The North South Masters XC
/10 Things I Think About The North South Masters XC
1. Don’t Forget to Bring the Singlet
I think that the most important part of the weekend was to remember to bring the Irish singlet. This was the whole point of the weekend, the green singlet. I really should have done one of those Instagram post with the singlet the night before the race, but I bought it off the internet, so it didn’t seem right.
2. King Billy
I think that it was a great idea to bring Billy to the race in Belfast. A cross country race is a great place for a toddler, toddlers love cross country races. They don’t actually watch the cross-country race but they enjoy the grass and attacking other children.
3. Old Man
I think that old men like me are not able for a long XC season, the tendons in my lower legs are really suffering. Physios on twitter tell you to load your muscles and tendons to cure the niggles while removing stress from your life. I think this is nonsense as my calves are completely overloaded from wearing spikes twice a week and I have a perfect level of stress. Physios need to learn about magic shoes, I plan on curing my niggles by going back racing in magic shoes running in a delusional and pain free state again.
4. Queen’s Farm
I think that the race was excellently organized. The race took place on the Queen’s University playing pitches which is like a hilly UCC Farm. There was one muddy section on the downhill part of the course which is the first mud I’ve seen on a XC course all year. The lap was a proper lap with tight ankle breaking turns and small little steep hills but still plenty of fast sections, it kind of suited me, it was great fun to run and went by too quickly. I wish it had of been 10 or 12k.
5. 1215 or 1230
I think that having any timetable for the race was great after having to guess the start of the Munster Senior. There was a little bit of confusion about the start time as one email said 1230 and on Facebook it said 1215.I went with the Facebook option which turned out to be more accurate. Two timetables is still better than none.
6. Aussie Team?
I think that the start of the race was my favourite part of the race. There were two pens at the start, one for the Irish team and one for the Northern Ireland team. It looked like a battle scene. Apparently according to Instagram at the start I looked like Morgan McDonald who is a tanned hairy Australian runner, I will take this as a compliment and a sign that I should keep the hair and keep using the fake tan.
7. The Old Man Mile
I think that the first lap of the race was very cagey, I suppose it was a master’s race but the start was very slow, it was sort of like the old man mile you have to start doing when you get over 30, I ended up leading, not because I wanted to but because no one else wanted to. I lead for about a kilometre before the Northern Irish lads and Toldo warmed up and tore off into the distance.
8. Keep Her Lit
I think that running in Northern Ireland is great. It is kind of like a race abroad as it sounds completely different during the race. It's not very different but it is different enough to be refreshing. The crowd seemed to be more encouraging than back home, they shout stuff like Keep her Lit that you see on t-shirts in St George’s Market.
9. Motivation
I think that it was very difficult to find a reason in the race. I didn’t really want to badly beat anyone in the race. The Northern Irish M35 lads were in a different league to me so I couldn’t race them and you couldn’t really hate fellas like Niall O’Riordan so I couldn’t motivate myself when he went past me. It was an odd race on that front. In the end I just tried to run as hard as I could which is an acceptable way of racing too.
10. M35<M40
I think that the problem with the M35 category is that it gets harder every year you get older. Then you reach the M40 category and it get inundated by the people who refuse to accept M35 as a category. Next year I would like to run against the English, Welsh and Scots too. I might as well take advantage while everyone else my age is afraid of being called a masters athlete it might be my only chance and its a great day out.
