Team RAD - Leg 1&2

21 April, 2024 - David Masterson

Signed up to run this last week, when Stuart Scott lit the beacons and called for aid. He ended up wrangling three teams together, in one of which my wife (Anne-Marie) would run leg 1, I'd do leg 2 and Richard Leahy would run legs 3 & 4. Stuart was in one of the teams himself but illness on the day meant that he couldn't actually run his leg - thankfully Niall on his team was up for running two legs.

AM set off at 9:20, and hung in as best she could with a bunch of fast runners up the track into Glendasan. She stayed on the left side of the road until the very last spoil heaps (since the running is very good), crossing quite high compared to most of her field. She made a beeline for the highest point on the shoulder of Tonlagee, and then skirted slightly left around the top of the valley on the far side to reach the saddle above Lough Ouler. She noted several people dropping directly down the rocky bits here, but she ran just a wee bit to the right (like 30 seconds) and slid down a rock-free heathery slope instead. Lake touched, and headed directly back up to the low point again.

She had gained some time on other teams at this point, so stuck to her plan and headed off around Tonlagee. She planned to keep quite low as a reccie the week before had shown the heather seemed generally worse the higher you were, but there was a band of decently low grasses lower down. She was happy with this afterwards, noting it was much easier ground than trying to stay higher the week before. Arrived at the Gap, and handed over to me...

AMs Route: https://strava.app.link/H9DMYficYIb

Of our three Stuart Scott Memorial teams, we were second at the min, as Niall had run a very good first leg and given Connie an almost 30 min head start on me - so I was confident I wouldn't see her. Alice was the other leg two runner, and she would be right behind me as Arthur was coming down of Tonlagee maybe 5 mins behind AM. I set off up the road, and took every short cut I could, heading straight for the top of the quarry to try and pickup the path to Firrib. I could see that Alice was not far behind me at this stage.

The path started ok, and stuck to it alright, but I wasn't familiar with this area so lost it when it turned slightly to the right. Thankfully, my nav was still engaged, so I quickly realised I was drifting left towards the large reentrant, and course corrected to get back on my bearings. Hit the lake, set new bearing, and headed off to the Three Lakes. This leg was pretty uneventful - the great weather made nav trivial, as you could see for miles. Around half way along, we caught our first glimpse of the lakes, so just headed straight for them. Touched lake, time to head for Glenmalure.

Alice had caught up to me at this stage and we had a solo runner called Derek that I had seen around the start of the leg on the ascent of the service road. Alice opted to head down towards the valley quite quickly while I tried to stay high on the left of the valley. My route seemed good, lots of long stretches of short grass, which gradually led me down to the river - a fitter runner than me would make good time along it. Reached the river, crossed over and stayed a little high running along just above the river.

Reached the road, and headed off down it. Again, having not run this area before, I hadn't realised how rocky the path was, so my hamstrings and feet took a battering coming down it, my cheap trail shoes not being known for their cushioning. But before long, a parked car appeared, and AM cheered me on around the corner to hand over to Richard.

My Route: https://strava.app.link/3LhLI1ncYIb

After some food/water/chats, we drove off down to CP3 to cheer on the teams and make sure Richard was going ok. He passed in flying from, just took the bottle of water and a quick breather before heading off again. We couldn't hang around for the finish, but he seemed to run a good leg 4, making us second of the Stuart Scott Memorial teams and I think sixth relay team out of ten.

All in all, a great day in the hills. Really enjoyed it, and looking forward to next year! Thanks to the organisers, volunteers and other competitors!

Peter O'Farrell

21 April, 2024

Another brilliant day on the hills, and another long one for the volunteers and organisers and much and many thanks to those who didn't run so we could.
The we in question was Orla and myself and after the same day went swimmingly last year we came back this April for more of the same and with the same plan. Orla gets a lift to the start, I sit at home drinking coffee :) Some leisurely dot watching and then headed south to the Glenmalure hostel straight from the GAAaaaa - U8 this week, arriving in plenty of time and in fantastic weather. There was a great atmosphere at the leg 2/3 handover with soloists displaying varying attitudes to transition and excited relayers finding it difficult to stand still awaiting their runners. With 10 teams of relayers this year there was plenty of competition but I'd like to think I hopped about excitedly with the best of them. I ticked off the soloists and relayers as they passed through, hardy one and all and then Orla arrived in after her 2 legs good. I had enquired about the level of the level C required but sure we were bringing it all. C'est le vie. My bum bag was stuffed to capacity but at least I only had to carry half the water.
The steep climb up the lake was very enjoyable as I happily passed a few soloists as they continued into the 4th hour of their race, whilst I was in or around the 14th minute of mine. I am shallow enough to take great pleasure in passing any runner in a race and happily discounted their accumulated tiredness. Lake dipped into and on up onto and across the ridge on a curving line around to the second lake aiming for the best of the bad ground with minimum climbing. That all went well mainly thanks to the clear visibility, in the mist I might have come across too low and had a big climb up to the lake. But in the good weather even I couldn't get this one wrong. I dropped into the fireroad and ran around the long lazy corner with an extremely clear picture of what was going to happen next. Thanks to a recce. The new leg 3/4 handover was a brilliant idea and added greatly to the intrigue of the day. I haven't seen the Strava Flybys yet but lads were taking all sorts of lines up out to the Lodge.
In the good old days I never bothered with recces but those daze are gone and I was very thankful of my recce last Tuesday as I was watching carefully for the wee climb to level out, a white forestry sign on the right to swim into view and a small rock pile on the left marking the drop into the forest to drop down to the middle fireroad track. Niall appeared up the road but before I got to him I came to my second shortcut of the day, the drop though the very very steep virgin forest of rotten trees to the lower again fireroad and popping out just before the zag, or is it zig. That went really well. Into transition of leg 3/4, got a new bottle from Orla and off onto leg 4. With my aforementioned fresh leggies I caught John and saw Andy heading onto the Wicklow Way on the straight up line. I had recced the slightly longer line up on the other side of the river and over the mountain and followed the plan. A stiff climb and small descent brought me up to the start of the Derrybawn ridge and the scene of the less successful part of Tuesday's recce. I had tried a couple of options and still carried the wounds on my shins and so had decided, after a whatsapp chat with Liam Vines, to go with shortcut number 3, the due Northish heathery drop off the first low point saddle of the Derrybawn ridge to the WW corner. That worked albeit with some fresh wounds to the shins and then it was familar fireroads to the finish via 2 more lakes and a plethora of tourists. Sadly Peak Fitness had got there 20 minutes earlier. Thankfully Peak Fitness had got there 20 minutes earlier. 20 minutes is a long time and so I didn't have any of the coulda shoulda wouldas of torturing yourself wondering where you could make some time. We ran pretty well and were hammered, that's racing. In very short order Andy, John and the others arrived in, all with smiles and some with weariness to leaven the smile. A brilliant day continued with someone else cooking the dinner and doing the dishes in The Wicklow Heather and a night away in the Glenmalure Valley. Heaven really. Thanks again to Peter and all the helpers.