10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Munster Masters XC 2024

1. Post Storm Cross Country

I think that there is nothing better than a good storm the day before a cross country race to make things a bit more interesting. We haven’t had a good muckfest in a while so I was hopeful that 50 mm of rain would turn the normally well drained field in Two Mile Borris into a field of victory over Michael Herlihy and the other brave masters runners of Munster.

2. Rough Schedule

I think that the great thing about the Munster Cross Country races is the guessing the game of when the race is going to start. This normally involves the fella who hasn’t experienced a Munster Cross Country race before messaging you the night before going “any idea roughly what time the race might start”. Unlike with most races there is no answer to this question. The answer is I will look at Strava and see what time it was on at before which gave an answer of somewhere between 1:30 and 3pm so be there for 12:30 and you’ll be grand.

3. Fast Track Security

I think that I was very fortunate that like at airports there was a fast track parking system in operation for the cross country. I knew I was in trouble when I was leaving Anglesboro at 12:15 and saw a message from Rhona saying the women were going to be going off at 12:30. It was 45 minutes to Two Mile Borris so the maths didn’t look promising. I arrived into the Fast Track Parking area which was coated in a slippery layer of mud to facilitate a faster slide into the parking, grabbed my singlet and spikes from the boot and ran over to Andy who had kindly collected the numbers.

4. Chasing Numbers

I think that it is mad how even in the Diamond League they use safety pins, surely there is something better than safety pins for attaching numbers to a singlet. Normally putting on a number is a relaxing activity but add a bit of a shake from the adrenaline of being late and it becomes a complicated activity. My number installation was further complicated by a gust of wind blowing it away. Luckily Tony O’Brien was on hand to track it down. Then I found that there were no safety pins in the envelope so I had to ask Clo if I could steal some which she kindly did.

5. No Time for Studs

I think that the only problem that arose from the lateness other than my number blowing away in the wind was that I didn’t have time to change the spikes on my Dragonflys. I had picked the Dragonfly XC spikes because I thought I had the studs in them which are far better for the inevitable post storm muck but for some reason there were 6 mm spikes in them with the studs in a small bag. I briefly started to change them before realising that it was going to take all day and I was better off jogging over to the start.

6. Nicky no Number

I think that it was great that I wasn’t the latest person for the race. Nick O’Donoghue was way worse. Very close to missing the race completely in fact. We were just about to get underway when a similar creature to myself wearing a maroon singlet came running towards us with no number on. He was handed a number but no safety pins so he scrunched the number up in his hand and away we went.

7. Fethard

I think it is always worrying when a fella you haven’t seen before gets a good gap on the field after 400m. In this case it was a fella from Fethard. Behind the first corner was a bit of a mess with lots of excellent pushing and shoving. Someone tried to trip me but as there were no Cork Has One Track Club runners in the race it was probably just accidental. I was a little bit angry after the trip so I used the anger to track down the fella from Fethard who after some effort I caught by the end of the straight with the significant tailwind.

8. Duckworth Lewis Method

I think that it would have been great to beat Brian Murphy. I was hoping that I would have had Michael Herlihy to race but sickness put paid to that so I was left with only Brian. A victory over Brian would have meant that I could have used the Michael Herlihy method of calculating where you would have finished in races you didn’t run to claim a victory over Michael Herlihy. Unfortunately, the minute we encountered the inevitable quagmire on the far side of the field the Kerryman opened a decisive gap that was impossible to close and all hopes of both real and calculated victories were over.

9. Outside Line

I think that the great thing about cross country is that cleverness and course knowledge is very important. After the first pass of the quagmire on the far side of the course I had realised that my spikes were not suitable for the inside line as not only had Brian Murphy opened a decisive gap Nicky and Michael Harrington had flow by me too. Luckily I have run this course about 20 times so I knew that the ground was better closer to the ditch so I went over there the second and third time which meant that while I couldn’t catch Brian I was safe in second.

10. Best Moderately Old Man

I think that it is great to run races where there are medals. Because Brian Murphy is surprisingly over 40 second place was good enough to win the moderately old man category just ahead of Nicky who demonstrated the robustness of the MyRunResults chip timing system by registering a time even with the number scrunched up in his hand. After getting a nice shiny medal I made sure to get a good long warm down in as I had no warm up so I had to make up the miles so that coach me would be happy with the number of miles run for the day which was about 8 which is enough for a moderately old man running a marathon next week.