Scottish Lessons

You can train away all winter, knock out a few XC's, maybe go crazy and run a few hill races but at the end of the day - your on an island. We have some amazing terrain to train on but how often do we use it? We don't have an amazing depth of athletics that will push you to your limits through out the winter. You can fall back into a safe scene of security that you can take on the world, just because you win a couple of Leinster leagues by 5mins with loads of mistakes....

That's where Scotland comes in. Every year, during Spring, there is the first international of the year. The Irish team headed to Portugal in February while I sat at a desk knocking out project results and CAD drawings.

I needed a race before the JK to test myself. This obviously came down to a choice of two races, the Spring Cup in Denmark or the FVO Spring Weekend in Scotland. After weighting up the options Scotland came up on top, mainly because it was closer and cheaper. Less hassle.

Team CNOC consisted of Niamh O'Boyle, Hugh Cashel and myself. We also picked up an LVO'er on route in exchange for a sweet dinner and a bed.

Dragging myself out of bed at 0530, i knew it had to be worth it. Anytime your up before 6am, its going to be an epic day! Headed off to Larne and the count down began to the Middle race.

I went out at a pace I felt comfortable at and kept it handy. Making sure of the nav. Control after control. I was caught by Coombs and ran with him for a few controls before he injected some pace and left me. Really happy, technically with my race. One down.

Day two saw the clocks go back, and I lost an hours sleep. Never fun!

On arriving in the Trossachs it looked tough - steep with plenty of undergrowth.

Out of the traps and just wanted to focus on keeping it clean. I caught Kyle after a while and was running with him for a bit. I took a bad route choice going to 16 where I dropped a couple of contours and then climbed them again and accidently dropped Kyle who had followed me down the hill. Keeping it clean until control 19 where I had a 4min woopsy by not having an attackpoint. Suffered around the rest of the course to finish in 31st.

Returned home with a few lessons learned and a good WRE under my belt. Confidence is high for next weekend!!