10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Cinque Mulini XC 2024

1. Northern Lakes

I think that I probably should have been a good Irishman and gone to the All-Ireland XC in Fermanagh instead of going to Milan for a cross country race. The truth is that I couldn’t face driving for 5 hours to Fermanagh, probably paying €250 a night for a hotel to finish around 100th when there were €25 flights to Milan the same weekend. Plus Rhona had always wanted to run Cinque Mulini and had never mentioned wanting to go to Fermanagh.

2. Hipster Running

I think that it is amazing to me that cross country races like Cinque Mulini are so easy to enter. I cannot understand how marathons sell out years in advance yet classic races that have been around for nearly 100 years can be entered a few days before. It’s pretty much the only type of racing that hasn’t been contaminated by influencers like me. I imagine that if you turned up at Cinque Mulini with a GoPro you would be met by a very cross Italian man saying “No”.

3. Hotel Poli

I think that if I was looking to establish a company doing trips to small races San Vittore Olona would be the perfect venue. It’s in Italy which is great, it’s 30 minutes from Milan and 30 minutes from Lake Como, it has the best cross-country race in the world, a great pizza restaurant (The Birra) and a wonderful reasonably priced hotel in Hotel Poli which is also where all the Kenyans, Ethiopians and Burundians stay so you can see that they eat the same breakfasts as the rest of us.

4. Masters Race

I think that the All Ireland XC misses a trick by not having separate master’s races on the same day. The master’s races at Cinque Mulini were very popular, so popular that we almost missed the start of Rhona’s race because we couldn’t get across the course with the constant stream of runners. I could have run in the master’s race too but it was much better for Billy minding if I did the senior race which was what I wanted to do anyway as I can only do it one more time as once you hit 40 it’s illegal.

5. Kenyans, Ethiopians and Burundians

I think that it is great to go to a cross country race and not know a single person in the race. There is great freedom in not having a clue how well or terrible you are running. The start line was very intimidating as it included at least 12 Kenyans, Ethiopians and Burundians with a lot of Diamond League calibre Italians. There didn’t seem to be too many of my type, I may have been the oldest person in the race which was an unwelcomed first.

6. Too Fast

I think that I will have to go back to lamping sessions around the farm chasing after Michael Herlihy if I’m going to make cross country my speciality again. I’m gone very slow from the marathon training. The start of Cinque Mulini was terrifying like, something from a nightmare where the whole field just runs away from you despite trying to run as fast as you can. I was very nearly last by the time we got to the first corner.

7. Don’t Get Lapped

I think that the minimum goal in a race like this is not to get lapped. The race was over the proper distance of 10k, none of the 7.5k nonsense which meant that I had to get to 8k in under the time the winner would run 10k so about 28 or 29 minutes which is harder than it sounds. I figured the best way of doing this was to stay ahead of as many Italians as I could. This was proving difficult as they all appeared to be excellent.

8. Through the Houses

I think that you must experience running the section through the houses to realise how wonderful it is. It is completely mad, whoever came up with the idea of the race is a genius. It looks great on TV but it’s even better in a race even if it is entirely unsuitable for someone as tall as me, the sound on the steps is my favourite thing. The only problem is that you only get to do it five times.

9. Not Going to be Lapped

I think that it was a great relief to get onto the fifth lap without being lapped. I think a lot of the Italians of my level had similar ideas as when we started the fifth and final lap I found myself passing quite a few of them. I had no idea what place I was in but I wasn’t last, and I wasn’t going to get lapped so I was happy. Unfortunately, the section where you run through the houses comes at the end of the lap like I had told Rhona and because I was abysmal at running through the houses, I got swamped by about 6 Italians just before the finish ending up 70th out of the 77 people who finished.

10. 263rd best Cross Country Runner in the World

I think that it is great that we have the Castlegar XC as part of the World Athletics XC tour as it is the perfect opportunity to collect world ranking points. Because of Castlegar and Cinque Mulini I am now ranked as the 263rd best cross-country runner in the world which is excellent and probably almost accurate. Anyway my main point is Cinque Mulini is better than any marathon, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, Tokyo, give me running through the houses in a pair of spikes trying to avoid being lapped by Kenyans any day.