Brian O Murchu

15 February, 2012

This is my experience of the Ticknock 10k, which commenced not on the race start line but by organising a carpool seat via the IMRA website.

Sean De Claine and Patrick Kenny kindly offered to give myself a lift to registration at Taylors Three Rock Pub. On the way I quickly found out what Sean meant when he said he drives with a ‘mouth like a sewer’. Once we all had arrived, registered and were back in the car at Taylors with our race numbers, we put on some motivational music which we think may have attracted Josephine and Dara to carpool with us to the race start.
After discussing if Sean would be willing to give anyone a lift back if they finished ahead of him in the race, we arrived at Ticknock Woods carpark. We had time to discuss running gear and choice of footwear before a warm-up and then on to the start line along with 220 other entrants.

The ground was nice and firm early on in the race, but as soon as we got to the muddy parts I, wearing road racing flats, quickly became very envious of Sean and Paddys Inov-8s, as well as Josephine and Daras choice of more appropriate footwear. Early on I was trying to avoid the puddles, but after realising that it was taking extra effort I changed tact and started sloshing through them. At one point I put my foot in an extra muddy patch, and it seemed like my foot would come out without my shoe. In that split second, I wondered about making the choice to run on without the shoe, or to go back for it. Luckily my shoe stayed on and I didn’t have to make that decision. Although further up the course I did see a two euro coin on the trail and chose not to stop to collect it. Even though I was well outside the top 10, perhaps my race position was worth more than two euros…

I was finding the descent quite challenging and tricky, and I was behind the ladies race winner Helen White when she turned her ankle. It went to the top of my to-do list to check in with her after the finish. She assured me she was ok, and hopefully not too much damage was done and we’ll see her at Annagh Hill in two weeks time (along with another 200+ entrants)!

On the drive back after the race, when we were passing a couple of people out running, we noted that they don’t know what real running is about as they had it easy running on the pavement as opposed to the trails through the mountains.