Mick Hanney

24 August, 2009

According to the events tab Fraughen Rock Glen is rated as a 9 on the (terrain/ascent/distance) difficulty rating and thats before yesterday's wild weather put another dimension to things. A hardy 19 runners lined up to start from across the fast flowing river at Baravore. Bernard Fortune, despite running a race the previous day, powered through in his own trademark way to victory, leaving him only 1 point behind Peter O'Farrell in the overall Leinster Championship standings. Niamh O'Ceallaigh was first lady home.

Only a fraction of the field made their way to the top at Lug, the rest having been turned back earlier on the ridge by our race director Paul Nolan. This led to some interesting results overall but such is life. The weather had turned dismal the nearer we got to the top with low cloud and strong wind. I, never saw Paul - I wish I did as, in coming off Lug, running parallel with Zoran Skrba, we went off on much too left a line and pretty much ended in the wrong Glen. Our race was effectively over and it took a fair bit of traipsing over boggy hill to get back to Fraughen Rock Glen to get back on the original course. Lessons in navigation to be taken on board by yours truly thats for sure.

A good spread was laid on at Glenmalure lodge for the runners and good banter (mainly aimed at me and Zoran) was the order of the day :-) Congrats to other winners in the Leinster Championships, notably Diarmuid O'Colmain. Congrats too to Cormac running his 200th imra race yesterday. He'll have to wait for the special t-shirt for that milestone. Thanks to Isabelle, Paul, Vivian, Sinead, Paul Shields & co for helping organise the event.

With the weather gods on our side hopefully Fraughen Rock Glen can return to the calendar in the not too distant future.