Report and photos by Sandra Gowran
Full Sportsworld results below.
Earlier this week a small number of Sportsworld Athletes swapped the usual Tuesday evening training session in Bushy Park for a BHAA 5km trail run in the Phoenix Park sponsored by Runlogic.
Race reporter and Sportsword Chair Sandra on the home straight!
For yours truly it was the final chance to get an official race completed in June to keep my ‘at least a race a month’ commitment to myself this year (thanks Jose for the gentle reminder that I was cutting it fine to get a race in for June!). My motivation has really been tested over the past month and so as I cycled over to race HQ I thought to myself that Nike’s Just Do It slogan was particularly apt for where I was at – I just needed to do it and not think about it too much.
On arrival I met Emma Barry and Peter Knaggs who were also there to race, along with Stephen Willoughby, Madeline Byrne, Kathleen Horgan, Audrai O’Driscoll and former Sporstworld member Joe Haugh who were all there to steward. At the end of the race I met Crona Brady who ran with her ‘new to running’ housemate.
As I stood in the short queue to collect my number I spotted a glorious rainbow in the sky, the sun was shining and everyone was in good summer spirits. After a decent warm-up we gathered at the start of the 2 lap course, with minutes to go the sky darkened and it became obvious that there was going to be a bit of rain.
Olympian and Raheny athlete Mick Clohisey was there to officially start the race and just as he sounded the siren the skies opened and monsoon like rain and hailstones showered us for the first 1-2km. The ground that had been lovely and firm and befitting of the title ‘trail’ quickly became waterlogged and within a matter of minutes we were racing our first XC race of the season mid-summer!
Rio Olympain Mick Clohisey being shown the ropes by our own Stephen Willoughby (holding the rope tightly)
The first lap was tough as a result, the rain was cold, the ground unsure, there were lots of squeals and utterances of disbelief from the runners around me, I just put my head down and welcomed the distraction. I felt my legs were still a bit tired from the track championships on Saturday but still it felt good to be racing on a Tuesday evening in one of the best parks in the world.
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The course was as flat as a pancake and despite the wet underfoot conditions there was only one corner that was particularly treacherous. As I neared the end of the first lap I noted that Mick Clohisey was also ringing the bell to herald the final lap – pretty cool to have an Olympian supporting an average Tuesday evening race.
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I had a good final lap, I decided that seeing as I was there I might as well push myself as hard as I could and so I pushed hard for the rest of the race managing to pick a number of runners off ahead of me. I had a great sprint finish with another runner who out sprinted me in the end.
The sun was back out, June race challenge was complete and all that remained was the tea and ‘man sandwiches’ over the race post-mortem in HQ.
Sportsworld Results:
12 Paul O’connell 00:19:05
41 Peter Knaggs 00:21:18
57 Kathleen Horgan 00:22:04
85 Sandra Gowran 00:23:53
100 Emma Barry 00:24:37
112 Ashley Pearson 00:26:03 (Cronas new to running housemate)
113 Crona Brady 00:26:03
127 Audrai O’Driscoll 00:27:30
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