SIX STORIES FROM MAYO

07 July, 2019 - Brian Kitson

THE BEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR.


1. IN THE BEGINNING.

After the struggling through the night, the hand holding, the longing to empathise, the cheerleading, the utter feeling of helplessness, the worrying, the breath-holding and the eventual exhaling of relief comes the thrill of finally greeting your first born child. The next couple of days buzzing around the hospital are a dizzying delightful circus. Things get real when it’s time to go home. You, Dad, are led to a busy medical room and find all the grown-ups – the nurses, doctors and your wife - talking grown-up stuff. She seems to know all the important questions that need to be asked while you try to look busy standing at the edges of the conversation. You worry about driving. You’ve never driven anything so precious and delicate and wonder would it be possible to arrange a very slow Garda escort. Somebody notices you and points to a car seat with a bundle of blankets inside. But the blankets begin to stir and a smiling, cooing, hopeful face looks up. You bend down and ask, ‘Are you ready for a great big adventure?’. 10 years later and you’re both on your first road-trip together, heading to Mayo on a warm summers evening. Windows down, music blaring, singing together; making good on that conversation.


2. THE IMRA WOMEN OF MAYO.

You’d have to take your hat off to the women of IMRA. Not in a polite, "m'lady" doff of the cap kind of way. They’d run you out of it if you did that. More in a sense of wonder that one organisation could attract so many determined, strong female characters. Great characters, but also kind.

Myself and the boy got to know some of them over the weekend. On Saturday evening, we're beside the blazing beach bonfire chatting with Linda, Sinead, Rachel and Alice when Alice asks, ‘What’s the book you were reading earlier, Charlie?’. ‘World’s Worst Teachers by David Walliams’ he replied, a burst of enthusiasm instead of the more typical mono-syllabic answers he gives to people he doesn’t know very well, ‘He’s my favourite, I’ve read all his books’. Bashfulness forgotten, he goes on to talk about all the mean, nasty, dastardly things the teachers in his book get up to. They nodded, listened intently and smiled but none of the teachers he was talking to felt the need to mention their profession. Wonderful women, but they’ll not make the cut for volume two of Charlie’s book.


3. CAMPING.

Early on Saturday morning, the boy elbows me in the ribs. Dozing, my face pressed against the side of the tent and my body squeezed into a small fraction of the available canvas real estate. I’ve slept in this two man tent with grown men and had more room and a better kip. The boy sleeps like an octopus falling out of a window; all moving legs, arms and bums everywhere. ‘Dad, can you cook some sausages?’. Easier breakfast options were available but a cook-out breakfast is a given, no debate. I work out how the stove works, get a pot of coffee on and cook up the sausages. He’s back in the tent playing on his Nintendo. Fair enough. People are stirring and the scent of fresh coffee and sausages seem to do the trick and we have a lovely couple of hours enjoying the morning sun with Padraig, Emma, Maika, Alice and Angela for chats, a sausage and a cuppa.

After the race in Silver Strand, I’m swept along in the usual post-race buzz chatting with the other runners. I catch myself though, and head over to check on the boy. He’s been hanging out by himself while I was racing, happily reading his book, and I suggest we head back to the campsite. It begins to rain as we wriggle into our small tent. I’m dispatched out into the wet for provisions and return with an ipad, 7up and all the sweets you could shake a stick at. The next few hours were idle but also the most precious of the trip.

Later on, I meet Padraig and Margaret from Tyrone. I’m on my way back to the tent trying to dodge the heavy drizzle, tip toeing over the wet grass hoping to not to get too wet. I see a sturdy looking man with tight dark hair sitting in a strong upright position in a camp chair beside his tent. The Roy Keane of camping, it’s almost as if he’s daring the rain to fall on him. I wander over to say hello and before I know it I’m sitting on a camp chair beside him. His wife Margaret hands me a tin of beer and I listen to their adventures travelling to races all over the country. Proper IMRA folk. They’re lovely.


4. THE CLIMB. ANOTHER GIRL, ANOTHER PLANET.

Becky Quinn climbs like someone from another planet. Unreal. We start the race on the road running together just behind a group of seven or eight leaders. I ask if she’s done this race before. She has. I’m worried about the route. I don’t know how steep the steep sections near the top are or the best lines or how to find them. A stony track gives way to an energy sapping gradual climb through long grass growing on sodden earth. Becky breezes past me with such ease that I have to look down to check my legs are still actually moving. They are, but not like Becky’s. The slope gives way to a proper climb and she breezes past Brian Flannery too and sets her sights set on Brian Mullens up ahead. She’s presumably just tagging off the Brians before moving onto the rest of the alphabet. Another planet. I look upwards to the sky and see her high up on the mountain. If she keeps climbing like this she’ll end up on another planet.


5. THE COSMIC KITE

I never thought anyone could top the great Jimmy McGee’s commentary of Diego Maradona’s 1986 World Cup goal against England, ‘A different class, a different class”. However, I recently saw the Argentinian commentary of the same goal and it’s exceptional. In his breathless commentary he refers to Maradona as a “Cosmic Kite” as he dribbles the ball into the English goal. I hadn’t seen a Cosmic Kite again until I saw Luke Mac Mullen bounding off the summit of Mweelrea. I said hello, but he was so far ahead he wouldn’t have been caught if I’d said mass.

I mostly avoided getting lost on the way back down (aided by a few helpful shouts from Becky). All my concentration over the last 2km was on trying to catch someone, anyone, ahead but I was too far back. I settled into running home my current position. 500m from the end and my heart sank upon hearing fast footsteps approaching from behind. Brian Flannery. Nothing I could do; my cosmic kite had fluttered away in the sea wind. Becky/Luke 1st. I was 9th Overall (but was the 3rd Brian which is technically a podium finish).


6. GREAT SCOTT.

Early June and I come across an email. ‘The Best Weekend of the Year’, read the subject line. I’ve been on Stuart Scott’s ‘Wednesday night runs’ email list for a while but have never been on any of their mid-week informal runs they arrange during the IMRA off season.
I’ve always been an admirer of Stuart’s concept. These runs provide people with a safe and enjoyable way to run in the mountains together during the dark winter months. Each week the emails fly about with suggested locations, offers of lifts and stories of great nights in the hills. Everyone gets stuck in to keep the flame burning.
Communities are important. They help us satisfy one of our more important human needs; to belong. Communities can only flourish when enough people in them are prepared to put in more than they take out. Too many passengers and even the best tribal idea will sag and falter under its own weight. The weekend in Mayo was an illustration of the amazing things that can happen when people come together and give in a bit more than they take out. The success of this weekend needed a good leader, and in that I'm grateful to Alice. She made it happen. Thanks so much to everyone else who made the weekend so special, especially the people who made a bit of an effort with the boy. The chats, the treats and the juggling lessons all helped to make it an adventure with his Dad that he’ll never forget.

Life well lived.