Saturday the 27th March saw 4 members from Sportsworld heading for the Wicklow way Trail and Ultra Races. The Ultra race started at Johnny Foxes and made its way to Ballinastoe Car park and back to Johnny Foxes, were the Trail race people were collected at Johnny Foxes and Dropped of at Ballinastoe Car park.
First up was Ed McEntee in the Ultra race. What lay ahead of Ed was 51kms of trails, fire roads, open mountains and part of the Wicklow way boardwalk with a total climb of 1950m’s. Ed adapted to this Ultra race excellently and completed the course in 4hours 33 minutes, and with it second place behind Eoin Keith. Congratulations to Ed.
Next up was the Trail race that got under way in Ballinastoe car park at 12 o Clock. On the starting line for Sportsworld were Paul O Connell, Jakub Splawski and Liam Mc fadden. The race got of to a steady start with everybody aware of the 25.5kms that lay ahead, we head up the fire trail from Ballinastoe car park for about 2km climbing all the way and then right on to Djouce Mountain and picked up the Wicklow way board walk trail. After ten minutes or so of climbing we got to probably the third most difficult part of the race trying to run on the boardwalk with a near gale force wind blowing side on to you. Once we managed to get through this it was nice to stretch the legs on the down hill section from Djouce. At this stage Paul O Connell was well clear of Jakub and myself, and was doing battle with the race leaders.
Jabuk and I worked excellently together through out the race. Jabuk pushing it out on the down hills and me doing my best to keep us going on the climbs.
After the fast down hill section off Djouce we came to our first major climb of the Day which reduced the field to doing all sorts of power walking movements to get up the steep climb before powerscourt waterfall. Not having time to admire the waterfall it was full steam ahead to the all to familiar Crones Wood Trail, Jabuk and I managed to over take 3 trail runners on this section of the course and when we arrived at Crones wood car park were glad of the water station there and with knowledge we had half the course complete and just under the hour mark, with no time to waste we kept going, after 2km of flat running we got to what looked like a small climb of about 75metres but once we got to the top of it, it was like we had climbed for hours and our legs were like jelly, At this stage we got a very luck break as we came to a road section just past Knockree hostel and we were looking at a runner in the distance and heading the same way when a Ultra runner started to shout at us that we were going the wrong way, we should have just crossed the road, but thank god for the Ultra runner as Jakub and I could still be running around Wicklow. After that we continued on towards Cutlerstown carpark and the last of the climbs which probably was only about a 1km Climb but seemed to last for ages but to our delight we managed to over take 2 trail runners and at the top of the hill had our next target insight. We took off like greyhounds after our hare on the fast down hill section away from Price Williams Seat and by the bottom of the hill we had him caught or thought we had him caught him, but he took off again on the final road section to Johnny Foxes and was the last we saw of him till we crossed the line. It was then down to the the last 1.5km and from somewhere I got a 30th wind and took off from Jakub and I managed to stay ahead till the end. Revenge for last year in Ballinastoe where Jakub beat me on the line.
Excellent days running and great overall result for Sportsworld taking the team victory.
Final Places
1st Diarmaid Collins 1h 56 min
4th Paul O Connell 2h 00 min
16th Liam Mc Fadden 2h 14 min
17th Jakub Splawski 2h 15 min
Report by Liam Mc Fadden
