Fast and furious

22 February, 2022 - Barry Murray

My first league race in a while and it was nice to see smiling faces at the start . A wet and windy day meant there wasn’t much hanging around at the start which was a pity as there was a nice coffee stall set up. Things like this are a nice touch for the social element and on a fine day would work a treat .

Rahan woods wasn’t too easy to find and I joked at the start that hopefully it meant some of the fast lads would get lost . Not quite so , with John Kinsella and a few other sprite legs lining up at the start line . Off we went and I wasn’t expecting to go off at a supersonic speed but we such a downhill fire road , we did . It turned out to be a course were you were either bombing down a fire road or shuffling up a drag , with a few bits of muddy single track thrown in . Definitely one for the fast road runners and not one for the mountain goats , which I am neither , so I guess it sort of suited me ! However , with no races in the legs and just not ready for all the change of pace, I was just a bit neither here nor there . I traded places with Tom Blackburn for the first few km, then he pulled away . I then gained and lost a couple of places over the second half of the race . Tried to finish strong on the uphill and managed to stay in the top 10.

Great to be racing again and as usual a great crew of MMRA folk that marshalled through the storm .