was the fact that we couldn't see where we were going and we couldn't run flat out, made the journey seem shorter !

We then came off the mountain and back onto more runnable trail. I switched back on again to race mode and actually was enjoying being able to run properly again. I had Brian and Peter about 100yards ahead of me. Thought I would catch them, got to within about 5-10yards, then we arrived at the finish.

A funny ending. Glad Brian kept his lead. Andy unfortunately went over on his ankle and came in a few minutes later. Peter was lucky and raced the last 3-4k to take 2nd. Torben wasn't too far behind with the other lads.

Looking forward to doing this race again in clearer weather. Fair play to the lads for the organisation and course marking, and the volunteers who were out on the course.