Annacurra 2010: Colm, Paul, Jakub,Liam, Con & Brid
On Saturday last (Feb 6th), a good group of Sportsworld members made the trip down to the village of Annacurra near Aughrim, Co.Wicklow for the 2nd instalment of the IMRA Winter League. Although it was fairly miserable leaving Dublin, conditions on arrival in Annacurra were perfect – sunny but not too warm and much more importantly – no wind! The village itself was also perfectly set up for the race with the registration, the start and the pub for prize giving all within a few metres of each other. This led to everybody hanging around the one area which gave us a chance to check out the competition – unfortunately there was a lot of it.
At 11am, the race began. 172 competitors in total. The course itself was 10.5km with a 420m climb thrown in for good measure. The first 3.5km were straight up to the summit on nice wide fire roads which gave plenty of opportunities for overtaking, or being passed, if like some of us you ran off like a hero at the start – only for your calves to give in after about 2km! First Sportsworld member to the top was Paul, followed by Jakub, Liam and myself who were running as a group cross country style at this point. From here, there was a 2km fast descent followed by another steep climb back up to the summit again. Paul was only visible at the summit as we reached the peak for the second time. Again, Liam and Jakub were way too close for comfort as I reached the top. A very fast descent of the original climb ensued back to the village and to the finish – main objective here – stay ahead of the 2 lads. Thankfully I managed this and together we all passed a good number of people on the way down.
Sportsworld finishers as follows;
Paul Mitchell 12th
Colm Kennedy 18th
Jakub Splawski 20th
Liam McFadden 29th
Helen Dixon 95th
John Fitzgerald 121st
Brid Higgins 155th
Charlie O’Connell 169th
Check out http://www.imra.ie/ for details. Yet again, our ladies would have claimed a team prize if they had just one more team member so with the meet and train over for a while maybe this is a perfect time for a few more of our female members to discover the joys of hill running. The next race is Saturday week in Tibradden (just south of our Ballyboden lap).
Report By: Colm Kennedy
