Double Weekender

For the second weekend in a row I was double racing.

Beginning to become a bad habbit.

The first race was down in Cork IT. The All Ireland Intervarsity Cross Country. When I hear someone say XC the first taught is muck, closely followed by wind, rain, cold and other forms of hardship. On arrival in Cork IT, I was greeted with the flattest, driest piece of crap I have ever seen. The course was flatter and more compact that the Newbridge AC track.

I got chatting to Downsy and he said to go out easy then start to hunt. So thats what I did. When the race took off the lads were flying! For the first two laps I had my elbows flying everywhere! I was running very aggressively. I settled into a good pace and began to knock out the laps, passing a few runners here and there. On the side line I had Niamh, Roz and John shouting abuse - Niamh, been the smallest was by far the loudest. If I was to quote her I'd have to make this blog as mature content.

I battled hard and gave chase to fellow orienteer Gerard Butler. The long haired Tallagh IT student was flying. But I had him in my sights and slowly began to pull him in.

When I passed him he hung on to me but he had gone off too hard. I began to up the pace as the laps got counted down. One lap to go and Niamh is screaming dog abuse at me. I was pretty flat out over the last km (becoming a common occurrence) and crossed the line in 44th out of 126 finishers.

Team DIT finished 4th, behind DCU, UU and Waterford IT - all of which have elite athletics scholarship programmes. A solid result with smiles all round!

Saturday night we flew home along the M7, I got dumped off in "da bridge" and got a nights kip. Up at 7 feeling a bit groggy I downed coffee and porridge and waited for the call that would signal the lift leaving for the Northern Counties. Off to Caranawaddy for round 2 of the Leinster Spring Cup.

On arriving at the base of the mountain I realised that my only kit with me was the kit i used at the IV the previous day. A slightly dam, fresh smelling singlet and a pair of shorts, by no means perfect orienteering attire but it would have to do. The mountain was kind. It was relatively dry with short heather or grass allowing fast running and fast navgation. The first control was a steep one. Straight up - needless to say I walked it, unlike Ger who monstered it up the 175m of climb in 9:42. (and this is after the XC the previous morning, he was still the first starter!)

I upped the anti after I got up the mountain and was running strongly but making mistakes because I was enjoying the running so much. I dropped 2mins on 4, 5, 9 and 16 because it was just so much fun. I was definately worth the travel.

In the end I lost to Dav H by 50sec. He monstered it with an avg HR of 180! I avg'd 180 in the hill race so fair duce to him for keeping it up!

A fun weekend... can't wait for another double again. Camaderry (hill race) and Trooperstown O'ing)!