10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Munster Senior Cross Country

1. Glorious Galbally

I think I forgot how beautiful the Galtees are. I think I forgot because they’re normally covered in cloud and you can’t see them. It looked like they were watching the cross country race today, looming in the background. The four of them have probably seen more interesting things over the years.

2. Acceptable in the 80s

I think 100 miles a week is fine while running cross country races. You don’t need to be fresh to run cross country. I was perfect today despite 90 miles before the race. I know I’d probably have won if I’d tapered. Some day I will, be worried Mark Walsh.

3. Niggles

I had but one niggle today, the dreaded fourth toe blister. A terrible niggle to carry. It looks like my toe has a hood. It doesn’t hurt when I run fast so it was fine. This was probably my favourite niggle ever. Everything else was perfect.

4. Dreams vs Reality

I think it’s important to get good sleep before a race. I got nearly 10 hours last night. 10 hours means a lot of dreaming. I dreamt about lots of stuff. In one of the dreams I died crashing off a mountain road in Font Romeu. I hope this doesn’t happen. I’m too young to die, I haven’t even gotten the chance to run old man cross country.

5. Oakley not Coakley

I think it was a good idea to buy proper sunglasses. I bought a set of Oakleys with prism lenses at Kildare Village (I had to buy something). They amplify green and brown for trail running. It’s not marketing nonsense, they work. As normal I was the only fool wearing sunglasses at the start, however I knew that the sun was just hiding. After two laps sunglasses were almost essential. The sun is great. I felt stronger once the sun came out.

6. Semenya

As usual there was no timetable for the race so you had no idea when it was going to start. Poor Andrew was there at 11am Myself and John Shine arrived at 1230 and soon realised that the race was not going to start before 3. That’s a lot of time to kill in Galbally, it’s not exactly Ennis. Thankfully my home is 5 minutes from Galbally. I hadn’t been home in almost 6 months anyway. Unfortunately there was no one at home except Caster the cat. I made some Nespresso and caught up with the cat. This didn’t take long.

7. Plural of Chesser

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a strong field at a cross country race. There were lots of Chessers and every runner in East Cork. I really feared finishing last. It was very scary.

8. Turn 8

I think the course was like a Herman Tilke F1 track. Probably Istanbul, although I’d say it was designed by someone from Galbally. Unfortunately the muck made it very slow. It had particularly deep, dangerously malevolent muck. I nearly fell many times, so did everyone else.

9. Humble Soup

I was very happy to administer a bad beating to Vivian Foley after he humiliated me in Berlin. He never even got close to me. It was an utter annihilation. It was so bad that he had to get soup from the organisers immediately afterwards to recover from the shock. I plan to administer a similar beating in Berlin next year. I don’t think they’ll give him soup in Berlin though.

10. Carwash

I think I should have visited the car wash after the last cross country race in Clare. I definitely transferred Clare muck to Galbally. It might make the ground better for hurling. I transferred the combined Clare-Galbally muck to the Esso car wash in Mitchelstown. My spikes are immaculate for €1. John was very impressed. His spikes are shining too, just like the bronze team medal we got. Bloody Chessers and East Cork.

Andrew Sheehan, Myself and John Shine. Eric Curran had gone home.