The first leg starts of with Chris on Leg 1 from Glendalough Hotel to Tonelagee Lake called Lough Ougler or “love heart lake” the rules in this race is to touch all lakes on the route, then head for the meeting point at Wicklow Gap to meet Stephen for his leg 2, off Stephen goes then as he starts disappearing into the mountains cloud !! so myself Chris and Paul took off in Stephens NICE jeep!!!
So we drove over to leg 3 where Paul was waiting to run off. we were all chatting away thinking what time Stephen would come in for and soon then he shocked us all by running down the fire rd. Paul was like “is that Stephen” WOW says all! his ran fast!.. and tags hands and off goes Paul… so then we drove over to my leg 4 which again we were like WOW there's Paul coming up the road..
So far everyone on our team ran hard and fast doing better times then we thought !!.. now at this point of the race I wasn’t feeling to good in the belly!.. I had eatting so much fruit while hanging about for my leg which was a lot of waiting around that morning, and not used to eating before running, with my training I never eat any food before runs.. NEVER!!! and this was my first time eating and so for this I got the Sh**s!! and soon my belly bloated up so bad that it looked like a had a baba coming out hahaha..
sorry for the team having to smell my juju FARTS!!!!
It was from all the Potassium Sorbate but the love for dry fruits which I love eating known that its little bad for my body but hey I do my best eating super foods everyday but there is always few things on the food list I shouldn't eat !!! "Such is Life", so wasn't feeling to good while running down at speed down from Lugduff Gap along the Wicklow Way now I done my very best and ran hard all the way but wasn’t feeling good at all… Next time I stick to my ways and no foods before racing, so took back a good time I was hoping for 60mins and took back 01:03:43 so not to bad but tough going with belly pains!! and soon as I got to the Green Road as for so many people taking over the trail found it little hard to run around them!!! but hey its Glendalough !! my route was well planned in my head and it went great on race day there was no other shortcuts to take for better times I knew them all and done so. next year have to run faster and eat less!! so next year am hoping for 50-55mins…
I was keeping my pace really good all the way from the start as it was a steep hill all the way up to the point at around 500m at Lugduff Gap then the real fun starts as its all down hill from there but thats also where the pains in my belly started!! so ran a fast as I could for our Team and didn't want to let the lads down or myself as its my come back race! and ran a bit faster near the end but as always I find it hard to runner faster on the flats after racing hard up and down hills but I think as it was a team race I didn’t want to let the team down and just pushed on to the end… thinking about that Cold Pint!! ha..
So after this race I was feeling great and 100% back running pain free and so happy feeling the good juju again for my running and so starts my group runs and wanted to take everyone on a great new loop for M.S.R so Starting on the Glendalough Green Road for nice flat warm about 2k up on the trails before meeting up with Trooperstown where the fun starts as we ascend to the Summit 432m with great views of Wicklow Mountains all round as you can see in my pics, from there back down and loop around to the other summit called "Boots" or "Round hill" at 398m then over to Paddock Hill at 17k where few of the group stop and ran back to their cars, the rest of us pushed on meeting up with the Wicklow Way with views of the lakes - Brockagh Forest - end back at the Glendalough Hotel with 20:21k happy times!..
and what a great day for it full of sun and warm too!
Peace