Cork County Senior XC 2022
/10 Things I Think About The Cork County Senior XC 2022
1. Countless Hills (and Laps)
I think that the new course in Carrigadrohid might be my favourite cross country course ever. I was getting a little bored of the old course layout, it was very good the first few times but familiarity breeds contempt. The new one in the same field is a triumph of imagination and cross country course design. Twenty hills in seven laps (depending on how you define a hill), sweeping bends, steep downhills, and wonderful long grass with bumpy ground rendering magic shoes utterly useless. If only it could have been wet.
2. Fourteen Times
I think that I might be able to beat Denis McCarthy’s record someday. My only complaint about the day was that there wasn’t a man with the mic doing excellent commentary and general announcements, well there was but he was very shy, the only thing he said all day was that this was Denis’s 40th County Senior which is very impressive. It was my 14th which is also impressive given how tanned and young looking I am. I’m confident I can do 40, the only ones I have missed have been because of stress fractures, I have no bones left to have stress fractures in so I should be good to go for 26 more.
3. Spikes
I think that people using Dragonflys on this sort of course shows you the power of Nike advertising. I can think of nothing worse to have attached to my feet in a farmer’s field than a rigid carbon plate with some squishy ZoomX foam. It cannot possibly help. It can only increase the risk of terrible ankle injuries. You need nice flexible cheap spikes so that when your foot hits the rutted hard unpredictable bump in the ground it can mould around it, grip it and push off without your ankle twisting.
4. Carbon Footprint
I think that it was a bit much of East Cork to be laughing at Leevale and our band of mercenaries from Donegal, Dublin, Wexford, Limerick, Tipperary etc when they had Kenyan and UK based arrivals to bolster their ranks. It was probably a fair battle in terms of long-term carbon footprints, although the East Cork team was probably a more geographical team than Leevale. It was always going to be a good battle.
5. Boxes
I think that one of the worst things about running is that after a while you get put in an ability box. For example, it is considered absurd, ridiculous, and outrageous for a known confirmed useless article like me from the 7th to 20th placed box to lead the race. I was not doing it like one of the teams in the Tour De France going in the breakaway so that their sponsors get attention, I wasn’t doing it for my YouTube channel, I wasn’t doing it for my sponsored blog, I went into the lead because it was fun and everyone else was jogging down the hill because they were terrified of the 18 hills that were left and I knew it would annoy people a little bit.
6. The Mini Hill
I think that the hardest hill on the course was the shortest hill. It was the second hill of the lap, a horrible little hill, way too steep for my long-tanned legs but perfect for the shorter untanned legs of the likes of John Meade. It was on the mini hill that my leading came to an end on the second lap and I was put back in my box by the better runners, fortunately John Meade and Michael Herlihy are also unwilling perhaps even unknowing inhabitants of that same box so there was plenty of fun left in the race.
7. Donal Coffey
I think that Donal Coffey enjoyed this race more than Michael Harty. I’ve never seen a man take such delight in the misery and suffering of one person, that person being his namesake. Every time I passed he tormented me by ignoring me and then shouting, “Well Done John Meade”, or “Well Done Mikey” even when they weren’t behind me. He was obviously thrilled when John Meade bustled past me on the mini hill. The “Well Done John Meade’s are definitely an advantage. I felt like I was an away team. I don’t know why I’m not supported.
8. Two Seconds of Hate
I think that John Meade had only one goal in this race and that was to beat me. This was one of my better battles with John Meade, normally our battles are not really fought out and it is more in my imagination, but this was a real battle. We must have exchanged places four or five times. I thought I had him on the ropes on the last lap as he looked very hunched over and started breathing audibly. I have never heard John Meade breathing in a race, but this was unmistakable suffering, gasping for air. It would have been wonderful to sail by him on that last hill but unfortunately, he had just enough to hold off my hatred by two short seconds.
9. The Terminator
I think that Michael Herlihy was like the cat who got the cream after the race, he was possibly as happy as I’ve ever seen a man who had finished 8th in race. Thrilled with himself, utterly delighted with his self-anointed Terminator style run, like a fella who had just run a 2:19 marathon in a pair of magic shoes. As I lay thrown on the ground after the race hoping that someone would take a good picture for the blog and Instagram, Mike stood over me and said “That was a terrible performance”, his justification being that I should have beaten him because of the one training session where I dared be ahead of him. Then someone asked him how he ran, and he said excellent and that he was very happy with it.
10. Medals
I think that we will have to appoint a team member to count the laps in Carrigadrohid in future. This is the second time where I have ended up with a medal I didn’t deserve because one of my teammates has counted the laps wrong in this hilly field. Last time it was Mark Walsh who got it all wrong, that was probably much worse as it cost us gold, this time poor Gavin did the same thing, sprinted on the second last lap thinking it was the last one and wasn’t able to finish. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Mark’s shocker though as it didn’t really impact the team result as East Cork were in dominating form. It did however give me an undeserved silver medal for fourth Leevale scorer which was nice. John Meade only got a bronze and Michael Herlihy got no medal, so I’ll take it.
