Listening to the Silence

02 March, 2020 - Barry Murray

After just about drying out fully from the Sli Muscrai Moonsoon, and Jorge passing without much damage, I was looking forward to doing a league race with a cool name, Bweeng.

With sleep training going with our 10month old, sleep isn't exactly optimal at the moment but sometimes the body has a way of adapting better than you would think. So woke up Sunday morning feeling fresh enough and with the winters training going okay, I was looking forward to a trail race that was long enough and runnable enough to give the legs a blast.

Made the trek from the Kingdom across the border to the rebel county and the skies were blue and the sun was shining. As much as I love whatever nature has to offer for an IMRA race, it is nice for everyone involved, both runners and volunteers, to be able to stand out in the sunshine and enjoy the surroundings. A nice spot too with rolling hills off the beaten track.

It was pretty clear from the start the we had an "elite" type RD... with a very smooth registration set up, plenty of car parking marshals, and even a canope set up at the start line with drinks and snacks.

I managed to get there in plenty of time and I find this is key for me if I want to do well in a race. Body, legs and mind need a 20-30min warm up, and thats what I did. The photo map on the website was great too and I was able to kind of visualize the race and the terrain.

So elite RD Mariousz set us off just after 11am... nice big crowd, and the sun most of energized everyone as the front wave went off at a sprint. I was 2-3 rows back and sort of caught off gaurd with the pace so had to make my way to the front quickly before we turned off to the trail. I was in 2nd by the time we hit the trail and the pace eased down a bit.

I said to myself I would wait to see if anyone goes off, but they didn't. I didn't want to be the one that goes off early either, but I just kept what I thought was a steady pace... and drifted into the lead after about 1km.

This is then where it gets a bit funny for someone who doesn't lead out races very often. As my title suggests.... running in a group, you have all the clattering noise of feet and bodies... as you line out, you hear the breathes.... as you line out more.. it might be just one breath behind you... this is what happened as we went up the first climb. As we came to the first summit, there was silence as I had managed to pull away by 50m or so. At this point then, you have a different set of challenges to focus on. Usually, its trying to catch the fella in front and trying to stay ahead of the person behind you. But out front along, the two key things I realized are 1. not missing a turn and 2. choosing the right pace as you have no one to aim for !

It was nice up the top of trails with the sunny skies and bits of snow on the track. I could then see the next big climb, named "Stairway to Heaven"... and it did actually like pretty heavenly. I was running fast down the fireroad section and looking out for the turn up onto this climb. Again, no one to follow, so its a bit weird trying to find your direction. The course was very well marked it has to be said, and at the base of this climb, there even has a wooden sign marked "Stairway to Heaven"..... so up I went, a pretty steep stoney mucky track, and someone I think told me after it was 28% gradient. I manged to keep trotting and not have to march/hike. I took my first look behind me and noticed I had about a 20sec gap. Up top then we moved onto some grassy single track before taking a slightly waterlogged single track on the decent back down onto the trail . After Sli Muscrai, this felt easy in terms of the footing as I was able to keep my speed and not be knee depth in water.

Back onto the fireroad sections and I checked my watch to see we had about 4k to go. I took one more look behind and 2nd place Donal Coffey didn't seem to be making much ground on me. Still, I wasn't hanging around and was glad I had some speed endurance in the legs to keep the pace up. As we passed the last marshal junction, they told me it was about 2km and back on the same trail we came up. So I knew I just had to keep my speed up and it was all downhill to the finish.

Felt good still towards the end and didn't have to go into the red. A good day at the office.

A really nice route for a munster trail league race. For the time of the year and given its trail as opposed to fell or mountain type races, there is the right mix of single track, climbing and yes, fireroad. Lovely area too, this Bweeng, and a really good crew of folk called the Bweeng Trail Blazers that use the trails and helped organize the race.

Big spread after the race back in the Heritage centre with what seemed to be an endless supply of sambo's .

Well done Mariousz and crew.... I might not get to do another MTL but I'm happy to say that I think I got to do the best one of the lot ! Cheers