Peter O'Farrell

17 March, 2025

This is a great race, helped by the novelty of a full moon in a clear sky and the nearly bigger novelty of a Crone wood carpark not jammed full of cars.

We'd managed to turn off most of the torches on the way up once we emerged from the singletrack onto fireroad and it was indeed magical. Climbing up to Maulin in the dark just seems easier than in the daytime. Maybe it's that you can't see the pain ahead. The descent off Maulin with the full moon shining over the sea in front of you was simply amazing, and drier than last year for that added brucie bonus. Normally 2km of fireroad to finish would not be that interesting but when the night sky is bright enough to enable running without the headtorch even fireroad becomes fun.

Once again huge thanks to all the volunteers who don't race so that we can and Alastair for promoting the whole notion of night racing in Leinster last night AND stepping forward forward again this year to make it happen. The course, the marking, the hot drinks, the buzz and good humoured excitement of night racing - it's class.

We had 3 in our carpooling car and the good chats out and back were only supplemented by all of us having fun and good runs. If that fireroad was about 120m longer I might have felt the tiniest piece less happy as a headtorch was coming for me like that Indiana Jones boulder :)