we started at the Brockagh School car park and headed off into the woods with a good pace holding it up Paddock Hill to the summit of Scarr at 644m and as we were meeting the summit few lads were bit behind as myself and Barry were up ahead and Dave behind me, as we came to the summit the fog was so dense it made it hard to really see anyone and the wind picked up a lot so there wasn’t anyone hanging about waiting for pics etc , this run / race was set up for fast pacers meaning race pace and not waiting around for people and lets have a little fun race at the sometime!!! its not to offen we have race runs! its a 21k route and WOW it was fun today!!! so after living the Sacrr Summit we headed on down passing Carrigeenshinnagh to Lough Dan, we all got up with each other at some point and ran the rest of the way for while chatting about god knows what! well Dave had some mad shit to tell us but I won’t go into that one!!!!!!!! so moving on up to Brown Mountain 409m and ran strong all the way up to Kanturch 532m Barry just a head of me and not sure where the lads were but I was running fast and didn’t want to be last today!!!! last man or girl home buys the beers or tea!!! so the race was really on at this point as there isn’t much ahead apart from meeting lots of knee deep muddy pools which most of us dropped into!!! almost living our shoes in them!!! with the fog and wind at most parts of the day adding to the fun of open mountains running!, so myself Barry and Dave pushed on meeting Scarr Summit once again for the loop to be done and raced on to the end / start, I LOVE THIS PART not cause its down hill more cause its my best route ever on the wicklow mountains up and down but more down its just a long great trail lots of everything in there for you to just have a great run. many jumps which I love doing and you just have to go up and see for your selfs… so the race was on. not that Id ever pass Barry out his an Elite Ultra runner but still I like to "think" he was waiting for me now & then hehehe thanks barry for the good push today I feel I need it haha..
At one point that lad just opened up and he was gone!!! I could see barry running ahead of me but no way I was letting myself go at that speed! still have more training tomorrow… so off he went at this point I stopped looked back but no one for miles so I just ran on to try meet barry and ran down as fast as I do and met up with barry waiting for me at the gate and we ran to the cars together now that was good fun too and soon came to the end where we had dip into the nice COLD river as you can see in the pics…
So well done to you all for coming out on what looked to be an ace day in the sun but turned someway BAD but really turned into a much better day for my kind of running as I love running in mad rain. wind, snow & fog, having that feeling of been lost but not!!!!!!! it was 21:47km time of :02:33:22 with many tough climbs and best not to forget meeting my good pal Troywas great to meet ya dude and miss ya out running with us, also word out to Wayne again we need to stop meeting up so much!!! I did see ya!!!!!!
also BIG thanks for the beers tea and food ????????? won’t say who came in last but you know!!!
Paddy last buys the beers!!
So see you all tomorrow for some JuJu Train Running Boot Camp...
peace