It was a glorious morning and approximately 60 real man (and ladies) were ready for the off on the full "Run the Line". Another 60 odd lightweights were getting ready to board a bus to be ferried to the half way point for the start of the 14 km race. A bit of banter as my identical twin brother is a regular at IMRA events so I had a number of complete strangers come chatting to as if I was a close friend - weird.
The Wicked Witch of the East and her ugly sister
Just before the race I realised that the I had left my water bottle in the car, well too late to worry about it now just have to rely on the water station, risky as it was a warm morning and it will only get hotter. Eventually called to order given some safety instructions as the early stage of the race is on public roads. then we were off.
And we are "off" to Run the Line
The first few Km were pretty flat initially along public then private roads to get to the reservoir at Bohernabreena. As so often happens I went off pretty fast with Runkeeper on my phone informing me how fast I was going. After 3 km I decided I was going too fast and slowed up quite a bit. This allowed another runner to slowly catch up with me and as he came along side we started chatting and ended up staying together for the next few Km. The run along Bohernabreena reservoir was amazing with the autumn trees in the morning sunshine.
Bohernabreena Reservoir
At 6 Km got to the end of the first reservoir cross the dam then the first climb of the day up to the second reservoir. RunKeeper was now telling me I was going even faster but I felt OK so, "why not" - lets see what I am capable of? 
The Upper Reservoir, Bohernabreena waterworks
We pulled in and passed quite a few runners until the climbing started to get more serious. My companion was training for the Dublin Marathon later in October so while a decent runner on the flat he did not have it for the long climbs on the road. I could see quite a few runners scattered along the hill in front of me and feeling like a bit of a "Show Off" Fell Runner I put the pressure on to drop my companion and overtake quite a few runners on that long climb. Eventually arrive at the water station, at 14 Km, to down a few cups of water and grabbed a couple of handfuls of Jelly Babies. Then off down the Forest trails.A lot of work has been done in the Dublin mountains to build very good quality walking routes for people who would not be confident in true mountain terrain. For the most part from this point on the race followed forestry roads and these good quality foot paths. Caught up with another runner who was not enjoying the descending, I passed on a hint to try to stop his stride getting too long on the decents to protect his knees. Dropped him on the next climb, not expecting to see him again. By this stage I was running on my own as the 60 odd runners were pretty well scattered along the course and I had yet to begin to catch up the the back-markers in the "1/2" "Run the Line" race. A long decent down the forest trail to Killakee car park and the bloke from earlier comes bombing past me. He shouts out his thanks for passing on the down hill running advice. Last time I pass on useful info during a race. I was now starting to catch the 14 Km back-markers, which helped massively in setting a target to reel them in. As the race progressed the frequency of catching them increased considerably. One of the nicest parts of the race was now coming up as we left the road after 16 Km to enter Cruagh Wood. A nice foot path and climb to cross a style then a long section with a narrow path through dense woodland and a forest road to Tibradden car-park at 20 Km.
Cruagh Wood
Into the car park and an unexpected surprise a water station that had bottles he could give out. "I will have one of those, thanks" and then probably the longest climb of the day including the dreaded "boneshaker" to the summit of Two Rock Mountain, more commonly known as “Fairy Castle”, at 22 Km. This is the highest
point of the Dublin Mountains at 536 m/1,759 ft. Just 6 Km to go now and in theory it is all down hill :)
The "boneshaker" is a popular mountain bike challenge
Approaching "Fairy Castle" - the summit of Tibradden Mountain
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| The remains of the chambered cairn at the summit of Tibradden Mountain |
We were unlucky and did not see anything but on some days, fairies can be seen dancing around the pile of stones which
covers an old megalithic tomb. According to a popular belief, fairies
live among the old stones of prehistoric tombs and this is why the
mountain was given its name.
Initially the decent from Tibradden along the board walks and well maintained foot path was pretty easy but as we passed "Three Rocks" the foot path deteriorated considerably. At this stage I was in the thick of the 14 Km runners and hill walkers. It is very difficult to plan a safe decent over rough ground when there are so many people close by. I ended up following a bloke who had a nice descending technique, so I stuck in behind him as he weaved his way between, the walkers/runners/rocks/etc. down the hill. |
| Descending from Tibradden Mountain via the Board Walks |
Eventually get to yet another unexpected water station at "Three Rocks"
(26 Km) that I passed by as I was OK and only 2 to 3 Km to go. This was a
long decent on a forestry trail containing a couple of small re-assents
that felt like I was climbing Everest. I was really hoovering up the "struggling" back markers from the shorter race at this stage so it was a real motivator to keep pushing.
Late in the race and a tired looking heel strike! with my "roll your own" 3/4 running trousers.
Looking Better!
Little sting in the tail near the end as we had to leave the forest trail to run along a very muddy footpath through the woods for a couple of hundred meters to break out onto another trail for the final half Km to the finish. Rounded a bend to see a large "blow up" finish arc. It's done "I ran the Line"
This is the End
My finish time was 2:47 to give me 24th place out of 60
odd runners. Beat the brother by 15 minutes or so. Then a 1Km walk down
the road to a very welcome pint (or two, or three...) |
| "Run the Line" RunKeeper Race Route |
This was the inaugural (and low key) running of the "Run the Line" event so on the organization front it did not exactly all go to plan. At the finish line we had to give in our race numbers so they would have hard evidence of who arrived back OK. After a rest and drink, off to bag drop to retrieve our bags that were all identical brown paper bags identified by (you guessed it) race numbers. Now who actually remembers their race number once it is finished? We had loads of people peeping into each bag to try to identify which bag was theirs. There was also the issue of a rather impatient bus driver that left loads of us in the pub. Usually having to stay in a pub for another 90 minutes is not the worst thing in the world but we had a family dinner to get to - appreciated the lift in the Mountain Rescue Land Rover. The results published by the organisers were not presented that well so I hacked them together a bit better here.
http://www.imra.ie/forum/topic/id/3193/Hopefully it will be back next year and if in the country I would do it again.
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| Full "Run the Line" Men's Winner (02:03) approaching Tibradden |
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| Full "Run the Line" Ladies Winner (and 7th overall, 02:20) descending from Tibradden |
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| What I would do for a Tee-Shirt! but I enjoyed the couple of pints as well!! |
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| The watering hole - Johnnie Fox's Pub, Glencullen |
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| What it was all about |
Great write up Pat, you should stick that report on the Pennine blog. Well done!
ReplyDeleteGood report Pat, well put together. The pictures really 'sell' the event.
ReplyDeleteAdded the "RunKeeper" race route to the blog now.
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