Glenageenty

17 December, 2024 - Barry Murray

Always nice to see Glenageenty on the calendar when you live so far away from most other races. While its not a mountain, its a nice hilly wooded area with plenty of ups and downs. It tests the running skills in a different sort of way, its hard running, but what makes it so hard is that you have to constantly change the gears, and the ability to change them fast is a skill in itself.

I had my father and eldest son with me this time and arriving at the venue, it was nice to be greeted by the man himself John Lenihan. There was a good buzz around the registration area with the usual Munster IMRA van and canopy set up and they even had a fire going. I knew the course well having done it last year so I made my way to the start at the top of the hill and tried to get a quick warm up in. RD Conor started us off and I didn't see too many familiar faces. I led off and had one guy with springy legs on my shoulder so I knew he was going to be handy. I knew that I had to change gear as quickly as possibly after all the drags/climbs and open up the legs so that was more or less the focus for most of the race. Conditions were perfect and the trails get constant manicuring so its all very runnable. The springy leg guys went off into the distance and I then had one other guy who I didn't know just ahead of me. I was doing occasional time checks but I couldn't narrow the gap he had over me of 15secs or so. I didn't see as many of the 1/2 marathon runners as I thought even though there was very big entries this year, and I only bumped into a couple of the 5k runners, so for most of the race I was just enjoying the trail and trying to claw back second place.

The last section is all downhill so it was nice to open up and get some speed in. I had to settle for 3rd but at my vintage I've got to be content with still staying on the podium. Went back to the Half-Way pub with my father and son and enjoyed plenty of sambo's, soup and xmas pudding.

A great event and well managed given the big numbers and the 3 x races. Well done RD Conor, IMRA crew and the Glenageenty Loopers .