Report by Naoise Waldron
Photos from IMRA: https://www.facebook.com/groups/11388560359/
Last Saturday a small group from Sportsworld headed to Mount Leinster on the Carlow/Wexford border for a mountain race organised by IMRA.
The race also doubled up as the Leinster Championship. Being very new to mountain running, on Friday night I decided to do a final last minute search for info on the run, and stumbled across this report from 2009 which almost made me want to back out of the race http://www.
Race reporter Naoise on Saturday
Most of us met at Bushy at 9.30 and Paul and Eoin headed down in one car, while Sibéal drove myself and Patricia, with Liam meeting us down there. Luckily we had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the start because we ended up on the wrong side of the mountain. A panicked phonecall to Liam later, and we were on the right road to the start line.
Wrong side of Mount Leinster
We arrived with a few minutes to spare, collected out numbers and then we were off. The first few km were on forest leading to the mountain trail and then open mountain. It is a 13.8km route with a 635m climb and a difficulty level of 9.
This was my first mountain race so I decided that I would take it handy enough and make use of the experience of those in front of me. I was also thinking that I needed to conserve energy to get me through the bog that I had read about the night before.
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Thankfully when we got to the boggy section, it was fairly dry and made for a nice soft running surface. Approaching the top, I realised that I was 2nd female, however I was soon to fall back to 3rd when we turned around to start the descent.
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Anyone who knows me, will know that I have a tendency to fall when running on flat surfaces, so I was very conservative when I started the descent, unlike my competitors who tore down the mountain leaving me all on my lonesome.
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I was going so slowly initially that my watch auto paused thinking I had stopped! Once I got past what I thought was the most difficult part of the descent, I settled in to a nice rhythm and focussed on trying to hold on to my place.
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I was delighted to get to the finish line, having made up good ground in the last few km. The adrenaline rush I had from running the race was unbelievable. Totally different to road running where time is usually the main focus.
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This was all about completing it and enjoying the trail and the views. Winning the bronze medal in the Leinster Championship was an added bonus. Both the male and female course records were broken on the day too.
The atmosphere at the finish was great and we were treated to hot coffee and cake by Liam who came very prepared. Everyone seemed to enjoy the race, even though we had a few injured parties at the finish line with Sibéal having calf issues and Eoin a swollen ankle. It was well worth the trip down and I would highly recommend that people give trail running a go.
If anyone is interested in racing the shorter Wednesday night races just email info@sportsworldrunningclub.com and we can add you to the growing IMRA Whatsapp group for carpooling etc to races from Bushy Park. Wednesday race listings: https://www.imra.ie/leagues/view/id/283
Results
Winners:
1st Tom Upton 59:15
12th Becky Quinn 1:09:47
Sportsworld finishers:
18th Liam Lenehan 1:16:52 (2nd in age category)
21st Paul Mitchell 1:18:58 133%
23rd Naoise Waldron 1:20:50 136% (3rd overall)
30th Patricia Fitzmaurice 1:27:33
39th Sibeal Waldron 1:39:07
40th Eoin O’Brien 1:40:03
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