Back Country

03 July, 2023 - Barry Murray

Its a long way to Tipperary, especially from West Kerry. I had never been to the Glen of Aherlow before and was keen to do a slightly less up/down trail race.

I travelled through lots of one horse towns but eventually arrived at Lisvernane. A small village nestled close to the Glen. After the big mountain Moylussa race, I was looking forward to a more runnable course. That's whats nice about the IMRA calender, there is plenty of contrast, and you can learn what you are good at/bad at. I sort of like a mix, not a huge fan of the steep technical descents... and I do like to be able to have a few km of steady running. This Lisvarnane race had a nice mix of everything, nothing too extreme, and plenty of good running sections.

Didn't recognize too many faces at the start line other than the usual Tom Blackburn and an old advisory James McIntyre.. Enda Cloake arrived last minute seeking his 3rd win of the week. RD Rob gave a nice simple briefing and we were off. No one sped off so it was a very relaxed start... actually nice to start a race that way !

There was 4-5 of us at the front, and it was only a few hundred metres before we turned off onto the single track through the forest. Enda slowly pulled away followed by Tom Lupton... then it was Tom, myself , James and one other lad behind. That's pretty much how it stayed for the rest of the race. The course is nicely broken up with single track forest sections, some short steep climbs, some runnable paths, and some nice fast sections down through the tree's. Its nice when a course has lots of various sections and turns as it passes the time more. It was also a very well marked course and needed to be so fair play to Rob and the course marshals. I wasn't feeling full of beans so Tom drifted ahead out of sight and I just had James Mcintyre to keep in view ahead of me. I didn't have much left in the tank in the last two runnable kilometers so couldn't catch anyone and had to settle for 6th.

Tea and sambo's back in the local community hall and the few people I chatted to also liked the mix of the trail, "a bit of everything" was the general comment. Very well organized again, a nice race to break up the big mountain ones, well done to the munster crew.