Battlefield Glendalough

Accelerating around a bend, I can feel the gap closing. A flash of a blue singlet in my right eye. My left foot doesn't make traction with the gravel track. I feel my foot give way. In a split second, I'm in a heap on the ground. I see the gap get bigger as I jump to my feet. Blood runs down my shin as I give chase.....

Up early. Stuffing porridge and coffee into me. I knew it was going to be a long painful day. Bailed into the car with Paul and Eoin and Team DIT were off to Glendo for the Intercolleges Mountain Running Championships!

Pulling into Glendo I looked around to see who was about, Gerard Butler (extremely fast orienteer), Diarmaid Collins (its tit for tat on every race between us), Eoin Pearse (ex World Trophy Team), Stephan Cleary (defending champ), a selection of military.... I knew it would be one hell of a battle. I knew that Gerard is an amazing descender is well so I'd have to watch him closely. Eoin Brady of UCD was floating around as well.... This was a top class field of college runners. The most notable runners missing were the boys from Queens Uni Belfast. They were they guys who wanted a proper course, yet never showed up!

Warming up I visualised the course. I felt that sicking feeling in my stomach as I strided out, getting the legs ready for the abuse that I was about to inflict on them. My race tactic was simply, stay in touch on the way up and apply the No Fear method of descending - fast leg turn over, accelerate with every stride. Never give an inch.

On the start line, Gerry explains the best method to survive the course... It went over my head. I was focused on what I had to do.

Bang - game on!

Eoin P goes off hard. Sprinting up the first climb. Ger, Diarmuid, Eoin Brady and myself go with him. We cut the gap and hang on. By the mini descent we've dropped Eoin Brady. Eoin P still leads the charge. We appear to be clear and it's only 600m in.

As we hit the main climb, I see Eoin drop the pace a fraction. He still holds a 10m lead. Ger, Diarmuid and myself bunch up and begin to climb hard. The pace is still fairly rapid as we climb up through the S bends. Going up the last I get spat out the back as Ger makes a break to catch Eoin and Diarmuid goes with him. I officially got dropped. Wasn't too worried. As long as I could keep the gap small I'd take em on the descent. We snaked up the grassy climb.

The boys showed no sign of letting up. I'm digging into my reserves. Doubt starts to creep into the back of my mind. I get a flash back to a training run in early September on 3rock where Ger smokes the climb up Tibraden. I blot the taught from my mind and think about the XC last weekend. Ger went out to hard and I pulled him in. With this boost of confidence I stuck to the task in hand, keeping the legs turning over. One foot in front of the other. I pass Gerry Brady and he says relax, they'll come back to you.

I suppress the taught of making life easier for myself, the urge to walk is growing. Looking ahead I lie to my legs and say once we reach the flat we can walk. On hitting the flat section I look up, Ger has taken the lead. Eoin is hanging on and Diarmuid is still running strong. Flat section over and we enter the rough stuff. I know Eoin is struggling in his poor choice of footwear. Head down, just trying to put one foot in front of the other. Telling my body to just keep moving.

The walk up this last section seemed so much easier the previous Wednesday. Now it seemed twice as steep. Up the bare rock. I could smell the summit. My legs were pumping acid. Every fiber of my body was disagreeing with this madness I was under taking. As I reached the final push, Ger jumps down. He's running scared. We scream abuse/encouragement at each other. I now know I'm there. I get to the top and Diarmuid runs gingerly down the slope. He's mine I think as I get sight of the cairn. Eoin goes by me as I put the head down and skip across the bog and rocks to touch the cairn. (29:04 to cover the 4.4km with 535m of vertical hell) As I turn I see Eoin dis appear off the small summit. As I give chase Kyle (summit marshal) screams at me to take him.

The start of the descent is a matter of pushing it as much as possible. It doesn't matter what your legs are saying, just focus on where you'll put your feet in 4 steps time. When your descending on the limit there's no space in your brain for the "what if" taught or fear of any description. It requires 100% focus.

Due to focusing on the descent so much, what happened at the top is hazy. I remember taking large strides off the summit and a large distance of height drop before I meet a climbing runner. I remember Niamh screaming at me to get the finger out, and I'm pretty sure I yelled encouragement to her and something along the lines of her running one hell of a race.

Coming towards the rock face, I decided that I'd go down the grassy bank to the right. I believe this was my one mistake on the descent. I couldn't see what I was running to and I hesitated for a micro second to check the ground below me. According to Conway after the race, he saw me appear and leap for a piece of boggy ground. The mud exploded everywhere and I screamed encouragement at him before accelerating again. At this point I remember Ruairi battling it out with Paul Heavy, in his first ever mountain race. He was having a blinder!

After this section I was on Eoin's shoulder. I was just turning the legs over as fast as they would go. Eoin wasn't going as fast as I was so he got dropped after a small distance.

I hit the flat section and I had a target on Diarmuid. He was mine. He beat me in the XC the previous week so there was no way he was getting down to the base first. He passed Gerry, I passed a few seconds after. The track flicked left.... Diarmuid went straight. I wanted to beat him to the line, I wasn't going to let him get lost. I screamed at him to get back on trail. He commented afterwards that he knew something was wrong when he ended up in the middle of gorse. I accelerate and by the time he veers back onto the trail we're running neck and neck. We are flying down the mountain. I can see Ger further down the slope. I fully believe I can catch him. In my mind he's dead on his feet. He's merely surviving.

Diarmuid and I hit the trail. In the Mudclaws I have extreme confidence going into the bends. As Diarmuid slows down to corner I accelerate in and out. I'm playing with death as I hit the corners one after another. On one I hit it too hard and go wide. He makes a move on the inside but I shut the gap and regain control of the pace. On the next corner I hit it faster, taking a tight inside line. Diarmuid takes a wide angle and trys to get past me. I see a glimpse of a blue singlet as he guns the pace. I panic and upped my speed as quick as I could. My left foot doesn't make traction with the gravel track. I feel my foot give way. In a split second, I'm in a heap on the ground. I see the gap get bigger. I bounce to my feet. I can feel the sweat mix with my cut knee. Blood runs down my shin as I give chase. It doesn't matter. The gap has grown. I curse myself for calling him back on track. I should have buried him there and then. I try to catch him.

The final small rise is where I have to make my move. We both hit it and my body is in agony. The lactic flushes through my legs. I feel as if a bear has jumped on my back. I chase and chase and chase. I can see Ger finish just ahead through the trees. I can feel the gap getting smaller between Diarmiud and myself. My legs refuse to move faster. Diarmuid crosses the line at which point my legs say fuck this and give up - I coast across the line, finishing third for the second year running.

As the seconds tick away, Eoin crosses the line. He curses me and hill running saying never again (he'll be back next year). The runners trickle in. 8th man home, Mark Conway - DIT take the team prize. Less than two mins later, Paul Heavy finished - he had taken Roar on the descent!! Apparently Paul taught that the finish was just after the final climb. He went from about a kilometre out!

Hats off to Gerard Butler. He ran an amazing race. He climbed like a monster and did enough on the descent to win it. Womens winner was Naimh O'Boyle. She climbed flat out so she wouldn't have to descend hard. Both worthy champions. Interesting that the 6 medal winners were all orienteers.

End Note:

The ascent times ended up on the website:

Gerard was the fastest up in climb in 27:28, Collins 28:12, Eoin 28:29 and I got up in 29:04.

On the descent however I was fastest down the mountain in 14:26, Collins was 15:11 (I reckon his time was increased by racing me) with Gerard and Eoin both coming down in 15:21. Only 10 people went sub 18mins for the descent.